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A Quebec flag flaps in the sky during the Moulin a Parole, a 24-hour long series of public readings, on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, September 13, 2009.
Universities fight to keep English education alive in Quebec
Concordia University announced it would join its fellow Montreal-based university, McGill, in providing financial aid of up to CA$4,000 to students from other provinces as a way of offsetting the impact of the Quebec government’s controversial new efforts to protect local Francophone culture.
In October, the Quebec provincial government announced tuition for students from other provinces would nearly double to CA$17,000 (it’s since been reduced to CA$12,000) and required at least 80% of non-Quebecer students to achieve intermediate skills in spoken French. The burden falls overwhelmingly on Concordia and McGill Universities, the only two public universities in Quebec that teach in English and attract a disproportionate number of out-of-province pupils due to their internationally recognized reputations.
The divide between Anglophone and Francophone Canadians has been a driving force in the politics of the Great White North for nearly three centuries, and the Quebec government says it is merely bolstering its hard-won protections for the French language. McGill President Deep Saini didn’t see it so sanguinely, calling the new rules a “targeted attack” on Anglophone universities that would do very little to improve the province’s Francophonie but would wreck academic reputations that took decades to build.
GZERO’s Social Media Manager Emilie Macfie is a bilingual Quebecer from an Anglophone family who graduated from McGill. She said she is not surprised by the government’s move, given the threat to the incumbent Coalition Avenir Québec from the stridently Francophone and independence-oriented Parti Québécois. “They’re scrambling desperately and trying to out PQ the PQ,” she said.
The financial aid from McGill and Concordia might help make an education in Quebec more feasible, but the early numbers don’t look good. Applications to McGill are down by 20%, and graduates are concerned their alma mater’s reputation may crumble if the best and brightest Canadians find another place to study.
A graphic showing English-French bilingualism in Canada.
The Graphic Truth: English-French bilingualism in Canada
Parlez-vous le français? Probably pas très bien if you live outside Quebec, according to census data from Statistics Canada.
The share of Canadians who can hold a conversation in both English and French has plateaued around 18% for two decades, despite strong legal protections for the French language and official encouragement of bilingualism.
The background: Political rivalries between English and French-speaking Canadians dominated the early history of the country, and fuel some radical independence movements in Quebec even today. Official adoption of bilingualism at a federal level in 1969 was meant to help heal the rift.
And in the first three decades, it met with considerable success. The share of bilingual Canadians rose from 12.2% in 1961 to 17.7% in 2001.
However, most of the growth came in Quebec, which continues to push up the national rate of bilingualism. Nearly half of Quebeckers are bilingual, compared to less than 1 in 10 Canadians from other provinces.
Statistics Canada explains that English-speaking Canada has simply outgrown the share of the country with French as their mother tongue, but also pointed out that Canadians whose mother tongue is neither French nor English —- mostly immigrants — are less likely to learn both of Canada’s official languages.
But there’s one more wrinkle: Quebeckers whose mother tongue is neither English nor French are actually more likely than the general population to speak both languages, with 50.8% able to hold a conversation in French, English and their mother tongue. Incroyable!
Hard Numbers: Ethiopian reconstruction, Russia’s surprising surplus, French jailed in Iran, Colombia’s Petro in pole position
300 million: Ethiopia is set to receive a $300 million grant from the World Bank to rebuild areas of the country destroyed by the war between government forces and Tigray militants. The conflict began in November 2020 and spread to other neighboring regions last year. Both sides have been accused of war crimes, but a ceasefire in March has held up well enough to allow for reconstruction to begin.
3.5: Are sanctions against Russia failing? The country’s current account surplus for the first quarter was 3.5 times bigger than in the same period last year. That’s because oil prices remain high, boosting the value of exports, while sanctions impeded the purchase of foreign goods, crushing the value of imports.
2: Iran has arrested two French nationals on suspicion of fomenting recent protests by teachers angry about low pay. France has formally complained, demanding the duo’s release. But Iran has recently sentenced two other French citizens to lengthy prison terms for alleged spying.
38: A new poll shows Colombia’s left-wing presidential candidate Gustavo Petro has a commanding lead ahead of the May 29 first round vote, with 38% support. The former Bogotá mayor’s nearest rival, center-right Fico Gutierrez, the former mayor of Medellin, has just 23%. In a second round runoff, the poll shows Petro winning.