French still an abstraction in much of Canada

[Harold Schiffman]

French still an abstraction in much of Canada

December 05, 2007
Chantal Hébert

OTTAWA – Connect the dots between the 2006 census numbers on language
and immigration released yesterday and what you get is an increasingly
diverse French Quebec within a diverse but increasingly English
Canada. That's positive news for the Canadian policy of
multiculturalism but it's bad news for those who dream of the day when
Canada is done with its two solitudes, for the space where French and
English cohabit is inexorably shrinking. First the good news. The
numbers show that multiculturalism does not foster language ghettos.
Even as a record one in five Canadians were born in another country,
nine out of 10 use either English or French at home. In big cities
like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, where the bulk of new arrivals
settle, it is only a marginal proportion that does not adopt one of
Canada's official languages.

The census also shows that Quebec's language policies work. Immigrants
to the province are increasingly choosing to live in French, although
hardly in the same numbers as newcomers elsewhere in Canada adopt
English. Between 1996 and 2006, Quebec recorded an unprecedented
25-per-cent increase in its immigration. While the proportion of
francophones went down slightly, for the first time ever more
newcomers to the province adopted French rather than English as their
default language. In 10 years, their proportion went from 39 per cent
to 51 per cent. Part of the reason is that Quebec has a say in the
selection of its immigrants, with extra points given to francophone
applicants.

But with an influx of francophone immigrants has also come the
realization that having a common language does not automatically iron
out differences. In Quebec, as in the rest of Canada, integration –
not language – is currently the biggest challenge posed by
immigration.  That may ultimately be resolved more easily than the
other challenge brought to light by the census. The federal glue that
was meant to bind the francophone and anglophone regions of the
country is drying up. On the basis of the 2006 numbers, Quebec's
status as a French-language society is not in peril, or at least not
in the foreseeable future. Nor is French in danger of losing its place
as Canada's second language anytime soon.

Chinese – the third most spoken language after English and French – is
used by only 3 per cent of Canadians. By comparison, 22 per cent speak
French. But outside Quebec, francophones make up only 4 per cent of
the population. With French an abstraction in so many parts of Canada,
the motivation to learn it as a second language is decreasing. Because
most anglophones learn French at school, the peak bilingualism rate
for anglophones outside Quebec occurs in the 15 to 19 age range. Over
the past decade, it has slipped from 16.3 per cent to 13 per cent.

The census also shows the retention rate of anglophones who have
learned the language is slippin. From a public policy perspective,
those particular sets of numbers are by far the most ominous of the
figures released yesterday, for they reflect a trend that stands to
make the language policies of the federal government unsustainable.
Without a critical mass of bilingual anglophones, the long-term
prospects for official bilingualism are poor. But the alternative of
doing away with a policy that the vast majority of Canadians have come
to see as a defining national feature is more than problematic.



 http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/282693



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