this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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I disagree with your argument and here's why.
In Canada, Québec is the most bilingual province in the whole country, followed by New Brunswick. Nearly half (46%) of the population in Québec and about a third (34%) in N.B. is English-French bilingual. Whereas the rest of Canada is about 10% or below. And, outside of Québec, between 2001 and 2021, bilingualism has decresed in most provinces except for the N.W.T and Yukon. (Source from Stats Can)
This means one thing. Francophones in Canada had no choice but to learn English, mainly for work, as we are in a continent where the vast majority of the countries have English as an official language and it is the most widespread language on the continent. (Source)
Meanwhile, anglophones have the privilege of having as a first language one of the most widespread official language in North America, the most spoken language on the continent and the de-facto language of commerce, the Internet and the most popular culture on Earth. Why should they even bother to learn a second language? Right? That's what we call a privilege. What I noticed in Québec is that anglophones are very entitled about that privilege. And I think that the fact that Québec is denying them this privilege and really upsets them. They will say it's discrimination, that they are treated as second-class citizens or that it's xenophobia. This is equivalent to a white cis male saying they are being discriminated against when a company doesn't hire them because they use positive discrimination to have more diversity.
And regarding European countries, you'd be surprised how much the majority of people actually DON'T know English. The moment you step outside of Paris, Rome or any other major metropolis or big tourist destinations, you will find out that people don't speak a lick of English. They'll know more than one language though, but not necessarily English. One example I can give you is in France, while French is the official language, people also learn and speak Chtimi, Breton Gaelic, Basque, Corsican, Dutch, German, Italian, Creole, all depending on the region. (source) If you try to speak to them in English in those regions, most people won't understand or won't be able to respond. I know because I've travelled quite a bit in Europe and if I hadn't taken a language course for the country I was visiting, I would've been stuck because they couldn't understand English at all.
I feel like you and I are on the same page, with a slight variance in opinion 😅
I respect your opinion, it's quite a common one in Quebec outside of Montreal.
What I'm understanding from your text is that anglophones who grew up in Quebec should just up and leave their home province if they don't want to, or can't, learn the French language because the language they always used and were able to converse in for their whole life is no longer acceptable, since they can essentially live anywhere else in Canada / USA.
Personally, I've always been of the opinion that Quebec should export their French to other provinces rather than turn itself into an enclave. Make the Canadian east coast French! Hell, make Vermont French! Nothing's more fun than going to Vermont or Ontario and speaking French with the locals.
We won't have the opportunity to teach people French if we ban English CEGEPs and universities because the people we could potentially be teaching French to will just go to other provinces and learn no french at all.
But I understand how you feel due to how we were treated historically in Canada, and I too feel that it's important to teach French to immigrants and kids, but I don't agree with forcing people to speak French by banning other languages. Official signs should definitely be french-only though.
An aside: France is one of the exceptions I was talking about, they don't really do English, but most of the countries around it do.
TL;DR: I don't want Quebec to be known as the province that bans languages, I want Quebec to be known as the province that spreads French far and wide.
If someone who speaks Chinese and only Chinese lives in a country like Germany. Either they are immigrants or children of immigrants who were born there and lived there for their whole life and never learned German for whatever reason. If they can't integrate into the society, find work and make a living, or can't get any services in their mother tongue, this person has a serious problem on their hands. What do you expect them to do then?
I don't wish for people to have to uproot their lives and leave their home because of a language barrier, but let's be reasonable. If they don't want to learn French out of stubbornness, disdain or xenophobia (which is often the case, believe it or not) then that's on them.
The Canadian East Coast is more French that you might think actually. Québec also is the almos single major producer of francophone content in Canada. Why else is Radio Canada (French CBC) having so much success compared to English CBC? We produce a lot of TV series, movies, music, litterature, that is available throughout Canada. Nothing's stopping people outside of Québec from consuming all this cultural content. Meanwhile French populations are losing ground across the country with every generation. I mean, Franco Ontarians, the second largest francophone population outside Québec, have been fighting tooth and nail to get financing for French schools, they've been fighting to get ONE francophone university. They have ONE francophone hospital, Montfort hospital in Ottawa. I would love for French to spread across Canada too, but it seems there is no will from provincial governments to enable this at all. Quite the opposite even.
English CEGEPs aren't banned, but I get your point and I agree with you there. The whole limit they want to apply to English colleges is stupid.
Anyway, for the record, Québec is not banning any language. They're not banning anything. It's still one of the provinces with the most services and accomodations for both languages. There are several school boards, colleges and universityes (Link) several hospitals (see top 7 in the results here) and there are still plenty of employers who will hire unilingual anglophones. Commercial signage is still in both English and French.
At most, the things the bill 96 will do is cause a bit more inconveniences for non-francophones, but that's about it. Nothing and no one is getting banned.