Federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller declined Wednesday to say whether he believes French is on the decline in Quebec, preferring instead to reiterate that the province’s only official language is under threat.
Posted at 8:44 p.m.
The minister, who is a Montreal resident, was closely followed on the Standing Committee on Official Languages by conservative Joël Godin and Bloc Mario Beaulieu. Mr. Miller came to testify about French-speaking immigration to Canada.
The two official language speakers of their respective parties asked Mr. Miller about the state of French in the country.
“When we look at people who speak French, whether inside or outside Quebec, French is under threat in a sea of English […] I completely agree that French is under threat in North America,” the minister initially responded to Mr. Godin.
He had just asked Mr. Miller if he was aware that “the French-speaking population is declining across Canada, including Quebec.”
Judging the minister’s response to be evasive, Mr. Beaulieu returned to the accusation and asked him whether he thought “there is a decline in French in Quebec.”
“It is clear that French is under threat in Quebec […] It is clear, clear and precise,” explained Mr. Miller, before mentioning that the Quebec government has made efforts over the decades to strengthen the French reality.
“But this threat is always lurking because Quebec is geographically located in North America,” he added.
Mr. Beaulieu stressed that French is in decline in the province, particularly in Montreal, on several levels, particularly in terms of the mother tongue and the language used at home and at work.
“According to all these indicators, there is a lot more English in Montreal, so there is a decline in French in Quebec. But you don’t seem to want to admit it as such,” said the Bloc MP, who criticized the minister for playing with words.
Statistics Canada repeatedly confirms the trend followed by the French in Quebec. Recent census data suggests that French proficiency continues to decline in Quebec and the rest of the country. The proportion of Quebecers who primarily speak this language at home increased from 79% to 77.5% between 2016 and 2021.
Forecasts published in March by the Office québécois de la langue française also show that the importance of French as a native language will continue to decline in favor of English in the coming years.
Mr. Miller recognized that “French must be preserved and revitalized in Quebec.”
“If we don’t admit that French is in decline, it is difficult to take the means to counteract it,” however, replied Mr Beaulieu.
This is not the first time that Montreal MPs from the Liberal Party of Canada have remained silent about the decline of the French in Quebec.
This was the case last June with the new Liberal MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Westmount, Anna Gainey, who steadfastly refused to move forward on this issue in the face of persistent questions from the parliamentary press on the issue.
In recent years, Liberal MP for Saint-Laurent Emmanuella Lambropoulos was forced to resign from the Official Languages Committee after denying the decline of French in Quebec.
With information from Michel Saba of The Canadian Press