Quebec

From Promotion to Preservation:

The Linguistic Policies of Québec and Their Effects on Business, Demographics, and the Future

Tyson LuneauMassachusetts College of Liberal Arts

13 December 2012POSC 500 Québec: A Case Study in Cultural and Linguistic Survival

“Cultural divide” is a term used to describe a situation within a given area, such as a city,

state or province, region, or nation, in which there is a dramatic difference among groups of its

inhabitants in language, religion, lifestyle, values, traditions, or other elements of their cultural

identity. Though cultural divides exist all over the world in various forms, some of these

divisions on occasion can lead to conflict, be it physical or simply ideological. The religious

division of Ireland, the American Civil War, and the conflicts between the inhabitants of various

“redrawn” African nations are but a few of the more well-known examples of cultural division.

The case of Québec is an interesting, often forgotten, example of a cultural division that,

despite over 240 years of existence, still holds a great deal of relevancy today. Truly taking shape

with the English conquest of New France in 1763 after the Seven Years War, known as La

guerre de la Conquête to French Canadians, the province has since become an ideological and

occasionally violent battleground between the Francophone Québécois and the Anglophone

Canadians living both in and out of Québec.1

Though a variety of cultural differences exist between the two groups, the language

barrier has by far been the most prominent issue throughout Québec’s history. Seeing itself as a

“distinct French society” within a larger English-speaking body, the government and people of

Québec have fought relentlessly to achieve the rights they believe to deserve and to protect their

language and culture from assimilation and, ultimately, destruction.2

One of the most controversial methods of preserving the culture and language of Québec

has been through the use of public policy. Emerging after the “Quiet Revolution” of the 1960s,

Québec’s linguistic policy took shape in the forms of Bill 63, formally La Loi pour promouvoir

la langue française au Québec (“The Law for Promoting the French Language in Québec”), Bill 1 Robert Bothwell, Canada and Quebec: One Country, Two Histories (Vancouver: University of British

Columbia Press, 1995), 6-7.2 Jacques Lacoursière and Robin Philpot, A People’s History of Quebec, (Montréal: Baraka Books, 2009),

159-61.

22, formally La Loi sur la langue officielle (“The Official Language Act”), and the infamous Bill

101, formally La charte de la langue française (“The French Language Charter”). These laws,

enacted to promote the survival of the French language and culture within Québec, have had a

variety of consequences both positive and negative. Though these language laws have protected

the Francophone identity within the province of Qu é bec, they have failed to maintain a level of

tranquility between Francophones, Anglophones, and allophones, and have also not led to the

integration of the latter two groups into Qu é b é cois society. These laws have only strengthened

cultural divisions in Montr é al and other areas of cultural and linguistic diversity.

In order to understand the reasons for the implementation of language legislation and the

effects said laws would have, one should have an idea of the historical context in which they

exist. “Officially” settled by the French explorer Jacques Cartier on July 24, 1534, Québec,

known as New France in the first segment of its existence, became one of the most profitably

colonies in North America. Though Cartier’s efforts were ultimately unprofitable and deemed a

failure, the French under King Henri IV settled the St. Lawrence valley in the late sixteenth

century, establishing a profitable fur trade in the region.

The English threat appeared early in Québec’s history, with the English settlement of

North America in 1607. According to Québec historian Jacques Lacoursière, “when the English

settled in Virginia 1607, they represented a potential threat to Acadia, but more importantly they

jeopardized the French fur trade monopoly.”3 Though the settlement of the St. Lawrence valley

enabled the survival of the French fur trade in Canada, this would only mark the beginning of the

French-English rivalry in North America.

Like the Anglophone threat, the French Canadian identity was established early in

Canada’s history. Though France maintained a strong presence in its North American colony, the

3 Lacoursière, 12.

inhabitants of New France began to see themselves in a different light. This change of identity

was not only recognized by the Canadiens themselves, but by many outsiders as well.

Lacoursière noted that “by the end of the 17th century, men and women living permanently in

Canada had become much different from the people of France, and it was the colonial

administrators and visitors who first observed the differences.”4 Many outsiders formulated

interesting perspectives about the French Canadians, both positive and somewhat negative,

though the former seemed to be a more common theme. New France’s governor, Jacques-René

de Brisay de Denonville noted that “the Canadiens are all tall, well built, and solidly set on their

legs, accustomed to the necessities of living with little…but are also strong-willed, light in

manner, and known for licentiousness. They are good-humoured and lively.” Meanwhile,

“critics” such as Louis-Henri de Baugy noted that “they travel the woods just like the Savages…I

would say that the people of this country have a dual nature, stemming both from Savages, big

talkers who for the most part know not what they are saying…”5

However, the on-going conflict between France and England would come to impact the

French Canadians in a drastic way. Battles over territory, religion, and trade would eventually

mark the beginning of the end for the French Empire in North America. In a work titled Canada

and Quebec, historian Robert Bothwell identified this power dynamic, writing that

The French and the English, traditional enemies in the Old World, soon came to blows in the New. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were a period of religious and also national wars, in which France and England – Great Britain after 1707 – usually ended up on opposite sides. The wars spread to their colonies, and involved not only the Europeans but Aboriginal allies as well.6

4 Lacoursière, 35.5 Lacoursière, 35.6 Bothwell, 10-11.

This power dynamic manifested itself in what became known to English Canadians as the

Seven Years War. The conflict, lasting from 1754 until 1763, drove the French out of North

America, ceding France’s Canadian possessions to Britain, with the exception of the small island

territory of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. This transition greatly affected the Francophone society of

Québec, who after over two hundred years of French rule, were now left in the hands of their

mother country’s enemy.

Throughout their history, the Québécois have viewed the outcome of the Seven Years

War as the great tragedy of French Canadian history. Referring to the war as La guerre de la

Conquête, the people of Québec have never forgotten about this so-called conquest, cleverly

noted in the provincial motto, je me souviens (“I remember”). For nearly two centuries, English-

speakers infiltrated the great Francophone society, restricting the growth of Francophone Québec

and, in the eyes of the Québécois, demoting French speakers to second-class citizenship. French

Canadian historians Jean-C. Bonenfant and Jean-C. Falardeau noted that

Group-consciousness and patriotic feeling really developed only after the British conquest, as a result of isolation, contrast, and struggle with the culturally-alien conquering group. The history of the French-Canadian society during the first thirty or forty years of English domination is one of great internal diversity and gradual shifting of attitudes.7

For the next two centuries, French Canadians began to establish a sense of nationalism,

fighting to preserve their identity, language, and Catholic religion amidst an Anglophone,

protestant Canadian society. The Catholic Church served an important role in preserving the

culture and language during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, despite its declining

influence after the Quiet Revolution. This support system, existing in part due to French loyalty,

7 Jean-C. Bonenfant and Jean-C. Falardeau, “Cultural and Political Implications of French-Canadian Nationalism,” in French-Canadian Nationalism: An Anthology, ed. Ramsay Cook (Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1969), 19-20.

proved to be the backbone of French Canadian nationalism. Peter Marshall identified this

dynamic, explaining that

To a people who after, as before, the Conquest possessed no political representation, and who would advance by grudged stages to a majority situation in the provincial assembly only to assume a minority position in Canadian affairs, the Church assumed the function of institutional guardian of an otherwise defenseless community. The three distinguishing features of French Canada, its faith, language, and laws, could in the last analysis be sustained only through the energies of the Church.8

The influence of the Catholic Church lasted through the Canadian Federation of 1867 and

onward. Though French Canadians hoped to achieve their own sovereignty through the split

from Britain, the Canadian Confederation denied them that possibility. Québec became outraged

at the outcome of the Canadian Constitution, insisting that it would lead to the destruction of

their entire culture.

The Catholic Church continued to carry the torch of Québec nationalism throughout the

rest of the nineteenth century, as well as the first half of the twentieth century. Nationalist clergy

leaders such as Abbé Lionel Groulx emphasized the necessity of a separatist goal for the

province, uniting the rural Québécois who felt as though they were second-class citizens in their

own province. In the years following the Confederation, the Church shaped the lives of French-

speaking Québécois, as Edward M. Corbett pointed out, writing that

The role of the Church in assuring the survival of French Canada as a distinct community cannot be overstated. In rural areas largely remote from English influence the parish system furnished the administrative and social framework which permitted the people to keep their cultural characteristics, despite the flood of British immigrants to the cities and other parts of the territory. 9

8 Peter Marshall, “Quebec: After the English Conquest,” The North American Review 256, no. 3 (Fall 1971): 11, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117223 (accessed September 06, 2012).

9 Edward M. Corbett, Quebec Confronts Canada (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), 21.

Furthermore, the Catholic Church provided not only the social framework that enabled the

survival of French Canadian culture and language, but also served to empower French Canadians

with a sense of nationalism. In late nineteenth and early twentieth century Québec, the two were

often inseparable. In a work aptly titled Nationalisme et religion, Jacques Grand’Maison notes

that “chez nous, au Québec, notre histoire repose sur deux idéologies principales qui ont été en

synergie constante surtout au cours des deux derniers siècles, à savoir un nationalisme et un

catholicisme de type particulier.”1011

However, the shift of French Canadians from rural areas to the province’s cities,

combined with shifting attitudes about Québec’s place within the Canadian Federation, would

change the dynamic of French Canadian nationalism. The Quiet Revolution, most commonly

identified as lasting from 1960 until approximately 1974, encompassed a series of great changes

in Québec, shifting the dynamic of political and economic power from the English-speaking

minority to the French-speaking majority. This period was one of great turmoil and though the

presence of physical violence was extremely limited as the name suggests, many Anglophones

living within the province became bitter at the rise of Francophones. Regardless of being either

content or discontent with its outcome, most Canadians can agree the Quiet Revolution was

perhaps one of the most radical and significant periods in all of Québec’s history. As Edward

McWhinney wrote, the Quiet Revolution “came like a bolt of thunder in Québec at the opening

of the decade of the 1960s and which has continued to this day as the leitmotiv of Québec

political and social life…”12

10 Translates in English to “At home, in Quebec, our history is based on two principal ideologies which were in constant synergy during the last two centuries, namely nationalism and Catholicism of a particular type.”

11 Jacques Grand’Maison, Nationalisme et religion: nationalisme et evolution culturelle (Montréal: Librarie Beauchemin Limitée, 1970), 13.

12 Edward McWhinney, “The ‘Language’ Problem in Québec,” The American Journal of Comparative Law 29, no 3 (Summer 1981), 413, http://www.jstor.org/stable/839898 (accessed September 06, 2012).

The Quiet Revolution, which took shape under the leadership of Jean Lesage and the

Québec Liberal Party, embodied a number of changes in Québécois society, including economic

reform, secularization, and elements of nationalism and separatist ideologies. Following the

tenure of Maurice Duplessis’s Union Nationale Party, Lesage and the Liberal Party began to

nationalize the province’s major assets, including Hydro-Québec, a conglomeration of the

provinces electrical resources, as well as various mining, forestry, and petroleum corporations.

One might ask how this move promoted French Canadian nationalism. The centralization

and growth of the province’s economic resources was crucial in creating a platform for the

Québec Sovereignty Movement. Arguing that Québec was better off as self-sufficient,

independent French-speaking nation, sovereignty proponents like René Levesque, Pierre

Bourgault, Raymond Baribeau, and Jacques Parizeau worked to unite Québécois in an effort to

achieve sovereignty.

Levesque, perhaps being the most well-known proponent, was particularly influential in

Québec politics. As the founding member of the separatist Parti Québécois after leaving the

Liberal Party, Levesque served as Québec’s Premier from 1976 until 1985. As Premier,

Levesque oversaw the implementation of the first referendum on Québec’s sovereignty in 1980.

Though the referendum failed to pass, Levesque’s passion for Québec sovereignty would not die

with the first referendum.

In relation to the topic at hand, the Quiet Revolution resulted in a series of linguistic

policies that would greatly alter the landscape of Québec’s culture and demographics from the

1960s into the twenty-first century. These policies, enacted to protect the French language and

culture of Québec from disappearing due to assimilation and immigration, resulted in a variety of

consequences for Francophones, Anglophones, and Allophones, those who spoke neither English

nor French, living within the province. Though Québec linguistic policy is complex and contains

numerous bills, amendments, and other pieces of legislation, Bill 63 (1969), Bill 22 (1974), and

Bill 101 (1977). These laws, acting upon one another chronologically to an extent, created the

foundation for a government-mandated installation of French not only as the official language,

but as the required language for Québec. Their impact on the province’s commercial sector,

educational system, government, and culture is immense, and the demographic shifts that

occurred within the province after their establishment showcase these drastic effects.

Bill 63, known formally as the Loi pour promouvoir la langue française au Québec (the

law for promoting the French language in Québec), was passed under the Union Nationale

government headed by Jean-Jacques Bertrand on November 28, 1969. This law, passed in

response to a controversy involving the Catholic school board of St. Leonard (now a borough of

Montréal), it provided the framework for the promotion of French in the province’s schools.

Targeted at immigrants, it represented the reaction to the trend of immigrants favoring education

in English as opposed to French.

Unlike later laws that would restrict the use of English in schools, Bill 63 simply pushed

for the requirement of a working knowledge of French. The bill outlines the duties of the

Minister of Education as being required to:

…take the measures necessary to have the curricula, made or approved for such educational institutions, and the examinations which confirm them, ensure a working knowledge of French language to children to whom instruction is given in the English language.13

13 Québec, Office Québécois de la langue française, “Loi pour promouvoir la langue française au Québec/An Act to Promote the French Language in Québec,” November 28, 1969, 1, http://www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/charte/reperes/Loi_63.pdf (accessed December 01, 2012).

This law also expanded the power of the recently formed Office Québécois de la langue

française, establishing a complaint system to enforce the laws presented by Bill 63 in the

workplace. The law states that “The French Language Bureau may hear any complaint by any

employee or group of employees to the effect that his or their right to use the French language as

the working language is not respected.”14

Though Bill 63 and the Office Québécois de la langue française were created, in theory,

to protect the rights of Francophones in Québec, many objected to its implications. Bill 63

marked the beginning of a long-running debate surrounding language rights in Québec. Both

sides felt as though their rights were in violation, with Francophones fearing the disappearance

of their language and culture, and Anglophones becoming outraged at the legislative war upon

their own language. Places of linguistic diversity, particularly Montréal, became hotbeds for

conflict and controversy during this period.

Bill 63 was only the beginning of the Québec government’s linguistic onslaught. While it

addressed some of the issues concerning the French language within Québec’s educational

system, proponents of a dominant Francophone culture took things a step further with the

implementation of Bill 22, known officially as La Loi sur la langue officielle (Official Language

Act). Sanctioned on July 31, 1974 under the Liberal Party and Premier Robert Bourassa, this

legislation went directly against the federal Official Languages Act of 1969, which mandated

English and French as the equal and official languages of Canada, establishing French as the

government-mandated working language of Québec.

In terms of education, Bill 22 outlined that all children in the province must be educated

in French, unless deemed as first-language Anglophones. However, all students were required to

obtain a sufficient knowledge of French, regardless of the general language of instruction. But

14 Québec, 3.

unlike the previous Bill 63, Bill 22 expanded the mandate of required French-use to the private

business sector and all government bodies including those drafting legislation. The provisions for

promoting the French language in public administration and private business are outlined in the

following portion of the act:

Whereas the French language must be the ordinary language of communication in the public administration…Whereas the members of the personnel of business firms must, in their work, be able to communicate in French among themselves and with their superior officers; Whereas the French language must be in use at every level of business activity, especially in corporate management and in firm names, on public signs, in contracts pre-determined by one party and in consumer contracts…15

Furthermore, Bill 22 outlined specific penalties for any individual or business failing to follow

these procedures. The legislation outlined a fine for a first offense of anywhere between $25 and

$500 for an individual, and between $50 and $1,000 for a corporation. Even more alarmingly,

the bill outlined a subsequent offense (within two years of a first offense) as yielding a fine of

$3,000 for individuals and $5,000 for corporations.16

Bill 22 was the Québec government’s first movement toward mandating the use of

French in the private sector, a notion that was rather disturbing to many Canadians. Many saw

this as an overstepping of the language rights of Anglophones living in places like Montréal.

While Bill 22 mandated the use of French in many aspects of Québec’s public administration and

private business world, most of the legislations also allowed for an English-language option,

provided that French was first offered. For example, the bill states that “notices,

communications, forms, and printed matter issued by public utilities and professional

corporations and intended for the public must be in the official language [French]” but also adds

15 Québec, Office Québécois de la langue française, “Loi sur la langue officielle/Official Language Act,” July 31, 1974, 1, http://www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/charte/reperes/Loi_22.pdf (Accessed December 01, 2012).

16 Québec, “Loi sur la langue officielle/Official Languages Act,” 4.

that “the texts and documents mentioned above may nevertheless be accompanied with an

English version.”17

Though Bill 22 quickly became a controversial piece of legislation, drawing opposition

from multiple perspectives, the National Assembly of Québec, which fell under the control of the

Parti Québécois and René Levesque in 1976, would continue the trajectory of increasing

government regulation of language. Bill 101, known as La charte de la langue française (The

French Language Charter), was introduced on August 26, 1977. The law, which expanded upon

Bill 22, strengthened some of the previous regulations laid out by the Official Language Act and

added others.

In many respects, Bill 22 and Bill 101 were quite similar, with Bill 101 simply serving as

an updated version of the Official Language Act. Many of the regulations pertaining to both the

private and public sectors were nearly identical. But as political scientist William D. Coleman

pointed out in an article comparing the two laws, some of the differences were subtle yet

significant. In comparing the language regulations pertaining to public administration, Coleman

notes that

Both laws said that official documents and texts were to be in French, but Bill 22 allowed for an accompanying English version as well. Bill 101 had no such provision but added that in relations with entities outside Quebec, the government could presumably use any language, a position that was weaker than that of Bill 22.18

In relation to education, Bill 101 also proved to be stricter regarding language

regulations. Though it echoed the ideas of the previous Bill 22, the French Language Charter

created a nearly unilingual policy regarding educational instruction and administration. While

17 Québec, “Loi sur la langue officielle/Official Language Act,’ 2-3.18 William D. Coleman, “From Bill 22 to Bill 101: The Politics of Language Under the Parti Québécois,”

Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 14, no. 3 (September 1981), 465, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3230345 (accessed September 06, 2012).

still allowing for some children to be educated in English, Bill 101 specifically states that only

the following individuals are eligible for an English-language education in Québec:

(1) a child whose father or mother is a Canadian citizen and received elementary instruction in English in Canada, provided that that instruction constitutes the major part of the elementary instruction he or she received in Canada;

(2) a child whose father or mother is a Canadian citizen and who has received or is receiving elementary or secondary instruction in English in Canada, and the brothers and sisters of that child, provided that that instruction constitutes the major part of the elementary or secondary instruction received by the child in Canada.19

In terms of educational administration and bureaucracy, the differences were immense,

with Bill 101 creating what Coleman refers to as “essentially unilingual practices of the

province-wide bureaucracies.”20 The law restricted the ability of school districts to hire, promote,

or transfer employees without a sufficient knowledge of French, and additionally permitted

school boards and social agencies to use both French and English only if the majority of their

constituents or clients were not francophone.

One of the most commonly debated and perhaps controversial aspects of Bill 101 pertains

to its regulations on commercial signs. Under the original Charter of the French Language,

commercial signs in Québec were restricted to only using French, punishable by fines. Like other

aspects of Bill 101 and the previous Bill 22, the Office Québécois de la langue française was the

primary body enforcing these laws, sending out “secret shoppers” and other undercover agents to

ensure the use of French in the commercial sector. While this section of the bill would eventually

be altered, it stood as one of the most commonly-referenced portions of the new language law.

19 Québec, “Charter of the French Language”, August 26, 1977, http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=2&file=/C_11/C11_A.html (accessed December 01, 2012).

20 Coleman, 465.

Though Bill 101 has undergone a series of amendments and reinterpretations since its

inception in 1977, it still remains in effect today in Québec. In judging the effectiveness of these

laws, one must observe the conditions leading up to their creation and the conditions existing

after their implementation. Utilizing a combination of the various attitudes and statistics

pertaining to economics and demographics, it is possible to create an informed opinion on the

effectiveness of Québec’s linguistic legislation of the 1970s.

In terms of attitudes, there were many common themes pertaining to the linguistic divide

that existed prior to the creation of Bill 22 and Bill 101. In an article addressing these

sociological trends, Leslie S. Laczko examined what she referred to as the five dimensions of

communal inequality between Francophones and Anglophones living in Québec. In the article,

she identifies these five dimensions as being wealth, access to employment, geographic power

disparities, political power disparities, and perceptions of status.21

In analyzing perceptions of wealth among Francophones, Laczko found that the majority

of Francophones across all educational levels and professions were convinced that Anglophones

living in Québec were generally wealthier than their French-speaking counterparts. Incidentally,

her research concludes that wealthy Francophones were more likely to be opposed to this belief,

calling for a change in the socioeconomic structure of Québec. Her research indicates that

approximately 69% of “high education, professional and technical” Francophones, 70% of

Francophone “managers and proprietors”, and 96% of Francophone “farmers” found the belief in

Anglophone economic dominance to be valid, but also unacceptable.22

Similar trends can be found among the rest of Laczko’s research, indicating that most of

the Québécois truly believed that Anglophones dominated the province in terms of wealth,

21 Leslie. S. Laczko, “Perceived Communal Inequalities in Quebec: A Multidimensional Analysis,” The Canadian Journal of Sociology/Caiers canadiens de sociologie 12, no. 1 (Spring 1987), 85-86.

22 Laczko, 88.

opportunity, political influence, and social status. It is no surprise that, given the opportunity to

inflict change through the rise of the Parti Québécois during the Quiet Revolution, Francophones

in Québec would wish to implement legislation to promote equal opportunity (or in the opinions

of some, dominance or revenge).

Prior to the implementation of Bill 22 and later Bill 101, most English-Canadians sought

a policy of appeasement with the rise of French-Canadian nationalism. Before the Quiet

Revolution of the 1960s, English-Canadians in Québec’s business and political spheres were not

particularly fearful of a Francophone uprising. As historian Kenneth McRoberts noted, “Unlike

the Duplessis regime, with its strong electoral base in rural Québec and close links to small-town

elites and the clergy, the Liberal Party of Jean Lesage had roots in urban Québec.”23 Prior to the

rise of the Parti Libéral du Québec, most English-Canadians were not particularly concerned

with any perceived threats to their dominance in Québec society.

However, the rise of the so-called “new nationalism” changed the strategies of

Anglophone politicians and intellectuals, within both the federal and provincial spheres.

McRoberts identifies the trend of appeasement in his essay, claiming that

Initially, a good number of English-Canadian intellectual and political leaders tried to grapple with the new demands emanating from Québec. First, the notion that Canada is composed of two founding peoples or nations was endorsed by all three federal parties. In 1963 the Liberal government of Lester B. Pearson created a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism with the mandate to recommend “what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between two founding races taking into account the contribution made by other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada.24

23 Kenneth McRoberts, “English-Canadian Perceptions of Québec,” in Québec: State and Society, ed. Alain-G. Gagnon (Scarborough, Ontario: Nelson Canada, 1993), 120.

24 McRoberts, 120.

Attempts made by Anglophones to promote bilingualism across Canada and Québec were merely

a form of appeasement to French-Canadians who, for over a century, had believed themselves to

be an oppressed people within their “own land”. However, English-Canadians failed to provide

any real solution to the perceived inequalities between the two groups, ultimately paving the way

for the rise of French-Canadian nationalists and the implementation of the mentioned language

legislation.

Though these attitudes were often considered mere matters of perception, a number of

statistics back up the claims of inequality between Anglophones and Francophones in Québec. In

a work titled Governing the Island of Montreal, Andrew Sancton identified specific income

disparities, noting an average annual income difference of $1,898 between those of British origin

and those of French origin living in Montréal. Sancton identified similar trends in cities such as

Toronto and Ottawa, but asserted that the Montréal statistic was most relevant. On the issue, he

wrote that

It is true that Montreal French Canadians were much less likely to be bilingual than those in Ottawa and Toronto, but in Montreal, French is the majority language, and consequently one should expect English to be less necessary. The only possible conclusion from these figures is that Montreal’s English-speaking employers consciously or unconsciously discriminated against French Canadians, simply because of their ethnic origin or language.25

With these disparities in mind, whether perceived or in reality, one can understand how

the rise of linguistic policy came to be in Québec. What is perhaps more relevant is the effects of

these policies on ideological trends, income distribution, demographic shifts, electoral trends.

There are a number of statistics and events that pertain to the effects of the French Language

Charter of 1977, determining its ultimate level of effectiveness.

25 Andrew Sancton, Governing the Island of Montreal: Language Differences and Metropolitan Politics (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 20.

One of the most significant ideological trends that grew as a result of Bill 22 and Bill 101

was the Québec Sovereignty Movement. Though the idea of an independent Québec had been

discussed as early as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by figures like Premier

Honoré Mercier and Abbé Lionel Groulx, the movement really began to take shape in the 1970s

under Levesque. The formation of the 1980 referendum on Québec sovereignty was the most

visible manifestation of French-Canadian nationalism supported by linguistic policy. But how

did these attitudes come to grow?

The rise of French-Canadian nationalism and the implementation of linguistic policy

boasted Québec’s pride and belief in its ability to attain self-sufficiency. As one of the largest

Canadian provinces in terms of land mass, population, and economic power, the leaders of

Québec were convinced that sovereignty was not only possible, but would also be beneficial to

the province’s continued growth. In one of his most famous essays, titled “Quebec

Independence”, Levesque argued that

…our Gross Provincial Product for 1977, for the first time, crossed the 50 billion dollar mark…putting Quebec’s production ahead of all but a handful of the most economically advanced national societies in the world. Quebec is highly industrialized and solidly based on hydroelectric power, on forest and mineral resources, and even more so on the human society. Our society for a long time was considered, justifiably, to be behind the times. It has mostly caught up, is as competent, well trained, and educated as other industrialized societies.26

Though the roots of Québec separatism are deep, the policies of the 1970s enabled the movement

to grow stronger, leading to the rise of the Parti Québécois to majority rule in 1976 and to the

1980 referendum on sovereignty.

26 René Levesque, “Quebec Independence,” in The Future of North America: Canada, the United States, and Quebec Nationalism, ed. Elliot J. Feldman and Neil Nevitte (Montréal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1979), 62.

Many demographic statistics have shown the effectiveness of the language laws in

promoting and retaining the French language in Québec. The Montréal Urban Community

compiled a set of census statistics analyzing the percentage of Montréal residents using French as

their main home language. This study, utilizing the Canadian Census’ of 1971 and 1981,

revealed that in most municipalities within the city of Montréal, the number of French speakers

was increasing. In French-majority neighborhoods, growth was steady but notable. For instance,

the neighborhood of Outremont saw an 8.4% increase in its French “home language” population.

The Montréal French-majority neighborhoods of Lachine, Montréal Est, and Verdun saw similar

increases of 5.7%, 5.2%, and 4.5%, respectively.27

More interestingly, the increase of French as a “home language” in French minority

municipalities was often greater than the growth within French majority municipalities.

According to the study, the neighborhoods of Baie-d’Urfé, Beaconsfield, Kirkland, Pierrefonds,

and Roxboro all saw increases in French home language use of 9.2%, 8%, 8%, 11.2%, and 7.8%,

respectively.28 This demographic shift likely indicates an increase in francization within the city

of Montréal, one of the underlying goals of the French Language Charter.

Bill 101 also improved the linguistic situation in Québec schools for Francophones. The

late 1970s and the 1980s marked a decline in English-language schooling in Québec while

consequently marking an increase of enrollment at Francophone institutions. The Charte’s

restrictions on English-language schooling may seem to have obvious effects of decreasing

English-language education, but the increase in Francophone school enrollment was unexpected

by some. Coleman notes the bill’s effect on education in his article, stating that

27 Sancton, 140.28 Sancton, 140.

In its first year of operation, 1977-1978, the number of children with neither English nor French as a mother tongue enrolled in French-language schools jumped by 6.4 percentage points. In 1977-1978, for the first time, the majority (51.7%) of parents whose mother tongue was neither English nor French with children entering kindergarten enrolled them in the French-language sector. At the same time, these trends translated into a sharp decline in enrollment in the English system. For the first two years of the Bill’s application, enrollment fell by 15.6 percentage points.29

Even among immigrants, French has made significant gains. While English was typically

the language of choice among immigrants to Québec, with approximately 82% of immigrants

favoring English as opposed to French during the period of 1946-71, French language use among

immigrants grew immensely during the 1970s, becoming equal in popularity with English just

one year after the implementation of Bill 101.30 The growth of French as a language choice for

immigrants was a trend that would be essential to promoting the survival of Québécois culture,

as immigration would come to be the province’s primary source of population growth.

While Bill 101 provided the legislative foundation for French to remain the dominant

language in Québec, the effects of the bill were not all positive. The new laws restricting the use

of English became the subject of extreme controversy across Canada, upsetting English

Canadians living both inside and outside of Québec. While Bill 101 essentially guaranteed the

continued dominance of French in Québec, many would argue that such restrictions were not in

the best interest of the province, in terms of economic opportunity, educational growth, and the

growing cultural divide between Anglophones and Francophones.

One of the perhaps most justifiable fears of Bill 101 relates to its effects on business and

the economy in Québec. Many feared that the strict regulations pertaining to the use of English

in the private sector would deter businesses from investing in Québec, and that those businesses

would opt to instead invest and establish locations in Ontario or other English-speaking parts of

29 Coleman, 470-71.30 Roderic P. Beaujot, “The Decline of Official Language Minorities in Quebec and English Canada,” The

Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie 7, no. 4 (Autumn 1982), 372

Canada. Coleman identified this fear, writing that businesses “could conceivably experience

difficulty in recruiting for head offices in Québec if restrictions on access to English-language

instruction were too harsh, or if the quality of English-language schools were to decline.”31 The

Charter placed tremendous restrictions on businesses that were instilled to protect the rights of

Francophone workers. However, many of these regulations made it difficult to conduct business

in Québec, resulting in the migration of many corporate offices to Toronto and other Anglophone

cities in Canada.

L’Office Québécois de la langue française has been continuously notorious for its

enforcement of Bill 101 in the business sector. A recent case came to light in November 2012,

with the office pushing the regulations on Wal-Mart. According to an article published in the

Montreal Gazette, Wal-Mart’s Québec division is in violation of section 63 of the French

Language Charter, which calls for all business names to be in French. While the law technically

excuses trademarked names, the Office is currently threatening fines ranging from $3,000 to

$20,000 against the corporation if they do not change the names of their Québec locations to a

French-language name such as “Le Magasin Walmart.”32 While the Wal-Mart Corporation is

planning to take the case to the federal court level, this is but one modern-day example of the

strict enforcement of these language laws interfering with business in the province.

Migration was not limited to businesses in Québec. After the implementation of the

Charter, a mass migration of English-Canadians from Québec to other provinces began.

According to sociologist Roceric P. Beaujot, “there was a net departure from Quebec of 104,400

persons of English mother tongue, 17,600 of French mother tongue, and 15,500 others.”33 While

31 Coleman, 471.32 Sidhartha Banerjee, “Big Businesses Heading to Court Against Quebec Government Over French Signs,”

Montreal Gazette, November 18, 2012, http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/businesses+heading+court+against+Quebec+government+over+French+signs/7566651/story.html (accessed December 10, 2012).

33 Beaujot, 372.

many proponents of Québec nationalism were pleased with this trend, it would not prove to be an

objectively beneficial one for the future of Québec.

Québec’s declining birth rate is among one of the most alarming statistics pertaining to

the province’s future. While one of the goals of early nationalists was to increase the births of the

so-called Québécois pure laine, the French-heritage people of Québec, this goal was never truly

met. Mordecai Richler discusses this issue in his work Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!, claiming that

The problem is that since the eclipse of the church’s influence, there has been a precipitous drop in their birthrate, once the highest in North America…This punishing level of fertility, which seemed to be based on the assumption that women were sows, was encouraged with impunity from the sidelines by the Abbé Lionel Groulx, whose newspaper L’Action française, founded in 1917, preached la revanche des berceaux, “the revenge of the cradles,” which would enable French Canadians to become a majority in Canada. In 1990, however, the birthrate among Québécois women of childbearing age was 1.5, lowest in the Western world save for West Germany, whereas a 2.1 rate is called for just to replenish the existing population.34

Combined with the migration of both Anglophones and Francophones, the declining birth rate is

proving to be an issue for Québec. While this trend is not directly correlated to the

implementation of language laws, the correlated migration combined with the low birth rate is

predicted to be a bad combination for the future of Québec.

Many political scientists and other experts predict that these factors, brought on in part by

the increased regulation of language, will have catastrophic effects for the future of Québec. A

2007 article written by André Pratte addresses many of these concerns, noting that as Québec’s

population continues to decline, the rest of North and South America’s populations are growing

rapidly. Pratte notes that “less than 50 years from now, fewer than eight million Quebecers will

34 Mordecai Richler, Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country (New York: Alfred a. Knopf, 1992), 13-14.

be surrounded by nearly 1.2 billion English-, Spanish-, and Portuguese-speaking people…”35

This trend points to the diminishing influence of Québec, not only in Canada, but in the

hemisphere as a whole. One could argue this as a justification for legislative protection of the

French language, but these laws have in many ways turned some away from settling or doing

business in Québec, thus lessening the province’s overall influence.

Québec’s population situation isn’t expected to improve either. Pratte’s 2007 study also

predicts that Québec’s current population of approximately 7.5 million is expected to increase to

only 7.8 million by 2050, while the rest of Canada much faster. Subsequently, the Québec

Department of Finance also estimates a decline in economic power between 2010 and 2020, due

primarily to demographic changes within the province.36

Québec’s primary source of population increase has, since the mid-twentieth century,

come from immigration. And though Bill 22 and Bill 101 led to more immigrants electing to

enroll their children in French-language schools, the majority of immigrants in 2012 favor

education in and the general use of English over French. Historically, Québec has been a favored

destination of immigrants from Francophone nations or nations with significant Francophone

populations. Sociologists Gary Caldwell and Daniel Fournier noted this trend in their 1987

article “The Quebec Question,” claiming that “very recent immigration has had in its ranks a

higher proportion of persons susceptible to assimilating to French: for instance, this has been the

case of both the Haitians and the Indochinese.”37

During the second half of the twentieth century, Québec’s largest sources of immigrant

populations had been Francophone nations or nations with a history of French colonization, such

35 André Pratte, “Arriving at a Clear-Eyed Vision of Quebec,” Inroads: The Canadian Journal of Opinion 21 (Summer/Fall 2007), 129.

36 Pratte, 129-31.37 Gary Caldwell and Daniel Fournier, “The Quebec Question: A Matter of Population,” The Canadian

Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie 12, no. 1 (Spring 1987), 27.

as Haiti, Vietnam, Morocco, Algeria, and of course, France itself. This dynamic shifted away

from previous waves of immigrants whom were primarily of Southern or Eastern European

descent in the post-World War II era. While immigrants from Anglophone nations remained a

significant portion of Québec’s immigrant population, the growing concern in the province

centered on les autres, those whose mother tongue was neither English nor French. Caldwell and

Fournier’s study revealed that in 1981, many of the foreign-born people living in Québec were of

neither French nor English mother tongue. According to the study, there were approximately

88,000 Italians, 42,000 British, 38,000 Americans, 28,000 Greeks, 21,000 Portuguese, and

20,000 Polish living in Québec, all of whom were foreign born.38 And as history suggests, many

of these immigrants would favor assimilation into Anglophone language and culture, despite

regulations put in place by Bill 101.

Such a trend continues to be prevalent today, with growing immigrant populations from

nations whose populations are neither Francophone nor Anglophone. The government of Québec

published a set of immigration statistics in 2011, highlighting the composition of immigrant

populations. Between 2007 and 2011, Québec became the home of 245,606 legal immigrants

from around the world. Similar to the 1981 immigration statistics, many immigrants came from

nations of the Francophonie, the international alliance of French speaking nations. Immigrants

during this time period came from nations such as Morocco (21,655), Algeria (20,664), France

(18.223), and Haiti (13,868). However, Québec is seeing increasing immigration from non-

Francophone nations like China (16,053), Colombia (11,681), Libya (8,733), the Philippines

(6,405) and Iran (6,055). Again, immigrants from these nations may opt to assimilate into

Francophone culture, but are statistically more likely to favor assimilation into Anglophone

culture. With 72% of all immigrants coming into Montréal and another 5.5% into nearby Laval,

38 Caldwell and Fournier, 28.

it is probable that these immigrants favor English-language assimilation as opposed to areas of

the province such as Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Centre-du-Québec, and Gaspésie-Iles-de-la-

Madeleine, which are composed almost entirely of French-speakers.39

These demographic changes have yet to shake the solidarity of Québec nationalism.

Though the 1980 and 1995 referendums for Québec sovereignty had failed, the later only being

defeated by a 0.6% margin, the concept of separatism never truly disappeared. This became

evident during the 2012 Québec provincial elections where the Parti Québécois came back into

power after a decade of relative irrelevance. Headed by Premier Pauline Marois, Québec

Sovereignty has once again become a lively issue in Québec politics, with many predicting a

successful referendum in the near future. Though the Parti Québécois currently does not hold a

majority of seats within the Québec National Assembly, Marois has proven to be a hardline

separatist, advocating for an independent Québec.

The issue with a separatism referendum comes as a result of The Clarity Act, passed

through Canadian Parliament in 2000. This act, establishing the requirement for a “clear

majority” rule in any referendum for sovereignty, has made the PQ’s process of drawing up

another referendum more difficult. A June 2012 IPSOS poll, taken approximately two months

prior to the PQ electoral victory, revealed that approximately 38% of Québec residents favored

outright secession from Canada. The poll indicates that while this number is down significantly

from the early 1990s, it has grown significantly from figures taken in the early twenty-first

century.40

39 Québec, Ministère de l'Immigration et des Communautés culturelles, “L’immigration permanente au Québec selon les categories d’immigration et quelques composantes,” June 2012, http://www.micc.gouv.qc.ca/publications/fr/recherches-statistiques/Portraits_categories_2007_2011.pdf (accessed December 11, 2012).

40 IPSOS, “Half (49%) of Canadians Outside of Quebec Agree They Don’t Care if Quebec Separates from Canada,” June 29, 2012, http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5683 (accessed December 11, 2012).

Regardless of Québec’s future in terms of secession, the influence of Bill 63, Bill 22, and

most notably Bill 101 are still prevalent in the province today. These linguistic policies and

regulations have successfully protected the livelihood of the French language in Québec,

achieving their goals of increasing Francophone school enrollment in linguistically diverse

regions like Montréal and promoting employment and educational opportunities for

Francophones in the province. However, this has been at the cost of major migration and

demographic shifts, economic decline, and a growing resentment of Francophone policies and

culture among Anglophones and Allophones in Québec, with many of the latter group opting for

assimilation into Anglophone culture. Regardless, these laws continue to make a strong impact

upon Québec, with fervent nationalism and separatist ideas entering the mainstream of provincial

politics once again with the 2012 election of Pauline Marois and the Parti Québécois.

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