The government of Jean Charest is enacting a new law to further strangle
English schooling in Quebec. But a coalition including the Parti Quebecois,
the Bloc Quebecois, and the New Democratic Party denounced the bill last
Monday on the grounds that it doesn't go far enough.
They all signed a statement calling on the Quebec government to invoke the
"notwithstanding" clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to
override what the Supreme Court of Canada declared last October to be a
constitutional right : to have access to English public schooling after
demonstrating a serious commitment to the English language while attending
an unsubsidized English school.
Monday, NDP leader Jack Layton was asked during a scrum : "Is this merely
the position of Mr. (Outremont MP Thomas) Mulcair or is it the party's ?"
Layton answered : "No, no, it's the position of the party."
Under Jack Layton, the NDP increasingly aligns its policies on language and
secession with those of the two separatist parties.
Premier Charest last week introduced in the National Assembly Bill 103,
which would require a minimum of three years in select unsubsidized English
schools before the right to transfer to public English schools could even
be considered.
But that would just start the inquisition, case by case, as officials would
examine such other factors as what language the family speaks at home, what
language siblings were schooled in, and other still unspecified matters.
David Birnbaum, executive director of the Quebec English School Boards
Association, reacted to the obstacles set out in the new bill : "Our guess
is that it won't give us one single child."
Why is Quebec's political class so intent on erecting barriers around
English schools ? [The usual reason given is that, in Quebec, the survival
of French is threatened.->http://archives.vigile.net/05-5/langue.html] PQ leader Pauline Marois explained that "this is
about the collective rights of a (French) majority that are in peril on the
North American continent."
In 2007, Statistics Canada published data on school attendance by language,
based on the 2006 census. It found only 49 per cent of children with an
English-speaking parent were actually in English school. The others ?
Forty-eight per cent were in French school. The remaining three per cent
studied in another language.
As for the 49 per cent attending English schools, 50 per cent of them were
in French immersion, and only 48 per cent attended regular English
schooling.
The figures for elementary school -the future -were even more starkly
tilted toward French. There, 52 per cent were in French schools, only 44
per cent in English schools. And of those in English schools, twice as many
were in immersion as in regular English schooling.
One might expect, then, that Quebec's political class would ease its panic
and its obsession with prohibiting from English public schools all children
except those whose parents had studied in English in Canada.
[The rest of Canada allows all children of French-speaking parents to attend
French schools.->http://archives.vigile.net/cit/francocanada.html] The Canadian Charter admits to minority official language
schools all "citizens of Canada whose first language learned and still
understood is that of the English or French linguistic minority population
of the province in which they reside."
But the Charter allowed Quebec to choose when that right would come into
force. Quebec has refused to do so for the past 28 years. So all children,
of whatever age, who come to Quebec from Britain, the U.S. or Ghana, must
start all over in French.
Is French really threatened ? Between 1996 and 2006, the number of
Quebecers of French mother tongue increased by 175,410. The number of
Quebecers who spoke French at home increased even more, by 255,075, to a
total of 6,085,155. Meanwhile, as usual, the number of Qubecers with
English as a mother tongue declined, this time by 14,695, to reach 607,165.
When, in 2007, those figures were published by Statistics Canada, Le Devoir
headlined on page one : "Historic setback for French in Quebec." The lead
editorial was headlined : "French is under threat."
The once powerful Englishspeaking community is in full decline. Between
1966 and 2006, counting both departures and arrivals, the net loss to
Quebec was of 28,210 for people of French mother tongue, but 336,170 for
those whose mother tongue was English and of 92,075 for those with another
mother tongue.
Last month, Le Devoir reported on a survey that showed English-speaking
Quebecers earn less money than French-speaking Quebecers. But the survey
also revealed that only 0.5 per cent of French-speaking Quebecers are aware
of this colossal reversal from the past.
And so the determination to limit, humble, and hide the English language
continues, whether the government be "Liberal" or Parti Quebecois.
William Johnson, a former Gazette journalist, was later president of
Alliance Quebec.