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The <span class="gmail-nobr">English-Canadian</span> media’s selective outrage on bilingualism
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November 27, 2018 5.58pm EST
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Québec Premier Francois Legault, left, exchanges hockey
jerseys with Ontario Premier Doug Ford at Queens Park, in Toronto on
Nov. 19, 2018. Ford’s recent cuts to francophone services in Ontario
haven’t spawned nearly the media outrage that Québec language moves
have.
<span class="gmail-attribution"><span class="gmail-source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young)</span></span>
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<h3 class="gmail-double-bordered">Author</h3>
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<a rel="author" href="http://theconversation.com/profiles/david-webster-443121">
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David Webster
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Associate Professor of History, Bishop's University
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<h3 class="gmail-double-bordered">Disclosure statement</h3>
<p><span>David Webster receives funding from the Social Science
and Humanities Research Council, but that funding was not used for this
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<p>Don’t get me wrong: It’s always nice to see folks in Ontario and
the rest of English-speaking Canada say a few words in support of the
English-speaking minority here in Québec.</p>
<p>But there are far more endangered, far more precarious,
French-speaking minorities in Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and
all nine majority-English provinces. In fact, those minority groups —
English-speaking in Québec and French-speaking in the rest of Canada —
are what make this country what it is. </p>
<p>There is a huge amount of work still to do on recognizing Indigenous
rights and fostering Indigenous languages, of course. Important work is
happening on that front, though the country has a long way to go. Maybe
it’s time to declare Indigenous languages to be official languages.</p>
<p>In the meantime, however, it’s worth protecting the minority official
language communities. But to read leading English-Canadian media, you
would think that only one of those communities — Québec’s anglophones —
were under threat. </p>
<p>Take the <em>Globe and Mail</em>, the country’s national newspaper.
When Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently slashed services to Ontario
francophones and axed plans for the province’s first French-language
university, the Globe ran a total of five articles by Nov. 21, according
to a search of the Canadian Newsstream database. </p>
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247031/original/file-20181123-149308-dzztzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247031/original/file-20181123-149308-dzztzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip"></a>
<span class="gmail-caption">The Buonanotte restaurant, at the heart of the ‘pastagate’ uproar, is shown in Montréal in February 2013.</span>
<span class="gmail-attribution"><span class="gmail-source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
<p>As <em>La Presse</em> columnist <a href="https://twitter.com/kick1972/status/1064843435847368704">Patrick Lagacé wrote</a> — in English – that’s barely a fraction of the coverage given to the silliness of the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/pastagate-leaves-bad-taste-in-quebeckers-mouths/article9053403/">“pastagate” story in 2013</a>,
in which an inspector from Québec’s French-language watchdog criticized
the use of the word “pasta” in a Montréal restaurant (the watchdog
quickly backed down and changed its rules). Canadian Newsstream finds 12
articles in the Globe on “pastagate.” </p>
<p>The <em>Globe</em> also issued a <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/globe-editorial-taking-the-hi-out-of-bonjour-hi-wont-save-the-french-language/article37151480/">stern editorial</a> against a Parti Québécois motion in Québec’s National Assembly that criticized the ubiquitous greeting “bonjour-hi.” </p>
<p>The motion was misplaced, but was non-binding and has changed nothing. Was it really — as the <em>Globe</em> editorialized — a call for the word “hi” to be “killed with fire, its ashes buried in lye and the location forgotten?”</p>
<h2>One op-ed in support of Ford’s cuts</h2>
<p>This sort of hyperbole is too common in the English-Canadian press. The <em>Globe</em>
has so far issued no editorials against the Ford cuts to francophone
services — though it did run an opinion piece in support of Ford’s
move written by the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-doug-ford-was-right-to-cancel-funding-for-new-university-campuses/">president of Trent University</a>. </p>
<p>The <em>Globe</em>, of course, should not be singled out. <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-government-cancels-plans-for-provinces-first-official/">A Postmedia editorial</a> published in the <em>Ottawa Citizen</em>
and other newspapers, called the loss of the position of French
Language Services Commissioner “unfortunate” in the eighth paragraph of a
nine-paragraph editorial. </p>
<p>Otherwise, the newspaper database finds no editorial comment of any
sort — let alone the sort of scathing denunciation that descends when
Québec’s language laws make headlines in English. “Pastagate” was
mentioned 311 times in the Canadian Newsstream index in 2013, the year
it made headlines; Ontario francophone services rate 96 mentions since
Ford’s cuts were announced.</p>
<p>In some ways, Québec language policy serves as an <a href="https://beautifultrouble.org/theory/the-propaganda-model/">“external enemy”</a>
for English-speaking media. Mocking the periodic outbreaks of Québec
language-law foolishness sells papers — or in digital terms, poking
fun at pastagate is great clickbait. Criticizing the powerful in Ontario
when they attack minorities does not produce the same results. </p>
<p>Québec’s anglophone community has chided Ford. The English-language <em>Montreal Gazette</em> criticized the francophone <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-standing-in-solidarity-with-franco-ontarians">services cuts</a>.
The Townshippers’ Association, a group of anglophones in the Eastern
Townships region of Québec south of Montréal, pointed out that the cuts
were “a significant setback for the development and vitality not only of
Franco-Ontarians, but for <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/canada/sherbrooke-record/20181119/281556586864913">minority language communities across the country as well</a>.”</p>
<h2>Anglophone universities in Québec</h2>
<p>Let’s not forget, however, that Québec’s anglophone community has
spawned three universities, and that the Québec government has made no
moves to shut down these minority-language universities — in fact, a
revision to Québec’s university funding formula this year helped
Bishop’s University in the Eastern Townships, where I teach history, <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/major-changes-to-the-funding-formula-for-quebec-universities/">more than any other institution in Québec</a>. </p>
<p>Outside Québec, there is only one full French-language university, in
Moncton, N.B. (A few French-language colleges exist inside
English-language universities or in affiliation with colleges, and there
are a handful of bilingual institutions.) </p>
<p>Québec’s anglophones have fought to protect their institutions. When
the previous government led by Philippe Couillard announced plans to
amalgamate school boards, the English-speaking community mobilized to
save English-language school boards, successfully. It may need to fight
the same battle in the face of renewed plans by the new government under
François Legault <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/couillard-school-boards-english-rights-1.4799160">to shutter local school boards</a>.</p>
<h2>Protecting recent gains</h2>
<p>Given this history, it’s no surprise that the Townshippers’
Association announced its “solidarity with our French-speaking
counterparts in Ontario” as they mobilize to defend their own
institutions and protect recent gains. </p>
<p>The Ford government’s cuts are not primarily about money, as a <a href="https://www.ledroit.com/opinions/votre-opinion/les-nouveaux-habits-de-la-francophobie-391b93d4531d52852816675358e64aa2">recent article by French-speaking university professors</a> points out. Fiscal arguments are a “smokescreen” for a rejection of the very concept of minority rights. (To its credit, the <em>Globe</em> reprinted a <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-francophobia-is-donning-new-populist-clothes-in-canada/">translated version</a> on Nov. 21.)</p>
<p>This is part of a renewed attack on the French in Canada by the
rising populist right, exemplified by Ford’s Ontario government and the
New Brunswick’s People’s Alliance, which props up the incoming New
Brunswick Conservative government. </p>
<p>Anti-Francophone sentiment is nothing new in Canada, as University of Guelph historian Matthew Hayday <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/So_They_Want_Us_to_Learn_French.html?id=zEGICgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">has written</a>. </p>
<p>But it seems to be on the rise — and that will only empower those
in Québec, chastened by recent declines in their public support, who
might want to crack down on the anglophone minority.</p>
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<br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>