Talk:Language demographics of Quebec

Something isn't right here
The article mentions that less than one percent of Quebecers are bilingual. There's something clearly wrong with that stat. A correction is in order. Loomis51 23:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The 0.8% is the number for Quebecers who, during the last Canadian population census, declared having both French and English as their first language learned in childhood and still spoken. The person who added this information labelled them "bilingual", which might cause confusion. Usually when speaking of bilingual people, we tend to think of people who, in the course of their life, acquired a high level of competence in a foreign language. -- Mathieugp 15:35, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I can accept that explanation. I'm an anglophone with french as my second language (I'm not quite as comfortable in French as in English so I suppose I'd be considered "anglophone" rather than bilingual). However, something still isn't right. I know so many near perfectly to perfectly bilingual people that the percentage still must be way higher than 0.8%. I just think of how many people I know born of one anglophone and one francophone parent and realize the number can't be right. Also, what qualifies as bilingual changes from place to place. In Quebec, my french is considered somewhat weak. In Ontario, I'm considered perfectly bilingual, and in the United States, my french skills are so impressive that they think I'm a francophone! I know it's a complicated issue and that raw stats can be misleading. Loomis51 03:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

"required to finance"
I took this out until its meaining could be clarified:


 * Prior to this, Quebec was the sole province required to finance the educational needs of its religious minority. (The majority was historically French-speaking and Catholic and the minority English-speaking and Protestant).

Seems to me Ontario was required to finance its minority education. Or am I misinterpeting "required to finance"? PBrain 17:23, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Prior to Ottawa putting a line on linguistic minority education in the Constitution of Canada, only Quebec was constitutionally "forced" to take care of the educational needs of its (protestant) minority. -- Mathieugp 18:54, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

-


 * "Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 requires the Ontario government to fund Roman Catholic separate schools. This section was the result of an historical compromise crucial to Confederation."


 * So now maybe we're disagreeing about the meaning of "forced". PBrain 21:48, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

And here's the text of section 93:

Section 93 [Education] In and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education, subject and according to the following Provisions: (1) Nothing in any such Law shall prejudicially affect any Right or Privilege with respect to Denominational Schools which any Class of Persons have by Law in the Province at the Union: (2) All the Powers, Privileges and Duties at the Union by Law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the Separate Schools and School Trustees of the Queen's Roman Catholic Subjects shall be and the same are hereby extended to the Dissentient Schools of the Queen's Protestant and Roman Catholic Subjects in Quebec: (3) Where in any Province a System of Separate or Dissentient Schools exists by Law at the Union or is thereafter established by the Legislature of the Province, an Appeal shall lie to the Governor General in Council from any Act or Decision of any Provincial Authority affecting any Right or Privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic Minority of the Queen's Subjects in relation to Education: (4) In case any such Provincial Law as from Time to Time seems to the Governor General in Council requisite for the Execution of the Provisions of this section is not made, or in case any Decision of the Governor General in Council on any Appeal under this section is not duly executed by the proper Provincial Authority in that Behalf, then and in every such Case, and as far as the Circumstances of each Case require, the Parliament of Canada may make remedial Laws for the due Execution of the Provisions of this section and of any Decision of the Governor General in Council under this section.

Roman Catholic schools in Ontario already had the right to funding as a result of laws passed by the legislature of the Province of Canada.

PBrain 22:14, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

-

I will need more time to look into this issue. You are bringing up things I will need to double-check. Right now, I think the confusion comes from the "Constitution Act, 1867". Does it mean the constitution as it was drafter originally in 1867 or is it not the constitution of Canada proper just before it was sort of replaced by the 1982 one? I know for a fact the Charter of rights is what forced all provincial governments to respect minority language rights. I know for a fact that Ontario started to be serious about the educational rights of the Francophones in the 1960s. Prior to that, it is legal battle over legal battle.

I think it may just be that the basis of a constitutional right was always there, but it was not fully recognized by the Ontario government. In which case, you would be entirely correct in correcting me. We will need to clarify all this anyway to keep improving this acticle (and start putting stuff in Demolinguistics of Canada). -- Mathieugp 03:21, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * As for francophones, I'd say Ontario started getting serious in the late 1980s. The Constitution Act, 1867, is the name the BNA Act was given when the new constitution was brought in.


 * This is from the Catholic Encyclopedia:


 * "At Confederation the British North America Act conferred on the province power to deal with education, saving rights and privileges, with respect to denominational schools then enjoyed. During the union of Protestant Upper Canada (Ontario) and Catholic Lower Canada (Quebec), from 1841 to 1867, provision was made for denominational schools for the religious minority in each province. The Ontario Separate Schools law, fundamentally as it stands to-day, was enacted in 1863. The rights then conferred on the Catholic minority are therefore constitutional."


 * And a little more detail is provided by Renfrew County Catholic Board at


 * I'm looking for more defintive material. To us Ontarians, the constitutional status of separate schools is a fact of life, but it's interesting how little seems to have been written about it. PBrain

"not fully recognized"
As for the educational rights of Catholics not being fully recognized, there are some pretty big Catholic school boards in Ontario that have been around since the 1850s. If you're talking about the rights of francophone Catholics I can see your point, but, even though I may be splitting hairs here, I see that as a separate issue. PBrain 12:17, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * No, you are right. I tried to avoid controversy by writing in terms of religious minorities because the question of language was not explicit in the constitution before the 1982 Constitution, but if it means it is innacurate, it should be fixed. I guess I didn't think of the distinction because here in Quebec a Catholic was generally a Francophone and a Protestant was generally an Anglophone for most of our history.


 * How about we write a full article on the language legislations in Canada? If you read French, I know there is a lot of data on this here:

Législations linguistiques adoptées au Canada

Not related but maybe of interest to you, the history of the English language here:

Histoire de la langue anglaise

-- Mathieugp 14:53, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Good idea. The chief benefit I've got out of Wikipedia is undertaking exercises like that which let you find the truth behind the official story. I'll check the link and get back to you about it.


 * This also means we now know what to put in this article, eh? PBrain 19:03, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. I'll leave the final wording to you :-). For the full article on policies, how about we just name it Language policies in Canada? A while ago, I created Language policy and I contributed some info to Charter of the French Language. I always wanted to get back to it, but I had no motivation. If we are two people and we share the sources we find, we should be able to write good NPOV articles.

The best source I found for everything that pertains to language is here:

http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl

This site is a gold mine. If we can find a second source like that (in English), it will be even better. -- Mathieugp 20:30, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * The more I think about it, the more this seems like a great idea. The problem in Canada is finding discussions of these issues which are not utter rubbish. And anything which appears in the Canadian media is almost certain to be wrong. Talk about two solitudes -- most anglophone journalists don't speak French, and most Quebec francophone news organizations don't have offices in English Canada outside of Ottawa. Anyway, I'll look for English sources. Wrangling over this issue has really clarified it, and I think we may actually be able to produce something reasonably definitive. PBrain 13:51, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I tried to restore the pasage I excised with a clarification. It probably could be clearer yet. One issue I didn't get into was schools for anglophone Catholics, although maybe I've just thought of a way of doing it. I hope to get working on the other project next week. PBrain 12:48, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Ok. I will start to write some basic data in Language policies in Canada (dates, law names etc.) and try to workout a structure for the article. I will write the structure in the talk page of the said article so you can look at it. -- Mathieugp 13:39, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Google turned up a large number of pages in English about Canadian language policy, and I'm wading through it looking for good stuff. PBrain 00:05, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Great. :-) -- Mathieugp 02:35, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

allophone immigrants
I have read some news articles lately which suggest that a law has been passed, or soon will be, that requires the children of allophone immigrants to enter francophone schools. Does anybody have information to support or deny this?


 * The Charter of the French Language requires that all Quebec children who attend public school do so in the French network. This means all Quebec born children or the children of immigrants to Canada residing in Quebec. An exception to this general principle allows for children whose parents' attended English school in Canada to attend the publicly funded English language schools. -- Mathieugp 19:54, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hello, I've been reading this discussion with interest. I lived for many years in parts of Montreal with many immigrants, and these are afew of my observations:

1) Immigrant communities tend to come in waves that last a few decades (Eastern European Jews at the beginning of the 20th century, Italians after WWII, Vietnamese in the 80's, Lebanese and Algerians after 1990, and so on); 2) Most immigrant communities that arrived pre-1980 tend to assimilate to the anglophone community, while many who arrived generaly after 1980 tend to assimilate to the francophone community (ex. Vietnamnese, Arabs, Latin Americans); 3) Many immigrants have tried to immigrate to other countries before coming to Canada (UK, France, USA), and may have spent a few years living in these countries. They often have relatives scatered in countries all over the world.  Typically immigrants to Montreal will have cousins in NYC, Miami, Los Angeles, Paris, etc.  This is especially true of the more recent communities (Vietnamese, Arabs, Latin Amercians, etc. For this reason often the parents speak English, but the children because of bill 101 learn French at school. In these homes the native language is retained far more so that would be the case in Toronto or New York because it is the only language that parents and their Montreal born and raised children share. 4) The part of Montreal that allophones live in has a big influence on what community they will tend to assimilate to. The Western half of the Island of Montreal is still predominantly anglophone.  For historical reasons the Italians who immigrated to Montreal after WWII sent their children to English schools, and many of their descendents still do today.  In the Western part of the island the Italians are being assimilated to the anglophone community, but in the East End the situation is more complex.  Althought the Italians tend to go to English schools and many consider themselves to be anglophone, there is so much interaction and intermarriage with francophones that they often end up speaking French at home and working in French.  In other words they are nominally anglophone, but probalbly use more French and Italian in their daily lives than English.

Personaly I think geography will ultimately have the biggest influence on the proportion of allophone immigrants to Montreal assimilating to the English or French language communities. The Western part of the Island is and probably always will be predominantly English speaking, and probably accounts for 20% of the 3.5 million people in Greater Montreal (if you use a line roughly corresponding to Cote-des-Neiges as the East-West limit instead of the more traditional boul. St-Laurent, which I think reflects the linguistic division more accurately). The Eastern part of the Island as well as off-island suburbs (except for enclaves such as Chomedey, Brossard, Greenfield Park, etc.) are overwhelmingly French-speaking. Over time, as more immigrants to Quebec come from French-speaking countries, as their children go to French schools, and as they live incresingly in francophone areas in the East End and off the Island, I think you will see the proportion of immigrants being assimilated to the francophone community rise to about 70%, which is anyway roughly the francophone share of Greater Montreal's population.

- AP

nomenclature
Concerning the naming of various allophone groups, would it not be better to refer to them as "Chinese speakers", "Polish speakers" etc rather than "Chinese", "Polish" or whatever. You might be a Canadian citizen of Singaporean birth and still be a Chinese speaker. On a related note, does "French Creoles" mean Haitians? QuartierLatin1968 00:12, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, it would be better to put "Chinese speakers" rather than Chinese. Unfortunately, the data provided by Statistics Canada does not always allow for this. If I am not mistaken, the most recent census data doesn't give us that information. It might be worth looking into this though. Since this article is about demolinguistics, it would make more sense to deal with linguistic groups rather than national groups.


 * For French Creoles, I presume it means Haitian creole speakers + speakers of other antilles creoles.

-- Mathieugp 03:26, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Demolinguistics
This might seem frivolous, but I'm curious about the word "Demolinguistics". I understand its meaning, but how common is its usage? Google only turned up about twenty sites that weren't this article, its Canadian counterpart, or a copy of the two, and all of the sites seemed to mention it only in passing. A search through the usually comprehensive online OED returned nothing. Is its usage primarily confined to the sociological/demolinguistic field? Is it just a pretty word that nobody really uses? When was it coined? If I used it, how many people are there who wouldn't go "what?" --Words to sell 23:04, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I suspect that, like much of this article, it is a phrase that is common in French but unusual in its English translation. I know it's in the dictionary, but I don't recall reading it anywhere but here.  HistoryBA 03:27, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * The word is not common in French I can assure you. It is scientific jargon. "Demographics" entered the vocabulary of a lot of people over time, but like numerous other words, it started as a scientific neologism contructed with Greek (or Latin) roots. I'd say it was coined in French as démolinguistique a branch of la linguistique specializing in language groups statistics. Then it was used in Quebec (we have an army of linguists here). Then it passed over to Canadian English as "Demolinguistics". This is just a guess though. No hard evidence. -- Mathieugp 13:52, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Google finds 705 hits, plus "demolinguistics" should mean implications of demographics on language, which is not what the article is about. Peter Grey 16:20, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

To insert somewhere eventually

 * 9,178,100 for knowledge of French (Canada)
 * 6,739,050 for knowledge of French (Quebec)
 * 6,864,615 for French mother tongue (Canada)
 * 5,844,070 for French mother tongue (Quebec)

-- Mathieugp 22:33, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Corrected factual errors and Quebec nationalist bias; more to come
Quebec nationalist bias has been balanced:

- The "demographic collapse" of French Quebec was one of perception and manipulated for political purposes. The data clearly shows a continued downward trend in anglophones since the 1950's.


 * How does the infertility of the anglophone and their net outmigration invalidate the very real and easily observable demographic collapse o the francophones in Canada and Quebec? The data shows that the reduction of the proportion of English mother tongue in Quebec has pretty much stopped since the early 1990s. Please read the 1998 presentation of Charles Castonguay on this subject: http://www.parl.gc.ca/committee/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=50628


 * there is no demographic collapse of francophones in Quebec. You need only look at the numbers you yourself posted in the article. The number of francophones in Quebec has held steady at 80% for the last 100 years as the number of anglophones has steadily declined. This depletion of anglophones has currently steadied. It seems you wish for the decline to continue. I say a balance is reasonable. In any case, it is the balance that curerntly prevails, as Castonguay mentions. 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Either you did not read the discussion by Castonguay, or you are simply lying. Here are full quotes:


 * "The first point I want to bring to your attention is the demographic collapse of the French-speaking populations in Canada. I'm referring here, of course, to French as a first language. There's a table on the 1996 data for mother tongue, as compared to the data that the B and B Commission worked on in the mid-1960s, which came from the 1961 census. In this I just compared the number of young children, age 0 to 9, to the number of young adults, age 25 to 34, who would likely be their parents. A 25-year gap between these two 10-year age groups represents roughly a generation. The way things presented themselves in the 1960s, in the 1961 census, as you see, there are many more children than young adults.


 * In regard to the reproduction of the French mother tongue population in Canada, in Quebec and outside of Quebec, there was no problem at the time. The birth rates had just begun to start to drop and demographers had no idea at the time how low they would go.


 * Now, 35 years later, which is a third of a century, we're in 1996 and you see a complete reversal of the situation. The number of children is less than the number of young adults, and that's a trend I've witnessed now over the last 15 years, over at least the last three censuses. There's a deficit from one generation to the next.

...


 * If you want to look at the data by province, I've calculated the reproduction ratio by province. As you see, even in New Brunswick the ratio is 72%, meaning that for three children there are four adults. There's a 25% shortfall between generations among francophones, the French mother tongue population, even in New Brunswick. Outside of New Brunswick it's just horrendous.


 * There's no way to get away from this. Unless there are large numbers of French Quebeckers moving out of Quebec, the next census and the following census and so forth will show a decline in numbers. You can't get out from under this kind of deficit. This is a major historical reversal in demographic trends in Canada since the beginning of the French colony. This was never seen before.


 * There are two explanations for this: one is inadequate fertility; the other is linguistic assimilation. The director of Statistics Canada demographics division told you it was basically fertility that was the problem.


 * I dare contradict Mr. Lachapelle, whom I know very well. The main factor is anglicization. To make my point, I think you should compare the demographic deficit as calculated by this reproduction ratio for the French-speaking population in Canada, the French mother tongue population. It's 82% on the basis of the data under the 1996 columns in that table. So there's a shortfall of 18% overall. Quebec is included in this, of course.


 * The reproduction ratio for English is 98%. In other words, the number of children age 0 to 9 compared to the number of young, English mother tongue adults age 25 to 34, is practically equal. There's literally no difference between the number of children and the number of adults.


 * Both populations are inadequately fertile. The English mother tongue population saw its fertility drop some 10 years before the drop in fertility among the French population, but it was infertile even before the French mother tongue population.


 * No one is discussing in Canada at this moment, to my knowledge, anything like the beginning of a decline in numbers of anglo-Canadians, English-speaking Canadians. One hears a lot of talk about the aging of the Canadian population. Aging is one thing, but what the French language population has in store for it is not only decline in proportion, which has been going on since the Second World War, but a decline in absolute numbers, which will begin apparently in Quebec somewhere during the first quarter of the next century and earlier certainly in the whole of Canada, because the demographics, as we see, of French outside of Quebec are downright disastrous. "


 * Also, if you had read the discussion, you would have learned that the only time Castonguay even uses the word "balance" is near to end and the transcript reads:


 * "I concluded in the article, we must take the concept of territorial bilingualism from binational, bilingual, trilingual or multilingual countries that have achieved a balance, where some kind of lasting peace has been put into place—I'm thinking of Switzerland in particular—with some changes, naturally, to adapt this concept to the very specific situation in Canada.


 * There are no other countries like Canada. There is no other context like the Canadian context in North America. Territorial bilingualism could be something like a French-speaking Quebec, an English-speaking Ontario, except for the southeast, the northeast and the national capital region, and New Brunswick of course. I would let the people of New Brunswick, the Acadians, decide for themselves, don't you think?


 * So, it could be something like that, not a form of territorial bilingualism as radical as that found in certain very democratic countries such as Switzerland or Belgium, for I don't like the antagonism that exists between the Flemish and Walloon communities in Belgium. I don't think that's a good example of co-operation between two peoples or two ethnic communities. I don't want to give them as an example.


 * But Switzerland works, for example. The Swiss respect each other and live in peace. The rules are strict. Access to schools is quite different, depending on whether you live in a German canton, an Italian canton or a French canton, and access to services and all that varies quite a bit as well. I would not suggest a form of territorial bilingualism as radical as that. But perhaps Canada should ensure that immigrants who come to Montreal, who chose to live in Montreal and apply for citizenship demonstrate a minimum knowledge of French whereas elsewhere, we would ask for minimal knowledge of English. I don't see anything wrong with that." -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

- 50% value for allophone assimilation rates includes those that arrived before Bill 101, hence the statement was innaccurate.


 * Maybe the original sentence was not clear. The 50% is the current figure. In other words, currently, looking at the most recent portrait, assimilation is about 50% towards French and 50% towards English. The rewriting of the sentence is not acurate and gives the impression that the problem has been solved, when in reality, if the francophones of Quebec fail at integrating 80% of the immigrants to Quebec, their population will begin the decline very fast.


 * That 50%, as I have mentioned before, includes allophones that arrived BEFORE Bill 101, and who integrated into the anglophone community. The story is far different 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You are mistaken. We are taking about assimilation on the territory of Quebec. If you take just the most recents years, you see that assimilation is currently about 50/50. The reason you may be confused is because a lot of immigrants to Quebec already speak French before they arrive here. However, their first language isn't French, so during census they write that their first language is Bantou, Arabic, Berber, Spanish etc and that their home language is French. The result is that an incomplete reading of the data will make us think that there were more transfers towards French in Quebec than there really were (since the transfer sometimes occurs before the immigrant arrives to Quebec) . Please read my translation of a Le Devoir article by again Charles Castonguay here:



-- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC) - The fact that Quebec currently experiences a linguistic balance in Montreal is not even mentioned;


 * What do you call a linguistic balance? A balance between French and English? A balance between French English and other languages?


 * A balance between the number of anglophones and francophones 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * A balance between French and English. Both Anglophone and Francophone groups are holding steady relative to each other.


 * That's ridiculous. How can you on the one hand state (and overdramatize) the proportional downsizing of the anglophone "minority" of Quebec and at the same time claim that anglophones and francophones are holding steady relative to each other?


 * A 40-year decrease from 15% to 8% of the population is very dramatic. As you said, the balance is currently holding. If it were not for the integration of allophones, the anglophone population would be far smaller. You seem to want that. 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * A decrease from 15% to 8% would be dramatic if all those people had indeed ended up losing their native language. But as we both know, they just migrated to another province of what they consider to be their home country. Come on. That's what I mean by overdramatizing. A lot of anglophone communities saw major population decrease in Maritimes, in Quebec. These people are today living their life in English in Toronto and Calgary. The evil separatists are not responsible for the continent-wide trend of migration from the East to the West, from smaller cities to big metropolitain areas. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You cannot say one thing and the contrary at the same time. This is basic logic. Everybody can see by looking at the numbers that in Montreal, where all the action is going, there is a lot of demolinguistic movement, which resulted in an important increase (in %) of allophones, a significant decrease of anglophones and a marginal decrease of francophones.


 * Yes, so if anglophone are not allowed to integrate a number of anglophones, they will be wiped out. Why do you want that? Never mind, though, I suspect I know why. 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Contrary to what your terrorized mind seems to think, the goal of the Charter is for francophone majority to be able to integrate their proportional share of immigrants hence avoid the decline of this community of language, language spoken by individuals of all origins, just like English. Currently, francophones are not integrating ~82% of immigrants because 50% of immigrants integrate to English. These are just facts. If Quebec could do this, there would be a balance as all other immigrants would of course be assimilated to English, the only other community to welcomes immigrants. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * They are doing that. The francophone communitee in Quebec is not declining. Neither is their language. The anglophone communitee is.


 * Francophones moving to suburban areas partly explains the decrease of francophones on the island of Montreal, but not the global decrease in the Montreal metropolitain area. -- Mathieugp 16:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It is the immigration of allophones that explains that. Immigration that is neccessary to maintain Quebec's population. Looking only at the Island of Montreal is in itself a manipulation of data to justify more repressive language laws. People in fact commute from the suburbs to downtown and back all the time. The statistics that really count is the Montreal metropolitain region. That would correct for any migration to the suburbs.


 * You have just aligned 6 sentences that have no connections with each other. I find it difficult to follow your reasoning. You do seem to think that looking at the stats for the island of Montreal is "manipulation". That is not accurate. Montreal island has a different dynamics than the suburbs. Demolinguists and statisticians of all kinds very often study city populations and suburb populations separately to compare them. It is part of analysis to break something into its component parts in order to study it. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * If that were the case, you would have to remove the West island from the equation, becasue it is part of the suburbs. The commutes to the downtown core are just as long. The lifestyle is similar. The Island of Montreal is treated as a seperate entity in order to make it look like French is in decline in the Montreal area. It is not. It is expanding everywhere, even on the West island which was over 90% English 30 years ago.

- Demographic collapse of anglophone community outside Montreal addressed


 * Fair enough. The edits are very biased in their language, but the information is valid and revelant.


 * I think an encyclopededia article needs to be balanced; if politicized content is included, it should be in a section that identifies it as such and balanced by alternative viewpoints.

- Need to add a section on anglophone outmigration (so-called "exodus" post 1976) and francophone in-migration from other provinces


 * That is the reason why there was so little information of the outmigration of Anglophones: I have not yet taken the time to write a section on interprovincial migration. The heading used to be there in the article, however since there was nothing underneath it, someone removed it to clean up. You are more than welcomed to write on this subject if you are knowledgeable about it. Just make sure you mention that outmigration is a problem in the maritimes as well.


 * It's important. Outmigration has been an important factor in depleting the anglophone popultion for the last 100 years. Similarly, in migration of francophones from outside Quebec has been important in bolstering the Quebec francophone population and depleting the francophone population elsewhere in Canada.


 * I do not disagree with a full discussion on interprovincial migration. Your assertion that "migration of francophones from outside Quebec has been important in bolstering the Quebec francophone population and depleting the francophone population elsewhere in Canada" is simply not accurate. You have to be seriously malinformed to state something like that. The problem of all francophones in Canada is the infertility + assimilation combo. In Quebec, francophones are also suject to the same infertility + assimilation combo, however since 1977, they are better shielded from assimilation and they use political means to integrate non-francophones. Please read mathematician Charles Gastonguay on this very subject here: http://www.parl.gc.ca/committee/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=50628 -- Mathieugp 16:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * There is nothing wrong with integrating immigrants into the francophone communitee to sustain the viability of the culture. There is also nothing wrong with seeking to balance the outmigration of anglophones by allowing the anglophone communitee to integrate a larger portion of immigrants.


 * That is what I am saying. After 20 years of accelerating the depletion of the anglophone population of Quebec, the current policies have achieved a demographic balance between anglophones and francophones. You are implying that there is a demographic collapse. The only thing near a demographic collapse since the Quiet Revolution has been within the anglophone population. 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe you are confusing the concepts of demographic collapse with interprovincial migration. The Anglophone population of Canada does not have this problem. The migration of anglophones from some provinces (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, Quebec) to others (Ontario, Alberta, BC) does not cause the absolute number nor the proportional number of anglophones to drop. This is a population displacement. The case of the francophones of Canada is different. Their proportial number is steadily decreasing since 1867 and even before, however, the new phenomenon is that of their infertility, which means that if they do not compansate for their reproduction deficit just like anglophones, their absolute number will begin to fall. Its already started in outside Quebec. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * We are not talking about the anglophone population of Canada in general. We are talking about the survival of a minority anglophone communitee in Quebec. That comminitee is in decline. You might not be bothered by it, but anglophones are, particularly those attached to Quebec.

- politicization of demographic interpretation in Quebec needs to be described and explained more thoroughly


 * I agree. However, considering how biased and anti-nationalist your edits were, I fail to see how you could accomplish this in a neutral manner. You are free to add anything you want, however I very much intend to correct all errors and inaccuracies I see.


 * You have moved accurate data. For example, you have removed that over 90% of francophones in Quebec work mostly in france and 70% work in a unilingual French environment. You have also undone my correction that francophones in Montreal work mostly in a bilingual environment; they do not; most work in a unilingual francophone environment; this is important to understand when understanding the workplace in Quebec.


 * Your figures were misrepresenting reality and misleading readers. You were making it look as though the issue was for francophones to work in French. It is for Quebecers to work in their sole official language. French is the official language of the workplace in Quebec for all citizens. If the francophone majority actually worked in French, then the anglophones and allophones would be bilingual and also work in French and also English. This would be a sucessfull francization of the workplace, which is one of the goals of Quebec's language management policy. -- Mathieugp 16:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * My figures were allowing people to compare them to yours and allow them to make up there own minds. I have no intention of using wikipedia as a bully pulpit to suppress facts that contradict poolitical agendas that are purely ideological.


 * You are doing more than misleading readers. You are fabricating facts. The Quebec language charter says that Quebecker have the right to work in French, not the obligation. The Charter is deliberately worded that way. The Charter also makes many explicit exceptions that bare this out. This means those who wish to be able to work in French must be able to do so, within certain realistic limits. It is important to stress this, or people will depict the Language Law as fascist and authoritarian you describe as opposed to the liberal document that it is really is. You probably want to force everyone at work to use French, but that is far from the intent of the law or the popular will of Quebeckers.


 * Everyone works in English in Ontario. Are the Ontarian people fascists or their government totalitarian? What about the 8 other provinces where everyone accepts that English is the common language, are they also fascist states? Is a majority population wanting to use its language with its co-citizens only fascist when they are French-speaking? I am pretty confident that I am only stating a fact when I say that the intent of the Charter is to have French be the language that is spontaneously used in communications between francophones and non-francophones. If Quebecers have the right to work in French, then naturally it should only be occasionally that they work in English and presumably they would do this to trade with their Anglophone neighbours of the other Canadian provinces and the USA. Naturally, Quebec needing English to trade with its neighbours, Quebec anglophones are the best candidates for all those jobs. This is what they are doing in Ontario with the francophone minority: being bilingual French-English, they are massively hired to fill all kinds of positions where knowledge of French (in addition to English) is required. If it is good for Ontarians, why would it not be good for Quebecers? -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Now you that the Charter that the intention is to have French be the language that is spontaneously used in communication between francophones and non-francophones. That's exactly what I said. I said the point was that the intention was for francophones to be able to work in there own language, if they so desire. You said that it is for all Quebeckers to work in their national language, maintaining that it was an obligation. Point to me in the Charter where it says that? Provide the reference.  Again, you are avoiding the issue here. I was saying that you are clearly misrepresenting the intent of the Charter of the French Language. Now you rephrase what I said because you know I am right. I am far from depicting it as a fascist document. I am doing the opposite. I'm depicting it as a liberal one that expressly recognizes the right of francophones to live and work in their own language, and does not force anyone to do sp. All it does is ensure that francophones can use French at work, which is perfectly acceptable. It doss not seek to have the 8-12% of anglophones in Quebec work in English 8-12% of the time, just like New Brunswick's laws does not seek to have Acadians work in English 65% of the the time. As for Ontario, I think people who think that Ontarioan from the Alliance for the Preservation of English  who live in places like Casselman or Hawksbury expect that francophones should work in English 83%-100% of the time are at best unrealistic, just like people from the Parti Quebecois who think that anglophones on the West Island or who work as professors at McGill should work in French 83%.


 * Now for my personal opinion on the matter. You cannot impose things like language, religion, and culture on minorities. If you do that, it will be despised, and they will resist. That is why anglophones and allophones are alienated from Quebec civic society and prefer participating in the larger, more tolerant and cosmopolitain urban North American society.


 * So you think Anglophones in Ontario should stop imposing their language to francophones and allophones which is why they are turned into bilingual individuals over time? How do you suppose the people of Ontario communicates them? How do you suppose they share a common identity across all their differences of language, origin, religion etc. if they cannot get together to share a common culture? Should the native anglophones of Ontario only speak English to people they are certain are also native anglophones? Wouldn't that create divisions along ethnic lines? Wouldn't all linguistic minorities start to consider the anglophones as a group of "others" who don't like people from other countries? Wouldn't this create the perfect climate for the rise of prejudice against people who are different from you? Wouldn't that recreate all of humanity's problems within the province of Ontario?


 * Essentially, you are attempting to use statistics as a tool to justify a xenophobic attitude towards anglophones and the English language. That has driven them out of the province, into their own institutions, or into their private sphere. Read the definition of "anglophone". French is not the language of anglophones. English is the language of anglophones in Quebec and all over the world. If Anglophones work in English, then they are working in the language of anglophone Quebeckers. It is reasonable to expect anglophones and allophones to be bilingual or trilingual for the sake of unilingual or nationalist francophone coworkers who cannot or will not speak English, but please do not expect them to speak French among themselves. You are performing the moral equivalence of asking a secular Jew to pray in a Catholic Church. 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Is it xenophobic to wish that all Quebecers understand each other through their common language? Are the anglophones of Ontario, who wouldn't even think of speaking any other language but their own to anybody they meet in the street, also xenophobic? It seems to me you are going by the assumption that francophones are strictly a community of descent, that they are all Catholic while somehow Anglophones would be more diverse. Native francophones of Quebec are no more a community of descent than Quebec anglophones. Both have heavily intermarried with people of all kinds of origin. No doubt, historically, on the American continent, anglophones have assimilated a lot more people than francophones. Francophone Quebecers have only recently acquired some of the political powers needed to build the civic nation they have wanted to build as early as the late 18th century, exactly around the same time as the Americans and the French. Please read the 1838 Declaration of Independence of Lower Canada. Quebecers were prevented from doing this by British imperialists who did not wish for the existence of a French-speaking nation in America.


 * Ontarioans who live in Hawksbury and complain, say, about French signs, French on their Cornflakes box, and about bilingualism are xenophobic. AS for being a communitee of descent, that's largely a demographic fact. Most francophones in Quebec are descendents of the first settlers of New France. Less than a third of anglophones in Quebec are of British origin. That's not a criticism, that's a simple fact. It's also a simple of fact that anybody that has a family with deep roots in a any place is going to have a n attachment to their ethnicity: this means both French and English Canadians. Saying that Suzanne Tremnblay's or Don Cherry's nationalism is ethnic in origin does not have to be a bad thing: it means they're proud of they are. If it means that they they have a right to tell the rest of us how to live, that's a bad thing. Anglophones have been integrating immigrants for much longer. As for 1838, everything they wanted was achieved in 1840's when the Baldwin-Lafontaine coalition screwed the anglo-Tories and upheld the principles of Responsible Government and the acquired rights of French Canadians. They used the British Parliamentary system and cooperation between likeminded French and English Canadians to get what they want democratically instead of through violent revolution. But really, there's been plenty of history under the bridge since then. If I let the  more signifigant and recent griveances between Jews and Germans get in the way of my real life, I would have marreid some Aryan princess isntead of my wife


 * When two people who speak Spanish bump into each other in Montreal, they will speak Spanish, that's only natural. There is no problem with English speakers doing the same. That has never been the issue at all. At no point in time was it ever the concern of anyone. This is not what using French as "common public language" means. What people do in private is their own business: the language they speak, the religion they practice, the people they fuck with etc. I am always surprised how Canadian anglophones will readily believe that Quebec francophones do no share the egalitarian and secular values that were spread throughout the world following the American and French revolutions, but will refuse to believe that maybe it is their own national pride that prevents them from accepting equality between the two biggest nations living inside the Canadian federation. Isn't it obvious that this refusal is what is fueling the support for the independence of Quebec? -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I never said that the law sought to make people speak to each other in French. I said the opposite. I said the law was never intended to make everyone speak French in the workplace. You said this was the main objective of the law. By the protocols of wikipedia, you need to document that by providing a reference or quote to the Charter. You were saying that "French is the official language of the workplace in Quebec for all citizens. I disagreed with that. I said that the Charter guaranteed the right of all Quebeckers to work in French. It imposed no obligation. French is not my language. English is. I have no desire to speak French at work, nor do I have a desire to refuse to speak it. I understand and accept that francophone Quebeckers  have the right to demand it of me because of their attachment to their language and identity, but I will never share that desire. AS a matter of fact, I resent that something that is common courtesy and obvious to anyone needs


 * The official 2001 stats for language of work are these:


 * Quebec-wide


 * http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo44f.htm


 * Where we can see the in 2001, ~70% of Quebec workers reported using French only, mostly, equally (with English), regularily. Quebec workers working in French only, that's ~43% of Quebec workers. I can assure you that the ~57% of others are not working in Japanese or Italian.


 * First of all, your math must be wrong. These statistics do not


 * Montreal metropolitain area


 * http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo45h.htm


 * In Montreal, where we see what the trend really is, we see that in 2001, ~60% of Montreal workers reported using French only, mostly, equally (with English), regularily. Montreal workers working in French only, that's 28% of Montreal workers. I can assure you that the other 72% are not working in the Cree language. -- Mathieugp 16:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It is misleading not to break down these statistics down by linguistic group. Your statistics here are correct, but without breaking them down into anglophone, allophone, and francophone groups, you cannot make the assertion that people are 'forced' to learn English. Anglophones are not 'forced' to learn English. Neither are most allophones, nor are most allophones. If you wish to show this, then you need to point to surveys on the attitudes of francophones (which you do not).


 * Quebec anglophones number about 8% of the population of Quebec. Assuming every single one of us worked in English only, the number of Quebec workers working in English only should be at 8%, shouldn't it? But of course, they anglophones are in contact with non-anglophones all the time at work. What language is being used when francophones work with anglophones? In Ontario, it is almost exclusively English. In Quebec, it is not almost exclusively French, but it should be mostly French, but it isn't. English prevails of French in a lot of cases, and that is because Quebec doesn't not have an adequate policy to francize the workplace. I don't think the Quebec workplace could ever be as unilingual as it is in the rest of Canada, because the francophone majority of Quebec will always be more multilingual than the anglophone majorities. However, the language that should prevail, to respect Quebecers linguistic rights, should be French. Right now, a lot of francophones work in English, and they would not if their anglophone colleges were more bilingual. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * WHat you can discuss is how many francophones work in English, and to what degree. Why would someone object to an anglophone researcher from Merck Frost publishing papers in the New England Journal of Medicine? Seems to me that is something to be proud of, not described as something that someone is forced to do. 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * That's a bad example of what is happening in the real world, however it is a fact that English is the sole language of scientific publication in the USA. Naturally the Americans are only exercising their right to work in their language which is what were are not doing in Quebec. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * English is the common lajnguage of the scientific communitee. You cna publish in French publications in Quebec, but no one outside Quebec (or maybe France) will read it. Other natione do not have Quebec nationalists fear of English

- corrected erroneous imperssion created about bilbngualism in Quebec; with 70% of francophones never using any English, and 95% using mostly French, I think the extent of bilingualism in Quebec has been greatly exaggerated.


 * Your portraying of the success of the francization of the workplace is simply wrong. If there is an area where everyone agrees its in the failure of the Charter to address the question of work language. The day after the charter came out, it was the main object of criticism.


 * That's mostly by hard-line extremists, of which you are obviously one. If you feel the Charter does not go far enough, then you should perhaps include a section on criticisms of the Charter. The majority of Quebeckers feel the Charter protects French in the workplace sufficiently, which is why it is not changed.


 * By following an opinion because it supposedly would be that of the "majority of Quebeckers" I would comit a logicial fallacy named Argumentum ad populum. I am not one to follow sophists and populists. I am interested in the social phenomenons and the way to reason them out.


 * The people who critized the Charter at the time were mostly linguists and social policy makers. The kind that worked for the Commission of Inquiry on the Situation of the French Language and Linguistic Rights in Quebec. I fail to see how having an educated understanding of demographics and language makes you an extremist. However, I can see how calling scientists extremists can be very useful in discrediting a valid opinion in the media.


 * These people are largely Marxists, Statists. militant unionists (syndicalists is the word used in French) and generally from the extreme left of the political spectrum in Quebec. That is extremist, in my view, and most people oyside these circles would view them as such. Unfortunately, demography departments at the Univesity of Montreal, Laval, and UQAM are pretty much run by these people. Their "science" is highly politicized, as are most social sciences. 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Of course. All francophones scholars are too stupid to use their human reason and on top of that they are marxists. Discrediting people for their political opinion, calling people you have never met extremists has nothing to do with the kind of rigour people are expecting in an encyclopedia. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Plenty of francophone scholars agree with my position on the Charter with regard to work language: that it is there to give francophones the right to live and work in their language in Quebec; it does not force them to, and it soes not seek to attain any measurable targets of anglophones or allophones working in French. The Charter makes no mention of these. Provide the facts. Lets keep all facts and let people decide for themselves what is right. I'm perfectly willing to leave on facts and interpretations, provided that they are identifies as nationalist. Lets leave your statistics on there, and leave my statistics on there. If you believe that the issue is to have all anglophones and allophones in Quebec working in French, then say so and idntify it as your opinion, and that of a hard-line nationalist. I'll gladly say that my opinion is that the intent of the law (very reasonable in my opion) is to allow francophones to live and work and French, and let people decide for themselves if that is an unreasonable assertion. I can back it up with quotes from the Charter itself, from rene Levesque, and from the francophone media if you want, but you know as well as I


 * It is only stating a verifiable fact that the Charter aims at francizing the workplace, and that would mean that French would be the normal language that everyone naturally uses in the workplace. I fail to see how one can argue that this is not true. -- Mathieugp 16:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Again, the express aim of the Charter is one of guaranteeing rights, not forcing obligations. Anyone is allowed to speak speak English among themselves if they wish. 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * A successful francization of the workplace would mean that the 80% of francophones in Quebec work almost exclusively in French while the 20% of non-francophones work mostly in French and partly in other languages.


 * Again, this is your personal and extreme opinion, and not an aim of the Charter. Moreover, the majority of Quebeckers disagree. Most Quebeckers are quite happy and proud to be dealing with intenational business and using English. You obnviously have no problem with it either, or you would not be spending your free time writing in English. The stated aim of the Charter is to allow all Quebeckers who want to (i.e. francophone Quebeckers) to work in French if they so desire. Its not to ban English from the workplace.


 * You are completely off topic by introducing notions of personal preference and pride there. Quebecers need money to live and those who hire them all too often impose English as a requirement for work. Before, it was unilingual anglophones who would set the trend towards anglicizing the people of Quebec, now it is the bilingual francophones/anglophones who replaced them. Naturally, choosing between paying the rent or not learning English, that's not a real choice. On top of this, francophones are brainwashed all their lives about the absolute necessity to learn English in order to get the high paying jobs. A lot of things have progressed in the workplace, but the old habits have remained.


 * In order to work as an engineer in a globalized market place, you need English. In order to become a doctor, you need to read English textbooks. In or der to become a research scientist, you need to read and publish in English scientific journals. If you wish to work outside Quebec, you need English. If you wish to watch Hollywood movies without cheap dubbing from France, you need English. It's reality, not brainwashing.


 * I just happen to be en engineer and I can assure you that Francophone universities have French textbooks. Engineering is human knowledge, not Anglo-Saxon knowledge. Engineering textbooks are available in all kinds of language in Europe. There is no doubt the kind of globalization that is wished for by unilingual anglophones from the USA is a major threat to worldwide linguistic and cultural diversity. Quebec is faced with an extraordinary challenge, especially as a conquered and annexed nation. There are only brainwashed people to think it is morally acceptable for people to abandon their human rights in order to get a job. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * More than Anglo-Saxons use English. The Chinese do. The Indians do. Way more non-anglo saxons use English as a second language to work in a globalized world than do anglo-saxons. Most anglophones in Quebec aren't anglosaxons. I'm not anglo-saxon. I said nothing about engineering texts. I mentioned medical texts. It's a fact that in Quebec, you need to read English texts. Nobody is stopping francophone universities and Quebec doctors from adopting French texts. Not the bad Americans. Not the "Anglo-Saxons". Not English Canadians. And nobody in Quebec is required to work in English if they do not want to. nobody is forced to give up the right to work in French. I don;t give up any rights when I work in English. Neither do you. You spend a large percentage of your spare time writing English, so I have trouble believing that you are feeling oppressed writing here. 70% of francophones use no English on the job, and 95% use mostly French.


 * As I pointed out, 70% of francophones work only in French in Quebec. It is not reasonable or realistic to expect anglophones to work mostly in French, unless you wish to eliminate their educational and health institutions and forbid them to work together. It would require fascist measures. 155.42.21.135 09:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Making non-anglophones work in English is normal, natural, acceptable, moral, logical but when other nations want to do the same, they are fascist. That's an interesting theory. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * What I think is largely irrelevant to my point. The law does not seek to make anglophones and allophones work in French. The law seeks to allow francophones to work in French. Sure, it says all Quebeckers have the right to work in French, which is fine, but it's not anglophones and allophones who are asking for that "right".


 * Is your opinion that it is normal and acceptable for the majority of Quebecers to not work in the their language? Do you think it should be the same for the people of the other provinces? Do you want to read my personal opinion on this? -- Mathieugp 16:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Your personal opinion is clear from your biased article. That is my point. I'm sticking to facts. Any article discussing demography should stick to facts as opposed to justifying political agendas.


 * I hope you will stick to facts in the future. So far, you have been denying that francophones, being a majority in Quebec but a minority in Canada, are faced with a challenge when it comes to passing on their language to future generations. You have denied that the infertility of francophones, being to the same level as that of anglophones, also need to integrate a certain number of immigrants each year, otherwize their community will decline. This has been the central demographic concern of Quebec for the past 30 years. You have implied that these legitimate concerns are only that of fascist, nationalist, xenophobic Franco-Canadians who cannot count because their source of scientific data come from marxists and stalinists. Then you have called me biased and have implied that my wish was for Quebec to be free from any anglophone, thereby directly associating my name with people like Adolph Hitler or Lord Durham. -- Mathieugp 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I have not denied that francophones have a challenge in maintaining their culture. I have said that it is perfectly acceptable to give themselves the right to live and work in their language. I have no problem with that. I just disagree with your assertion that the law seeks to force allophones and anglophones to use french with each other in the workplace, when dealing with the world outside Quebec, or with francophones who do not mind speaking English occasionall (I'm sure at least 25% of Qubecois feel that way).


 * This would have to be similar in the Montreal area, however we have to expect the proportion of French-English bilingualism to be higher because of extensive trade with Ontario and the US. This is not at all the case. French has moved up the latter, French has made significant progress in many industries, however bilingualism in the workplace in the francophone milieu of Montreal is still the norm. --


 * Look at the statisics. It is by no means the norm in the francophone milieu. The majority of francophones in Montreal do not use English.

Mathieugp 15:10, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I have some observations on the linguistic situation in Montreal:

1) The public sector is overwhelmingly francophone. Even in Federal government offices and the municipal governments of cities and boroughs with anglophone majorities, the predominant language of work is French. About the only exception is English-language schools boards, universities and colleges, social welfare institutions and hospitals.  I've noticed that as the English language population declines, traditionally English-language institutions, especially hospitals and universities, tend to become more bilingual as they cater to an increasingly francophone clientele. 2) As to personnal services, the language of work tends to reflect the locally predominant language. For example, in the Western part of the Island of Montreal, English will tend to predominate in shops and restaurants, etc.. but overwhelming in the rest of the Greater Montreal area French will be the dominant language of work. People who work downtown often have to be bilingual because of all the out-of-town tourists and business people. 3) English does tend to dominate in many of the multinationals and high-tech corporations, especially if they do most of their business outside Quebec. Often you'll see an internal linguistic division within the firm, where the technical and operations side of the company works in French (mainly because they deal only with local people), but the sales and accounting side works in English (because they deal mainly with people from outside Quebec). 4) In the case of very small businesses, the language of work tends to  be the language of the entrepreneur, and if there are any employees, they are often the entrepreneurs own friends and relatives, so would tend to speak the same language.

As to the assimilation of francophones outside Quebec, I have to admit it's been over 10 years since I studied the question in detail, but here's a few observations:

1) Of the roughly million francophones living in the rest of Canada (ROC), you can divide them roughly evenly between those that live in predominantly francophone areas bordering on Quebec (Easten & North-Eastern Ontario, Northern New Brunswick), and the remainder who are scatered around the country. In short, the scattered francopnones are obviously being assimilated very rapidly, while the Quebec-bordering francophones are essentially holding their ground. 2) I think the basic problem of the Quebec-bordering francophones, is that, except for those that live in Ottawa, they tend to live in areas in economic decline (New Brunswick, Northern Ontario), and are suffering the same economically-driven demographic decline that francophones in the Gaspe, Saguenay and other isolated regions of Quebec are suffering. The general trend in Canada for the past 80 years at least is for the population to move to the big population centers (Windsor-Quebec axis + Vancouver-Edmonton-Calgary), while the rest of the country (except for the few areas experiencing resource booms such as Northern Alberta) stagnate. 3) So the real story is of francophones migrating from isolated Appalachian or Canadian shield communities to the big cities. Most will move to cities with large francophone populations (Montreal, Quebec City. Ottawa-Gatineau), but those who move to Toronto or Vancouver will eventually be (or rather their children will be) assimilated to the English language.

- AP

- AP


 * I've noticed that some people are justifying themselves by comparing the state of French in Quebec to the state of English in Ontario and other anglophone provinces. The key error here is that Ontario and other provinces do not resort to legislation to enforce the state of English, while Quebec does. Another key point is that assimilation based on language is not forced. People being assimilated into linguistic groups chose to learn that language. I admit that there is great socioeconomic pressure to adopt the language of the majority in the ROC, but that pressure is amplified for anglophones in Quebec due to Bill 101. Finally, the Quebec government is promoting bilingualism in the workplace, but strangely, their definition of bilingualism is complete francisation. If they promote bilingualism, then they should push for anglophones to speak French AND for francophones to speak ENGLISH. If that system would be adopted, the language debate would die down, the OQLF would be disbanded and allophone taxpayers won't be forced to give their money so that the OQLF can force them to send their children to french schools, possibly against their will. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.13.215.224 (talk) 23:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Refactoring
I believe this article needs to be refactored. The demographic terms are defined and then never used in the article. The Anglicization and Francization section is a mess and contains too much data that should be made more intellegible. There is no obvious place to insert information on the changes over the past 30 years and the current prediction for the future.

Here is what I suggest:

Montreal metropolitan area

 * Main article: Language demographics of Montreal

Legislation

 * Main articles: Quebec language policy and Canadian language policy

Various sources which do not appear to have been translated from French to English (yet)
From the Office québécois de la langue française:


 * Données sociolinguistiques - Table des matières
 * Suivi de la situation linguistique
 * Indicateurs et dynamique démolinguistiques - 1991, 1996, 2001

Net transfers between French and English 2001

 * Quebec-wide: marginal gain for English
 * Montreal Metro: net gain of 17 706 for English (native francophones adopting English at home)
 * Rest of Quebec (Quebec - Montreal): net gain of 9 895 for French (native anglophones adopting French at home)
 * Gatineau Metro: net gain of 2 443 for English (Anglophones account for 13.6% of residents)

Anglicization of francophones in Quebec, 1991, 1996, 2001

 * Quebec-wide: 1991 = 6 100, 1996 = 2 588, 2001 = 7811
 * Montreal Metro: 1991 = 15 186, 1996 = 13 792, 2001 = 17 706
 * Rest of Quebec: 1991 = -9 086, 1996 = -11 204, 2001 = -9 855

Francisation of allophones, 1991, 1996, 2001

 * Quebec-wide: 1991 = 72 246, 1996 = 91 224, 2001 = 124 181
 * Montreal Metro: 1991 = 58 956, 1996 = 274 873, 2001 = 103 559
 * Rest of Quebec: 1991 = 13 290, 1996 = 16 351, 2001 = 20 622

Anglicization of allophones, 1991, 1996, 2001

 * Quebec-wide: 1991 = 129 515, 1996 = 138 014, 2001 = 147 705
 * Montreal Metro: 1991 = 121 895, 1996 = 129 443, 2001 = 138 390
 * Rest of Quebec: 1991 = 7 620, 1996 = 8 571, 2001 = 9 315

Excellent ENGLISH LANGUAGE source on the demographic collapse of francophone populations dating from 1999
Getting the facts straight on French : Reflections following the 1996 Census by Charles Castongay, in Inroads Journal, volume 8, 1999, pages 57 to 77

Other publications by Castonguay

 * Assimilation linguistique et remplacement des générations francophones et anglopho au Québec et au Canada
 * Évolution Démographique des minorités de langue officielle
 * Charles Castonguay - Index par auteurs - Vigile.net
 * Charles Castonguay - Index par auteurs - L'Action nationale
 * Recommandations de Charles Castonguay pour renforcer le français - Extraits du mémoire présenté par Charles Castonguay aux États généraux du français

Recent publications by Marc Termote

 * Liste des publications récentes de Marc Termote - Département de démographie - Université de Montréal

Indicators

 * Language persitance
 * Language vitality
 * Language shift

(These should be in the Wiktionary I guess)

On this very subject:


 * Language vitality and Endangerment - UNESCO (PDF)
 * Indicators of Relative Ethnolinguistic Vitality

-- Mathieugp 15:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

a recent study
1999 remains recent in 2012 ? Relative to 2001, je suis d'accord, mais en 2012 ?

G. Robert Shiplett 13:34, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Historical Scottish Gaelic speaking population within Quebec
It is known that a substantial number of Scottish Gaelic-speaking settlers, almost entirely from the Isle of Lewis, settled in Quebec in areas such as Stornoway and Scotstown. There are several books written on the subject of the Gaelic in Quebec, the most notable (to my mind) being "Oatmeal and the Catechism" by Margaret Bennett, a respected authority on the history of Scottish Gaelic in Scotland and abroad. If I recall correctly, the book indicated that although Gaelic declined and ultimately withered away to nothing in the province, the language held on until roughly the 1960s-70s when the last Scottish Gaelic church services were held in certain key Highland-Quebecois settlements.

Many Quebecois Gaels apparently moved to the United States (Seattle) as they faced hardship in the province, rather than to other Gaelic-speaking areas such as Nova Scotia or Cape Breton Island. The descendants of these Quebecois Gaels subsequently lost their Gaelic and are now wholly assimilated, and although at least one man in the early 20th century was a self-styled "Gaelic bard" from Seattle, he largely wrote in English.

I believe that this would be a worthy expansion of the article, although I am unsure of exactly how to go about adding this information (with reference to the sources), considering that the article is written from a very contemporary perspective. Does anyone have any opinion on the matter?

--Breatannach (talk) 12:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Language demographics of Quebec. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080410021239/http://www.inroadsjournal.ca/pdfs/Inroads_8_Castonguay.pdf to http://www.inroadsjournal.ca/pdfs/Inroads_8_Castonguay.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080410021230/http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/ressources/bibliotheque/sociolinguistique/castonguay_indicvitlngues20050526.pdf to http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/ressources/bibliotheque/sociolinguistique/castonguay_indicvitlngues20050526.pdf
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/qc/aqc/pop_e.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:33, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Anglicization and francization
I would like to know What the figures in the B and C columns of the table in the section "Anglicization and francization" really are. In 2001, the number of French speakers according to mother tongue was only 5,761,765 (counting only single responses), thus the figure 5,787,012 in the table cannot be the increase of the number of native French speakers in Quebec. So which data were used to reflect the language shifts occurred in Quebec between 1971 and 2001? Onmaditque (talk) 09:28, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Language demographics of Quebec. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071008003749/http://www.ccppcj.ca/documents/castonguay.html to http://www.ccppcj.ca/documents/castonguay.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:53, 16 December 2017 (UTC)