“We have to force them to adopt French. »
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
“Six months is more than enough and even generous. »
“They’ll never learn if we’re too accommodating. »
“They have to fit in. If they’re not happy, let them move to Ontario. And so go with them…”
Here is a summary of the reactions of readers who disagree with my column on Wednesday where I worried about the effects of Bill 96 on the most vulnerable immigrant populations.1.
On the other hand, what also emerged from the reactions of a large number of readers is that I am clearly not the only one to be worried. I have received numerous testimonies from people working with asylum seekers and refugees, whether in schools or in francization, who find this aspect of the bill inhuman and counterproductive. I am thinking in particular of the poignant testimony of a school director in the region who told me how proud she was of the excellent command of French of the refugee students she welcomed. If the school succeeded in its mission, it is because the director, who does not have access to interpreters, was able to create a bond of trust with the parents who had much more difficulty learning French. For this, she had to speak to them for more than six months in English as a second language – something that will be prohibited and even punishable if Bill 96 is passed in its current form.
If the trend continues, it will. The amendment proposed by Québec solidaire to extend from six months to two years the period beyond which new arrivals cannot be served in a language other than French (unless “health, public safety or the principles of natural justice so require”) was dismissed. Barring a last-minute burst of empathy from Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who could still propose an exception for humanitarian reasons or even access to state-subsidized interpreters for asylum seekers and refugees, everything indicates that Bill 96 will be adopted without taking into account the harmful effects it will have on the integration of these vulnerable populations.
One of the problems is that Bill 96 makes no distinction between the francization of highly educated economic immigrants and that of refugees fleeing war and persecution, sometimes undereducated, for whom surviving on a daily basis is in itself a challenge.
We cannot expect a family of refugees who land in Quebec in disaster, dragging with them a heavy baggage of trauma and living in precarious conditions, to succeed in learning French with as much eagerness as an immigrant. who has chosen to live in a French-speaking society and who has been developing his project for years.
This does not mean that these people do not want to learn French or that they lack respect for their host society. It just means that to promote their francization, you have to offer them the conditions to do so: time, flexibility and support.
“All my research shows that people want to learn French, they want to integrate. But sometimes they don’t have the conditions to do so. We have to create these conditions,” said Garine Papazian-Zohrabian, professor at the University of Montreal and scientific director of the Interdisciplinary Research Team on Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Families.
The Legault government should know this, since it commissioned this researcher to conduct a study on the psychosocial needs of the most vulnerable immigrants in francization – those who are undereducated.
The research, submitted in April 2021 to the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI), has never been made public. As luck would have it, his recommendations to promote the learning of French go completely against Bill 96.
I myself asked Garine Papazian-Zohrabian for an interview after seeing that she was one of the co-signatories of a very extensive brief submitted to the parliamentary committee on Bill 96, which is inspired in particular of this research that the government has ignored.
The professor cannot make this research submitted to the MIFI public. However, as a researcher who continues to explore these issues in greater depth and asserts her academic freedom, she cannot remain silent either when she observes that what the government is proposing goes against the opinions of experts on the subject.
“It’s inhuman,” she says, bluntly.
When some say, “If they’re not happy, let them go back to their country or move to Ontario,” they forget that asylum seekers and refugees did not choose to leave their country.
They did not specifically choose Quebec. They fled to the place where they could perhaps be accommodated, under the Geneva Convention. To be at peace. So that their children are not in danger of death.
Forcing these people to take French courses as soon as they arrive and imposing a six-month deadline beyond which they will have to understand French to have access to a public service is not the best way to promote their integration. On the contrary. Studies show that coercive approaches are more of an obstacle to learning a second language. A brake also on the feeling of belonging of newcomers, observes the professor of psychopedagogy and andragogy.
The first months of exile are particularly difficult for young parents, who experience enormous pressure and must take care of both the needs of their children and those of their elderly parents. They try as best they can to reconcile work, family and francization, to send money to their loved ones back there while meeting the needs of their family here. We have to deal with the integration of children into school, with their health problems. You have to deal with grief and trauma.
In such a context, some of these refugees do not enroll in French classes because they have no choice but to work to make ends meet.
They are therefore physically absent. When they sign up anyway, it’s not necessarily better.
“Yes, they are there physically, but they are absent mentally. Because they are always worried about their family left behind in a country still at war. »
Sometimes they receive a phone call in the middle of a class from a relative in Syria or the Congo. “They learn of someone’s death while they are in class. “My cousin was murdered…” How do you want them to study? »
To further complicate matters, the francization schedule is not aligned with the school schedule. Often, the parent – most often the mother – therefore has no choice but to go away to feed their children at lunchtime or during pedagogical days.
In short, for all these reasons, these newcomers need much more than six months to really learn French. “They want to learn. They are grateful to Quebec and Canada for having welcomed them. But they need time to create benchmarks to be more open to learning. »
Why is the government ordering studies from experts, financed with public funds, and then proposing a bill that goes against their recommendations? Mystery.
At MIFI, I was told on Friday that they were unable to send me the study containing Garine Papazian-Zohrabian’s recommendations. Why ? Mystery.
As the bureaucratic machinery of the state also sometimes has its mysteries and it happens that documents are discreetly filed online, I typed the first name of the researcher in the search engine of the MIFI site, just in case …
“Garine”.
The answer surprised me.
“Try instead: margarine. »
Mind you, that’s still a good answer for a study that went down the drain. After all, why rely on studies to promote the francization of newcomers when you can just surf on this old cliché of the ugly foreigner who refuses to integrate?