Michel Doucet devoted his life to defending French, and today he wonders if it was really worth it.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
This law professor at the Université de Moncton has been involved in all Acadian language struggles for 40 years. And many victories. But each new census illustrates a little better the slow but inevitable decline of French almost everywhere outside Quebec.
If we observe declines in French in certain indicators in Quebec, in the rest of Canada, the data show rapid erosion everywhere.
“New Brunswick has always claimed to be the model of bilingualism in Canada. We obtained legal protections (an official languages law) and constitutional protections. I worked hard on it. But in reality, I only see setbacks,” he told me on the phone.
Data from the last census indicate that the “French mother tongue” population is approaching the 30% threshold in the province. When you indicate the language spoken at home, it drops to 26% — it was 28.6% in 2016, a relative drop of 10% in five years.
Francophones are more and more bilingual, Anglophones less and less.
Almost systematically, couples speaking two languages opt for English.
Nothing really surprising. The continuation of a long statistical depression for Michel Doucet. But it’s as if all of a sudden it was too much.
“I have nephews who no longer speak French,” says the lawyer.
Francophone political weight is diminishing, and each electoral redistribution risks losing constituencies, and therefore influence, and therefore services.
Already, Premier Blaine Higgs, an officially repentant former member of an anti-bilingual party, is unilingual Anglophone in the only officially bilingual province. The senior civil service is almost entirely unilingual.
The Conservative Party discovered that it could win provincial elections without a single francophone constituency. And the Liberal Party is not too fond of linguistic controversies, because it wants to seduce the southern part of the province.
“Since Francophones are increasingly bilingual, and their percentage is lower, why offer them services in French? asks Professor Doucet.
“Yes, I am more discouraged than ever. »
However, he who experienced the bilingual schools of Bathurst in the 1950s, then the coming to power of Louis Robichaud, Acadian Prime Minister, then the first official languages law in the 1960s, experienced an almost uninterrupted series of legal and academic victories.
On paper, the province is bilingual, but “it’s a myth. In reality, French receives accommodations, not rights.
In other words, bilingualism elsewhere in Canada is a myth…
I am perceived by some as a radical, even a Don Quixote, whereas I only claim the application of the law. Yes, I have this defect: when I am granted a right, I want it to be applied. If the motor vehicle law applied in the same way as that on official languages, there would be chaos on the roads.
Michel Doucet, law professor at the Université de Moncton
“I realize that there is a lot of complacency and laissez-faire among Francophones. I wonder if I didn’t contribute by obtaining reassuring legal guarantees…”
“The problem is not legal. He is political. There is no real will to implement them.
Political and social: “Francophones are the first to blame. Merchants who do not display signs in French in Moncton. Parents who send their children to the French immersion school, instead of the French school. Those who do not respect their language. That, no law can do anything about it. »
New Brunswick is a kind of involuntary laboratory: such a heavy assimilation trend is not reversible on the North American continent, even with a robust legal framework.
Michel Doucet has ideas to curb it (more duality in institutions, more control in health, in immigration), but they are not heard, have no political relay.
When I was in Ireland, I was told: the last mother who will speak Gaelic to her child is not yet born. The French will continue to live here too. My fear is that it will shrink until it only remains in a few regions.
Michel Doucet, law professor at the Université de Moncton
A historic change of discourse, but oh so late: the federal government recognizes the vulnerable situation of French everywhere in Canada.
“Each time the rights of Anglophones are violated in Quebec, we see denunciations and editorials all over Canada. They don’t realize they don’t need Bill 101 in the other nine provinces. For once, the Globe and Mail recently published an editorial to say: perhaps we should look at the violations of French language rights in the provinces, not just the rights of English speakers in Quebec… This was an exception! »
He is still arguing a case these days in Nova Scotia. “But I don’t want to do it anymore. It takes years to complete. I have the impression of repeating the same things as if nothing changed. I got too emotional, I think. »
Vaguely depressed, yes, discouraged, yes, but not yet desperate.
“Otherwise I would speak to you in English!” I do not give up. I will be dead and buried, people will still hear me. I do not give up ! »