Issues Faced by Francophones in Canada – A News Review

This article discusses the issues faced by Francophones in Canada, focusing on limitations faced by francophone students of Quebec, challenges faced by French immigrants in Canada, and the fear of francophones that the future of French language and administration is threatened. It also provides an analysis of the impact of language on the life of people speaking it within and outside of its province (Quebec).

ISSUES FACED BY FRANCOPHONES IN CANADA – A NEWS REVIEW

ISSUES FACED BY FRANCOPHONES IN CANADA – A NEWS REVIEW
Introduction
Language politics have a great influence in the formation of provinces, and the
shaping of political ideologies (Pal 1993). In today’s world, maintaining diplomatic
relationships between other nations is very important as the world thrives of trade
negotiations and mutual assistances. Canada and France, two nations which share a maritime
border, maintain an great relationship. However, they have their share of sour moments over
linguistic and sovereignty issues, focused on Quebec, Canada’s largest province (Mackey
2005). Issues with providing the official language status to French in Quebec and English
outside of it causes challenges to the state administrations, and to the future of the French
outside of Quebec. In this article, three news articles reporting issues faced by Francophones
in Canada shall be summarised, discussed, and analyzed.
Summary of the News Reports
Reports from three news articles which focused on the issues faced on the general
perception of the language, disadvantages in education, and workplace challenges were
chosen, and are summarised below.
1. Valiante, Giuseppe. Controversy in Quebec as more French students choose English
colleges. News Report, Montreal: The Canadian Press, 2017
In this report, the author speaks about the limitations that the francophone students of Quebec
face while choosing a language of their choice. He says that as English courses in the public
pre-university system CEGEP of Quebec not recognized by the law, those students have to
avoid exposure, thus losing out on a lot of opportunities. Valiante also says that by this, the
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education of the students is affected, as many students choose not to enroll in French based
courses, and this is an issue that must be addressed to as early as possible.
2. Keung, Nicholas. Francophone immigrants face greater challenges outside Quebec.
News Report, Toronto: Immigration, 2017
In this report, the author talks about the issues faced by French immigrants in Canada,
especially out of Quebec. He says that even as French is one of the official language of
Canada, its influence is limited only to Quebec, thus widely limiting job opportunities for
francophones out of Quebec. He states that immigrants form a large part of Canada’s
workforce, and language issues have a great impact on the jobs offered to them. Keung, in
this report, interviews many affected francophones, as well as the government officials, and
states that there is a lot to be achieved in order to set the issue in right balance.
3. Butler, Don. Francophones see threat to future of French in Canada, survey finds.
News Report, Ottawa: Ottawa Citizen, 2016.
In this news item, the author reports the fear of francophones, that the future of French
language and administration is threatened. However, he says that upon research, only one-
thirds of the English speaking people seem to agree with this issue or have a favorable
opinion about the francophones. The anglophones and francophones are more or less on the
same page on promoting bilingualism throughout Canada, that it would enhance bilateral ties,
provide better opportunities, and improve prospects for the future. The author says that due to
a widespread reach, English is the better preferred language of choice even for many French
speakers; even as a few people have no interest towards a bilingual lifestyle.
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Discussion
The first report (Valiante 2017) focuses on the issues faced by French speaking
students within Quebec wanting to take up English based courses. It provides a firsthand
interview of a few students and English language tutors, and notifies their opinion on the
language issue of Quebec, and how it affects the education of the students there. The
implementation of Bill 101 Language law of Quebec (Bourhis 2005) has made the learning of
French compulsory, and that learning a pre-university course in English is not subject to the
stat laws. This considerably brings down the registrations in Quebec’s CEGEP, thus driving
many students to opt for English based courses (Lamarre 2012). The author says that even as
students feel French need to be the state language, it should not come in the way of
education, and they feel that their global outreach would be limited if they did not have a
working knowledge of English. Valintane writes that the students might feel stuck in a
particular stream of education without a rollback, if they felt they had made a wrong choice
earlier, due to language issues. However, due to political pressures, many English courses
are not advertised and have limited intake, unlike francophone courses (Stevenson 1999).
This report opens up a sensitive issue of education, which is indeed the need of the hour.
The second report (Keung 2017) focuses on the challenges faced by francophones in
other parts of Canada with regard to job opportunities. This is a report based on first hands
interviews of French immigrants to Canada; at a centre that assists francophone immigrants
in Canada obtain jobs. The author states that the French speaking immigrants say that they
have no advantage of knowing French in Canada, even though it is one of the official
languages of Canada, and the prime official language of Quebec. They also feel that their
achievements, skills and expertise are underplayed by Canadian recruiters, and are often seen
as second-lass workers and are assigned low skilled jobs, and are passed over for anglophone
candidates (Kramsch 1997). Upon noting down the statements given by various government
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officials, the author states that they say that it is practical to have proficiency in English, as it
is the unofficial global communicator. Many agencies in Canada help francophones develop a
basic working knowledge of English, in order to obtain a stable employment (Ulrich 2011).
This article opens up an important issue of the influence of language in one’s future
employment.
The third report (Butler 2016) focuses on the allegation made by the francophones in
Canada that the Language French, which is also the official language of Quebec, is under a
potential threat. The author has taken into account the results of a survey, which was
commissioned by the Department of Canadian Heritage, which focused on Anglo-French
bilingualism – its advantage, opportunities, cultural identity, inter-personal relationships, and
the threat to the bilingualism by English preference. The results of the survey stated that most
francophones agreed on the facts that learning both French and English would facilitate a
more desirable understanding between the people of Canada, would open new passages to
Education and job opportunities, and would enrich the cultural spirit of Canada. They also
agreed that the relationships between the people speaking the two languages have improved
desirably over the last decade. However, a large percentage of Francophones concurred that
the linguistic future of French in Canada was threatened, due to multiple factors. A majority
of anglophones agreed over the need of bilingualism, but a vast majority disagreed on the
threat to the French language (Heller 2003). This survey was conducted over a month, on
nearly 1500 Canadians, and found that the response of francophones was better than that of
anglophones, with respect to bilingualism. The report is left open ended by the author, who
leaves a wide scope for discussion and analysis on this issue.
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Analysis
All the three reports discussed above focus on one major issue – the influence of a language
(French) on the life of people speaking it within and outside of its province (Quebec). In
order to understand this issue, a brief history of the linguistic issue must be understood. The
issue of linguistic divide, alongside other issues became the prime cause for advocating a
seperationist movement of Quebec from Canada. The political party fuelling the seperationist
movement is largely backed by francophone conservatives of Quebec, who intend to demand
a spate state for Quebec, and work towards ties between Canada and Quebec (Pal 1993). This
has been the major cause for fuelling francophone and anglophone divide within Canada,
especially Quebec.
Politics aside, language is the prime mode of communication, and knowledge of the
officially recognized lingua franca would benefit the person, as it would open the gates to
opportunities worldwide. However, limiting the knowledge of the lingua franca, sue to
political reasons, would definitely have a negative impact on the students, job seekers, who
move out of the area as immigrants. This seems to be the agenda of one of the political
parties, upon whose victory, the access to English language education would further be
limited. This would cause a down spiral of many students opting for an English based
education out of Quebec and those who remain in Quebec would be deprived of an English
based education, thus severely limiting their career growth and opportunities. Even though
many francophone students desire to learn English, they would choose to retain French,
thereby encouraging bilingualism. The students see English as more than a language – for
them it is the gateway to an open field full of varied opportunities, which is indeed true
(Jiménez, García and Pearson 1996). Inability to be bilingual could cost a lot of pure
francophones a lot of job opportunities. This was discussed in the report by Nicholas Keuing
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that focused on the issues faced by francophone immigrants while looking for a job out of
Quebec.
Within Quebec, a working knowledge of French would be enough to obtain a job
enough to feed a family. However, once one steps into a territory where the English language
reigns supreme, a working knowledge of English is quintessential to obtain a good job.
Many francophones are not bilingual, thus facing a serious shortage of jobs out of Quebec.
An English speaking person with a fair knowledge of French is much preferred over a French
speaking person with a little knowledge of English. With French, jobs could be searched for
only in France and Quebec, while with English; opportunities could be sought after in all
English speaking nations, thereby ensuring a better lifestyle (Jedwab 2003). This situation
needs to be addressed at its root cause – the education system, where bilingualism must be
made the norm.
The survey report made by the Department of Canadian Heritage revealed that an
overwhelming majority of the francophone Canadians are in favour of bilingualism, stating
that it would enable them live a better lifestyle by getting access to education, job
opportunities, and enhancing cultural values. The French speakers felt that the government
must invest more on cultural exchange programmes. Their opinions were widely favored by
anglophones too. However, when many of the francophones felt that the language French
would lose its status in the future as English would dominate, a majority of anglophones
disagreed with their opinion. The francophone opinion that both English and French need to
be learnt by Canadians was not widely popular with the anglophones, as they feel French
might not be of use to them. The public opinion that the linguistic divide has considerably
lessened over the past decade was reciprocally shared between the two linguistic groups.
However, the political moves and agendas focusing on minority appeasement are not so
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favorable for the bridging between the two groups, thus putting majority of the francophones
at a great disadvantage (Konings and Nyamnjoh 2000).
It is essential to learn the language, skill and expertise that is in sync with the world’s
expectations, in order to survive in today’s world post globalization. Bilingualism and
multilingualism puts one at a greater advantage to grab opportunities as they come by,
helping one sustain in the fast moving economy. It is therefore essential for the francophones
to embrace and adapt to English as the lingua franca, and explore the opportunities it
provides, without losing ground of their mother tongue French.
Conclusion
The use and connectivity of a language tends to decide its status in the world. The
Asian country India has 22 official languages, but its official languages of communication are
English and Hindi, even though English was the impact of European colonization
(Pandharipande 2002). English is known as the lingua franca because with the knowledge of
English, many barriers would be broken, and many opportunities could be unveiled. It
therefore becomes quintessential for people of all linguistic backgrounds to have a working
language of English, therefore enabling a wider global outreach and better prospects for the
future.
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REFERENCES
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Butler, Don. Francophones see threat to future of French in Canada, survey finds. News
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