The Quebec government has announced a $600 million investment over five years to protect and promote the French language in the province. The French Language Minister, Jean-François Roberge, stated that the goal is to counteract what the government sees as a decline in the use of French. However, some critics, such as constitutional rights lawyer Julius Grey and Sylvia Martin Laforge from the Quebec Community Groups Network, argue that the government’s statistics lack nuance and point out that French language use in the public sphere has remained stable for over a decade.
While the 2021 census data does show a slight decrease in the number of people speaking French at home, the Quebec government’s focus on the private sphere has raised concerns about government overreach. Critics argue that coercive measures to encourage people to speak French in their private lives are not acceptable. The government’s plan includes measures to monitor language trends, improve students’ mastery of French, boost the French cultural offering, and increase the percentage of economic immigrants who speak French.
Of the $603 million budget, over half will be allocated to teaching French to temporary immigrant workers and asylum seekers. Another portion will go toward enhancing the Francophone cultural offering to counter the dominance of English digital platforms. Additional funding will be dedicated to improving French language teaching for students, including those in English school boards. The government also plans to invest in a new digital report card to monitor the evolution of language data on an annual basis.
The Quebec government has also announced plans to increase tuition for out-of-province Canadians by 30% and implement stronger French-language requirements for temporary workers and permanent immigrants in the economic stream. These measures are part of the government’s efforts to bolster the vitality of the French language in Quebec and reverse any perceived decline. The province’s culture minister highlighted the importance of funding Quebec cultural productions to maintain a strong Francophone presence in the face of mainly English digital platforms.
Critics like Julius Grey and Sylvia Martin Laforge stress the importance of using nuanced data to assess the state of the French language in the province. While there may be areas where French language use is declining, such as in the private sphere, they argue that coercive measures to enforce language use are not the solution. The debate over language protection and promotion in Quebec continues, with differing opinions on the government’s approach and the necessity of the proposed measures to safeguard the French language.
