VIVE LE QUÉBEC BEYOND

The government’s introduction of Bill 96 reveals a glaring neglect of the province’s linguistic diversity. Despite how much the Quebec government likes to proclaim that the French language is under attack, they often do not tell the whole truth. Recent statistics show that the proportion of French speakers in Quebec fell between 2016 and 2021 from 79 per cent to 77.5 per cent, while the proportion of English speakers rose from 12 per cent to 13 per cent. These findings are the product of a biased census, in which people who identified English as their mother tongue were lumped together with people who have multiple mother tongues, including but not limited to French. This skewed the results to propagate the victimization of the French language. The census also focused overwhelmingly on Montreal residents, which tends to be more anglophone or multilingual than cities such as Quebec City, or suburban areas throughout the province. Recent research by Jean-Pierre Corbeil, a sociology professor at the Uni versity of Laval, however, concludes that the typical categories used to measure language identity—mother tongue and language spoken at home—insufficiently capture the multilin gualism of linguistic environments such as Quebec. As most Montrealers know, the boundaries of language use are not so clearly divided in daily life.

By focusing on the false narrative that the French language is under threat by im migrants, Legault’s government ignores the actual socio-economic conditions re quired to learn a new language.

Jessie*, a master’s student in psychol ogy who is originally from India, could not find the time to study French while balanc

THE ENGLISH-FRENCH

ings, moves away from their family, and settles into a new environment, time constraints on learning a new language should not be added to the duress of surviv al. Bill 96’s language regulations on busi nesses exacerbate the barriers in ternational stu dents and im migrants face when job-searching, compound ing financial and mental strains. Shru ti Kumaran, a master’s stu dent in physi to take a loan to help me pay my tuition [...] it’s ridiculous how expensive it is for international students, on top of having to pay for housing, food, and so on,” said Kumaran. “I wanted to work part-time here to help cover some of the costs, or at least to help pay my parents back, but I don’t speak French, which has made finding a job almost impossible. Part of me regrets moving here when I could have gone somewhere like Toronto… or Vancouver even.”

Newcomers’ relationship with French is