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I actually thought that was a bit of an odd statement when I read the article... in light of everything else Prof. Vaillancourt said. It stuck out to me as well.
Yeah, there's quite a few striking statements by Vaillancourt:
Quote:
He notes that the majority of people affected by Bill 101’s schooling restrictions are francophones, because they are prevented from sending their children to English school.
“That’s fine, but I don’t think having a common language necessarily implies depriving ourselves of understanding another language,” he says.
If you are an immigrant in Germany, you don't have the right to send your kid to a English-language school. They go to a German school, because you are in Germany. Or pay private. But its not like kids would get no English education in Germany (or sweden or holland, etc), of course they would. But the fact that people openly argue in media in Canada that Quebec really shouldn't control its education system tells you what the RoC actually think about the status of Quebec.
Another example of this was the 1995 referendum, where the federal government intentionally undermined the vote by speeding up the processing of immigrants and sending them to Quebec, because they knew they would vote to remain in Canada.
I can’t talk about the situation as a whole, but I have immigrant family in Montreal and their native language is Chinese. Their second language is English. Their son has an English name, but he has learned quite a bit of French. He’ll likely be trilingual. But his parents will likely never be close to fluent in French. They don’t plan on staying in Montreal forever, and French isn’t very important where they will likely end up.
I would guess many immigrants are in similar positions. They will learn enough French to get by, but if they have any plans on leaving Quebec at any point, then English is still the language to learn.
I actually thought that was a bit of an odd statement when I read the article... in light of everything else Prof. Vaillancourt said. It stuck out to me as well.
I think I worked out the logic. It sounds like there are more native Anglophones and/or Allophones that have moved to Quebec but are learning French so at the same time, the use of French is increasing. Yet at the same time, more people in Montreal are likely learning English and actually speaking it which means Montreal is becoming more English at the same time it is becoming more French. Then Bill 101 has worked and Montrealers are truly becoming a bilingual or even trilingual population while French has become the all around acceptable form of language in public. This article affirms what I had said in that other thread with the language poll that French has become more well protected in Montreal than ever before and will not go away but English also will not go away.
This very subject matter is what we urban planners call "intercultural planning" i.e. planning a city, region, or metro area for the optimal benefit of all inhabitants. It is a fairly new concept that measures indicators of diversity and more importantly tolerance of diversity or tolerance of each other between two or more groups that historically have been foes or rivals. I don't think there is anywhere else in the world that culturally struggled as much as the battlefield of Montreal has. I actually wrote my thesis on this subject matter but focused on another place. Thinking back, how I wished I wrote my thesis on Montreal instead!
But the fact that people openly argue in media in Canada that Quebec really shouldn't control its education system tells you what the RoC actually think about the status of Quebec.
.
There is some validity in this statement, though Vaillancourt is not a ROCer. He's a professor at the Université de Montréal and actually worked on the original Bill 101 with Camille Laurin and company in 1977.
He notes that the majority of people affected by Bill 101’s schooling restrictions are francophones, because they are prevented from sending their children to English school.
“That’s fine, but I don’t think having a common language necessarily implies depriving ourselves of understanding another language,” he says. .
This statement by Vaillancourt makes it sound like there is no teaching whatsoever of English as a second language in Quebec's francophone schools. Which is patently false.
This statement by Vaillancourt makes it sound like there is no teaching whatsoever of English as a second language in Quebec's francophone schools. Which is patently false.
As a researcher, those comments remind me of the distinction between the research (which I am sure prof. Vaillancourt is very good at) and the policy implications (which are the result of beliefs, perceptions or ideologies, not the scientific method). I happen to agree that Quebec’s economic future depends in part on the ability of its inhabitants to speak English but that has no direct link with the effects of Bill 101.
This statement by Vaillancourt makes it sound like there is no teaching whatsoever of English as a second language in Quebec's francophone schools. Which is patently false.
What makes a difference is the quality of the education and also whether a given country watches television or movies in the original English version. People in Holland and the Scandinavian countries speak the best English in Europe. They watch a lot television in English from a young age and they have great education systems. Though of course it also helps their Germanic languages are relatively close to English.
It most ways Quebec has the same advantages, as there is plenty of English-language media available and its relatively easy to travel to Anglophone regions/countries. With a decent second-language education system, there shouldn't be any need for a year of all-English schooling to achieve high English language levels.
Vaillancourt is an economy professor, the only language he understands is the language of money $$$$$ and this is reflected in his study... He wants to sacrifice French for the sake of money and he has no problem with it. For Vaillancourt French is just an obstacle in a global economy that is English-led, he would like to abolish Bill 101 and reinforce English to make more cash. I dislike reading studies from economists...According to economists, we should all know English, Spanish, Mandarin, work also on Sunday, work form early morning until late evening and sacrifice our lives to maximize $$$. I much more prefer studies from social scientists, historians or linguistics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wren12
Sounds pretty much like language crisis (if you're interesting in things like preserving languages)
From the article:
Vaillancourt says in an interview: “at the same time Montreal is becoming more English.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I actually thought that was a bit of an odd statement when I read the article... in light of everything else Prof. Vaillancourt said. It stuck out to me as well.
The Nationalpost has (ab)used Vaillancourt's study and has used it to present its own political agenda, even though Vaillancourt's study is not congruent with the Nationalpost's message . You know, what does a newspaper want? It wants sensation-style news. It wants to have a clear, strong message. I read Vaillancourt's study and and the details about French are not as positive as the NP presents them to be. It's a mixed-positive with some negative information study in reality, that the NP presents as a "mostly positive" finding. It is important to note that Vaillancort only judges the situation of1971 in comparison with 2016; NOT between 1990 and 2016 and neither between 2006 and 2016. In my opinion, this is not really helpful because in 1971 there has been no World wide Web, and with the introduction of the WWW, French started to decline...
I guess most of NPs readers are Anglos, who certainly won't read the original French study.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wren12
Yeah, there's quite a few striking statements by Vaillancourt:
If you are an immigrant in Germany, you don't have the right to send your kid to a English-language school. They go to a German school, because you are in Germany. Or pay private. But its not like kids would get no English education in Germany (or sweden or holland, etc), of course they would.
Another example of this was the 1995 referendum, where the federal government intentionally undermined the vote by speeding up the processing of immigrants and sending them to Quebec, because they knew they would vote to remain in Canada.
Yes, Canada corrupted and manipluated the referendum. Québec would have been a free independent nation now if it wasn't for Canada's late desperate voters registration.
Quote:
Originally Posted by barneyg
As a researcher, those comments remind me of the distinction between the research (which I am sure prof. Vaillancourt is very good at) and the policy implications (which are the result of beliefs, perceptions or ideologies, not the scientific method). I happen to agree that Quebec’s economic future depends in part on the ability of its inhabitants to speak English but that has no direct link with the effects of Bill 101.
As a researcher, one should read the original source first before judging Vaillancourt's words in the Nationalpost. So, let's do it now. I compare now the NP with what Vaillancourt actually wrote, using his referenced study:
from CIRANO research: Analyse économique des politiques linguistiques au Québec : 40 ans de Loi 101 François Vaillancourt, Montréal 2016
The NP claims: Analyzing the supply and demand of English and French in Quebec over the 40 years since the language law known as Bill 101 was introduced, the study by Université de Montréal economics professor François Vaillancourt finds the law and other measures have done their job.
MISLEADING statement!
Vaillancourt actually writes that the socio-economic improvement of French is NOT the result of Bill 101:
L’amélioration du statut socio-économique des francophones par contre ne s’explique pas
principalement par la loi 101. En effet un ensemble de politiques publiques jouent un rôle
à savoir. (p.25) The major reasons that French improved is that Anglos left and that the once undereducated Francophones now are more educated and therefore more likely to be equally eudcated like Anglos, that's what Vaillancourt writes on page 25, so that's not because of Bill 101! And that's also why the main message of the Nationalpost's article is null and void.
Furthermore NP claims: Francophone employers dominate the Quebec economy. And speaking only French is no longer a brake on earning power.
Yes! That's not a surprise, though, because francophones are the majority in Québec and therefore logically dominated the economoy but Anglophones are still more than twice as powerful relative to their population share, page 19. And the % of French only speaker is shrinking, among young generation barely anyone is French-only anymore.
NP says also:
He is an economist, but Vaillancourt is intimately familiar with Quebec language law. In 1977 he was recruited to work as a consultant to Parti Québécois cultural development minister Camille Laurin in the drafting of Bill 101.
Jambo, do you now understand why the PQ is losing voters? They engage an economy professor who is indifferent towards French and even wants to assimilate Francophones by forcing them into one-year full English immersion programs... Franco's aren't stupid. They won't vote for a party that collaborates with people who don't care about French.
NP then says:
Because of the province’s selection criteria, more than half of immigrants to Quebec today already speak French, and Bill 101’s requirement that their children attend French school has ensured future generations become fluent.
These new information were already available upon th NP published its article, but maybe when they write that future generation become fluent, they mean fluent in English? They didn't specify which language, so...
Then NP says:
This is an increase in the supply of French speakers, and it has coincided with an increased demand, as francophones took control of the Quebec economy and workplaces became more French.
The reality, they say, is that language-usage patterns have become much more complex as a result of immigration and “inter-linguistic marriages.” Their 2016 paper says that while census data shows a slight decline between 2001 and 2011 in the proportion of people speaking French at home, it is compensated for by an increase in those using French at work.
WRONG! Vaillancourt writes that between 1971 and 2016 French indeed increased at the workplaces in Québec, yes. But French only increased from 1971 until 1989; and between 1989 and 2016 French declined, French also declined between 2007 and 2016. Vaillancourts write that on page 20.
The derease of French at home is therefore NOT compensated for by an increase of French at work between 2001 and 2011, neither in the past 8 years.
Furthermore Vaillancourt writes an interesting statement, that I have also already written in this topic:
Presnukhina (2016) examine les choix linguistiques des francophones en matière de
consommation de biens culturels (lectures, chansons, spectacles…); elle constate que les
francophones consomment surtout en français et les anglophones en anglais. Vaillancourt
(1985) quant à lui constate, suite à une analyse probit, que la préférence des francophones
pour l’utilisation du français dans les activités de consommation est présente mais est
moins forte pour les individus dont la connaissance de l’anglais est meilleure.
= FRANCOs use predominately French and Anglo use English (consume of media and cultural activities). The better francophones know English, the less they use French and the more they use English - the same does not apply vice versa to Anglophones. That's what I have been saying all the time: Bilingualism comes at the expense of French; bilingualism means that French is less often used, while English is the winner of bilingualism, as Francophones who know English consume media and do their activities sometimes in English, while bilingual Anglos nearly exlusively always do it in English anyway. Interestingly, Vaillancourt/Presnukhina even leave out "surtout (mostly)" in their observation for Anglos, while they insert it for Francophones, why? That's because bilingual Anglophones don't use mostly English - they use nearly only English or really only English. Now that the young generation knows English from grade 1, the demand for French is unlikely to rise in Québec...
Quote:
Originally Posted by wren12
It most ways Quebec has the same advantages, as there is plenty of English-language media available and its relatively easy to travel to Anglophone regions/countries. With a decent second-language education system, there shouldn't be any need for a year of all-English schooling to achieve high English language levels.
Exactly. It's more than enough if English is taught already form grade 1 - no need for English immersion!
I don't have strong feelings either way, but the Quebec government law that imposes the Quebec flag in the middle between the Canadian and municipal flags (in cases where three flags are flown) actually goes against international standards.
The international standard is that the flag of the *country* that you're in goes in the middle.
So Montreal is really just following the international standard.
BTW this idea that the city of Montreal as a municipal administration is snubbing Quebec or has issues with being located in Quebec in general is just a load of BS.
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For Vaillancourt French is just an obstacle in a global economy that is English-led, he would like to abolish Bill 101 and reinforce English to make more cash. I dislike reading studies from economists...According to economists, we should all know English, Spanish, Mandarin, work also on Sunday, work form early morning until late evening and sacrifice our lives to maximize $$$. I much more prefer studies from social scientists, historians or linguistics. 
