Marois reiterates campaign promises
I’m delighted to report that Pauline Marois is promising an oomphed-up language law further marginalizing English-language institutions in Montreal. We really need this – as she says, we all understand why these restrictions are necessary.
walkerp 14:11 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
That shit is super lame, but you omit to mention lots of good stuff there. Repealing Law 78, more daycare centers, rolling back the tuition hikes.
Kate 14:14 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
If she does. I suspect within a week or two we’ll hear a huge melodramatic outcry that Quebec’s finances are in worse shape than anyone realized, so that these promises can’t be kept anytime soon.
Want to bet?
walkerp 14:19 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
No bet from me! It all seems kind of pie-in-the-sky. She has a minority government, I don’t see how she will make any of it happen.
This bizarre protect french hysteria is even weirder when its ultimately francophones and the new immigrants (who will be the future of Quebec) who are going to suffer economically by having a limited choice of educational options.
Anto 14:29 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
@walkerp: The CAQ will probably offer their support on some of these projects if they can force the PQ to adopt some of the policies they were pushing for (laws against corruption and protection of Québec’s corporate headquarters come to mind).
Kevin 15:00 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
I’m getting whiplash from the number of times I switch from being a protected, spoiled minority whose rights will not be touched — to a member of the supreme race whose language will destroy all French culture.
Franchement.
Ephraim 16:59 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
How much was the deficit that the PQ hid last time they were in power? 7.5 Billion?
Even if she does repeal Bill 78, she doesn’t have the votes to repeal the increase in tuition, since the law is already passed. She’s simply going to blame the Liberals and the CAQ. But since the majority of the population is against rolling it back anyway…
She’s Premier, but she has an awful lot of crow to eat to get anything through. And I’m sure she is already dreading the budget because she needs either the Liberals or CAQ to agree on the budget or her government falls. She will likely have to give in to either on many spends. The CAQ is probably easier assuming that he doesn’t want an election too soon, but can she compromise. She’s not exactly known for compromise.
Patrice 17:30 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
Here is an interesting perspective on how to promote french without sticking the knife deeper in a minority that has had to suffer «the bizarre protect french hysteria» : make that minority learn it properly so we can all be happy shiny people in this city:
http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/actualites-en-societe/357788/le-francais-langue-secondaire.
(Sorry Kate, if you have already linked this before.)
Kate 22:04 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
Patrice, no I hadn’t linked that. But it does make me wonder how proficient the kids from French-language schools are at writing their own language.
(Believe it or not, until recently it was my policy on this blog not to do or say much about language politics. I didn’t want it to become a language issue blog – there are so many more interesting things to link to about living in Montreal. But circumstances dictated it.)
ant6n 23:51 on 2012/09/05 Permalink
It can be a bit of pain to get access to subsidized French courses if you’re an immigrant. For example, I’m a former foreign student now on a work permit. There’s a program where i can get permanent residence quickly, given that I have a university degree from here, but i need to prove a certain proficiency of French. To access the subsidized free/cheap French classes, I need to get Permanent Residence at many places. (There’s other ways to get permanent residence, but they take longer, and require more paperwork etc.). I’m still working on trying to figure out where I can get classes, or whether I should just go with some private school (I’ll admit I suck at figuring things out).
McGill offered subsidized French classes to international students for a while; if you pay international tuition, that could be quite an incentive (i.e. pay 500$ for a 3 credit class, rather than 1500$). The school’s apparently not offering that anymore, they can’t afford it.
So yeah, I could think of some ways in which French could be brought to foreign students and people on work permits. There should be language schools that are as easy to use as the grand library. Maybe they should consider asking students at English Universities to require a minimum level of French upon graduation (i.e. for Bachelors), achieving that via subsidized classes. If the language barrier is lowered, maybe that could entice more foreign students to stay in Quebec, rather than taking their newfangled qualifications and moving on to the US.
Patrice 06:00 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
@Kate: I’m not sure why you’d make this connection? But getting English students to get to speak, read and maybe write (I’ll give to you that french is not easy to write and a reform would be welcome!) a good level of french to grease up the cultural and language communication between the people of this city (and province) is, for me, a different issue than than the French struggling to master their own language. We could open a whole new thread on that topic too!
My point is that I disagree with the PQ’s war on francophones going to english cegeps but I really think that the present situation is not working either as I seem to get paranoid (not hysterical yet) myself when I meet so many unilingual anglophones on both sides (of Saint-Laurent) now. Working in shops, mind you. I don’t care that they speak english or have an accent but I don’t understand why it does not bother them that they can’t speak french in Montréal? Not even a “Pardon mais je ne parle pas français”. I used that sentence in italian all summer and believe me, even in Rome I got Italians to be nice with me! here in Montreal, event the tourists take for granted that everyone speaks both languages. Well, mostly english.
I apologize in advance if this thread turns into something you did not wish for (I really see why you don’t want to push that issue) but as I am a francophone, and as I usually don’t talk back on these issues, the link you provided a few days ago on xenophobia in Quebec (thru Open file) has been on my mind for a while. I did not find the time to come up with a detailed comment to follow the one from that french-speaking woman but it did sparkle some interesting discussion in my entourage. Wich I could sum up by: status quo does not work, we need this province to be independant. Beer anyone? ;-)
walkerp 07:47 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
Patrice, I’ve been in Montreal for 8 years now and I feel like I’ve seen a slight increase in unilingual anglos (other than McGill students), particularly in the Mile End area. I think most of them wish they could speak french and many are taking steps to learn it.
What I don’t understand is how their existence implies a harm to the existence of french language and culture. Does the mass of Chinese speaking communities in Vancouver do harm to that city’s english culture?
What I really don’t see is how restricting the rights for people to educate themselves in english is going to help the french language. It simply reduces the overall amount of education choices.
Language is not a finite resource, something to be hoarded and protected. It’s a powerful indicator of a society’s culture and economic success. We should be striving to build upon the polyglot foundation of Montreal which already makes it more superior than the rest of North America. Our goal should be to build a language society like the Nordic countries, where two languages are a given and the schools work on training people in third and fourth languages.
Kate 08:12 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
Patrice, I’ve simply worked here in various places all my life, and have at times been surprised at how poorly some francophones write in their own language – bad spelling, messed-up grammar. My only thought was that if we were to impose written language tests there are some native French speakers who might have trouble with them.
I agree that to participate fully in life in Quebec one needs French, especially in jobs where a person faces the public. I’m surprised that anyone can even get hired for a service job with only English.
Chris 08:27 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
“Does the mass of Chinese speaking communities in Vancouver do harm to that city’s english culture?” -> Alas, many think so, yes. Just google “anti-asian vancouver” and read away!
walkerp 10:31 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
Precisely. Those people are considered racists by everybody on the left there.
cheese 11:30 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
I can understand that the fact that there are people in the service industry (working in shops) who are not able to speak french would really irk most of the population of Quebec. When I’ve run across this it’s almost always a very young person, my guess is an out of province student and I tend to think that it indicates that there were no francophoens willing to do that job. To me that is an indicator that the economy is doing well, that all the all the francophones are busy working in better paid more interesting positions. Maybe I’m just an optimist though :).
walkerp 12:58 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
I am sympathetic with the idea that businesses and public services that deal with the public be done initially in french.
Robert J 14:36 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
I don’t think the status quo is the right solution either though. I neither sympathise with those who wish to make Montreal a unilingual francophone city, nor with those who think that the right to live unilingually in English should be defended tooth and nail. The goal, for Montreal at least if not Quebec society at large, should always have been to encourage cultural exchange with existing and new linguistic/ethnic communities.
So make one multilingual school board where people can choose to study in any language, provided they do enough coursework in French to maintain French fluency and literacy (enforced by testing). Unilingual anglo families would be obliged to send their kids to immersion-type programs to be able to pass the tests, but these children could then pursue later (or concurrent) studies in the language of their choice. The obligation placed on these families would be no different than the one placed on families in ESL/FSL programs.
Franco parents could send their kids to English-only schools so that they would come out bilingual. These kids would not “lose their French”, because they would be regularly tested on it. Given the choice, enough francophones would naturally choose to send their kids to English immersion-type programs that there would be no need to “defend the English language” or grandfather special rights that the old anglo community has maintained over the years. A healthy, multicultural English-fluent minority would always be present in public life, while the French language would be healthier than ever.
The current situation is based on defending anglos rights by segregating educational institutions, and progressively denying newcomers access to the old anglo system. It can only create a Quebec that is cut off from North American society and isolated, and I don’t think that will be any healthier for French than a society with no language laws.
Daisy 15:30 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
They should offer subsidized French courses to people who are not immigrants, like people who have moved here from other Canadian provinces. I would have attended such a course if it had been available to me.
Heck they should offer them to born and bred Quebec anglos. (Although I do not understand why any of these are unilingual — I just don’t see an excuse for it.)
walkerp 18:07 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
Great suggestions, Robert J.
And it again begs the question, why must english be restricted in order that french flourish?
Why are so many francophones so adamant that restrictive, repressive laws are the only solution to encourage the growth of the french language?
ant6n 20:47 on 2012/09/06 Permalink
@Daisy
There are subsidized courses for people born in Canada (and some groups of immigrants), for example with the csdm:
http://centre-lartigue.csdm.ca/centre/admission-inscription/
(I signed up with them today – I guess I could get on a work permit after all, but maybe those courses should be better advertised, and they should probably have subsidized courses for those foreign students as well, who take those retail jobs downtown and piss of the francophones, etc.)
walkerp 05:37 on 2012/09/07 Permalink
I did 10 months at 20 hours a week of those courses at the CSDM out of a possible 14 and the whole thing cost me $40. They were embarrassed about asking us to pay the $40 saying it was a new administrative fee!
The classes were almost entirely new immigrants, from latin america, eastern europe (especially Romania) and north africa with a few southeast asian people as well. There were only one or two Canadian-born anglos in the entire school. It was a great program but the french you learn there is true international french and it takes another year of living and working in Quebec to start to figure out how people actually talk here.
The hitch is that you need to have your permanent residency status before you can sign up for the classes. They are quit strict about that. Also, though the whole thing is under CSDM, each school is self-managed and has their own website, so it can be kind of tricky to manage, especially if you don’t speak french yet.
ant6n 10:49 on 2012/09/07 Permalink
@walkerp
The single time registration is 50$ now, and 10$ per session for study materials. They do allow some types of immigrants who don’t have permanent residence (or the first part, the quebec portion, called the quebec selection certificate) – for example certain types of work permits.
Daisy 12:22 on 2012/09/07 Permalink
Thanks ant6n, good to know. 15 years later it’s a bit late for me, but I will recommend it to others. I wasn’t living in Montreal proper when I first came to Quebec but maybe they have similar courses elsewhere. Then again, my French was good enough for me to take courses at UQAM (why do no Quebec anglos study in French btw???) so maybe I wasn’t the target audience. I was really nervous and shy about my spoken French though. They should have a way of getting the availability of these courses known to transplants like myself.
ant6n 17:46 on 2012/09/07 Permalink
Agreed.
Patrice 08:44 on 2012/09/08 Permalink
I just want to answer to walkerp because I often hear that question and I will give you my take on it: look at pictures or read about Montréal in the 40′s and you’ll agree that french has come a long way in this city. I really think that bill 101 has helped achieving that because we have to bear in mind (wink to Kate) that a majority of french-speaking Québecois was illiterate and there is still a good amount of functioning illiterates in this province, for historical and political reasons. So the fear comes, I think, from people (French) not wanting to go back to that place where french was a second-class language for the majority who felt like second-class citizens in their birthplace.
Nowadays, I think most (French) people would like to see that they are recognised as equals (okay, some do want to be like, first or something, whatever…) and expect the same from their Anglo fellow citizens. Not more, not less, just the same, that seems right, no? (I’m not talking politics now, just from personal experience). It makes it probably more confusing (for the nice Australian tourist, for example) nowadays that english not only is the language of the other solitude but the communication language of the planet. I’m always curious, when asked for help on the street that people assume I speak english without asking first. As I said, I never do that abroad. That’s what I mean when I say we should expect the same. Learning at least one sentence in the language of the place you are visiting changes you travel experience, believe me, especially in places where no one speaks that language: just say thanks in hungarian to a Budapest post office clerk and you’ll see what I mean (koay, maybe I was just lucky…!)
Here, as I see it, we take for granted that Francos speak english because we are in North America, but Anglos (including some immigrants, not just the british-descending Canadians) will not need to speak french, even in Montréal as “everybody is bilingual here”. So they say. It is slightly changing as for the first time in my life, I attended a party here, about 5 years ago, where many guests, in their 30′s, came from the ROC. And guess what, we all spoke french that evening! My first thought was: «wow, had they been Montreal anglos, we’d probably speak english right now!” Was I wrong? That’s the feeling I got then from living here. I still have it but the comments I read in the past days make me think there is a real will to change that and that would be really amazing. (But friends of mine working in downtown don’t share this optimism…)
People, in my opinion often confuse language and identity when it’s time to defend the former. It’s normal because they are intertwined. That’s why you will hear Québecois defending french against english or even against french from France (because they use many english words) with heartbraking syntax and grammar errors!
And last, I don’t know where you are from but I personally don’t find it «cute» and «exotic» when I visit my family in Richmond BC and go to a mall restaurant (a mall! -not in a boui-boui in Chinatown) and cannot get ANYONE to answer me… in english! I think that something is failing in the society that cannot get it’s people to communicate together. And kinda encourage it, no? Quebec laws may sound harsh but the many interviews I read from “children of the loi 101″ indicated they were mostly happy they had to go to french schools because they were bilingual (if not more!) now and felt more intergrated to Québec society
(What’s more, I think that real linguistic equality will not be reached as long as we will not include some First Nations languages in our school system.)
These are just my views being expressed here, for the purpose of discussion, wich I find quite enlightning on your blog Kate, so you must be doing a good job! I’m more a reader than a writer because I takes me too much time to write but since my anglo friends do not live in Quebec, my discussions with them often lack the “Montreall experience” and I’m glad I can find it here without the, should I use that word? -hysteria- we can find in the more traditional media comment sections! Ouf!