[lg policy] Canada: Language policy =?utf-8?Q?=E2=80=A8without_?=the emotion

[Harold Schiffman]

Language policy 
without the emotion

by Bruce M. Hicks

With the Parti Québécois winning the September 4 general election,
language politics has once again been primed in Quebec and across
Canada. The PQ’s election platform contained a number of policy
initiatives designed to protect the French language. Two were hotly
debated during the campaign.

The first was the promise to extend the Charter of the French
Language’s requirement that French be the language in the workplace
for companies with 50 employees or more to smaller companies. The
second was the plan to extend the compulsory education in French
requirement that now applies to public elementary and secondary
schools to Cegeps. Cegeps offer an intermediate level following Grade
11 for students wanting to go on to university and community
college–level courses for students who do not.

These two promises were reported outside of Quebec and, through that
reporting, became the subject of media punditry. While there was no
consensus, as there never is on such matters, the strongest and most
frequently expressed opinion was that these measures were unfair to
the anglophone and immigrant communities in Quebec. Francophone voices
outside Quebec were not raised, but it can be imagined that these
communities saw the proposals as necessary restrictions to protect the
French language.

It is noteworthy that in Quebec, the reaction of the anglophone and
francophone communities was almost the reverse of that of their
“rest-of-Canada” cousins.

While some Anglos in Quebec were upset with the proposals, for the
most part Quebecers are used to Bill 101 and expanding work and
education language restrictions was not initially seen as either
overly onerous or unexpected, particularly by younger Anglos.

In Quebec, the strongest opposition to the PQ language restrictions
was voiced by francophone Quebecers and specifically concerned the
Cegep requirement. Pundits, academics and community elites repeatedly
expressed the view that, having acquired fluency in French but having
failed to acquire English as a second language, many francophones (and
children of immigrants) avail themselves of English Cegeps to acquire
second-language skill in the hope of attending English universities or
widening their job prospects.

Of course these attitudes will change – hardening or shifting – as the
PQ moves from making promises to enacting legislation. Understandably,
language policy is emotional because it is so connected to identity,
and when language policy involves education the emotionality increases
as parents express fear for their children and their children’s
futures.

What I seek to do here is to put language policy in a nonemotional
context, placing it in a global context and within a useful typology.
Ultimately the policies favoured by citizens of Quebec will reflect
their personal experiences and attitudes, but context can advance
understanding of alternative positions and thus further public
discourse.

Global context

The dominance of certain languages
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