Temporary immigration affecting status of French, language commissioner says

QUEBEC — An explosion in the number of temporary immigrants in Quebec is having “significant repercussions” on the status of French, Quebec’s new commissioner of the French language says.

And Benoît Dubreuil has repeated his interest in studying the long-term impact of the increased use of English at home by immigrants, even if the Quebec Liberals have criticized him for it. They say governments have no business checking up on what people do in their private lives.

In his first report since being named to his post in February, Dubreuil wades into the raging debate about the number of temporary immigrants now living in Quebec.

Based on the 2021 census data, Dubreuil notes there were about 100,000 temporary immigrants in Quebec 10 years ago. That has soared to 346,000, about four per cent of the total population. Many prefer English, he said.

“Recent polling data shows that in 2021, French was less in use than English among non-permanent residents,” Dubreuil wrote in a 52-page report tabled in the National Assembly Wednesday. “We can consider that this strong use of English in the workplace among non-permanent residents (34.6 per cent) is having significant repercussions on the situation of French in Quebec.”

The Coalition Avenir Québec government has been criticized by some of the opposition parties for not including temporary workers in its overall immigration plan, which is increasingly being tailored to protect the French language.

In May, Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette announced the possibility of increasing the total number of full-time immigrants to Quebec to 60,000 a year by 2027. She made it clear the temporary workers were not part of the equation, would not be part of an upcoming consultation process and there was basically no limit on their number.

But the Parti Québécois argues they should be a factor in the debate because their total number has an impact on the status of French.

At a news conference Thursday, PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon noted Dubreuil is saying exactly what his party has been saying for weeks and accusing the government of caving into the business lobby, which wants more temporary workers.

“For us, it’s black and white,” St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters. “There needs to be a plan for temporary immigration.”

Also in May, Fréchette announced she was scrapping a previous reform of a popular student immigration program, the Programme de l’expérience québécoise (PEQ), in order to render it more accessible. The government says the PEQ is particularly helpful in shoring up French, because many of the students who make use of it already speak the language.

But Dubreuil raises doubts about that, saying it’s not at all clear such programs will result in more French being used in the workplace in the long term.

He said immigrants arriving in Quebec as asylum seekers and people who have had no previous contact with Quebec tend to use more French in the workplace (65.6 per cent for asylum seekers, 63.7 per cent for those with no contact) than those admitted with work permits or under the PEQ.

In his report, Dubreuil returns to a theme he first examined in a 2011 book he co-authored, Le remède imaginaire: Pourquoi l’immigration ne sauvera pas le Québec. In the book, Dubreuil argues immigration, which is often seen as something to balance Quebec’s low birth rate, is not necessarily the solution.

The book also argues that the language spoken at home by new arrivals is a “relevant factor” for measuring the vitality of French.

In the report, Dubreuil writes that if the growth in immigration has contributed to a drop in the use of French in the home and as mother tongue, such is not the case for English.

The percentage of Quebecers with French as their mother tongue has dropped from 77.1 per cent to 74.8 per cent, and French as the language spoken at home has slipped from 79 per cent to 77.5 per cent.

He said while the use of English in Quebec had been dropping almost continually since the 1970s, it has increased in the last five years. The percentage of Quebecers with English as their mother tongue has increased from 7.5 per cent to 7.6 per cent, while the use of English in the home is up from 9.7 per cent to 10.4 per cent.

At his morning news conference Thursday, interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay repeated that he thinks Dubreuil is out of line raising the issue of language spoken at home.

“Trying to convince people that they are a menace because they are not speaking French at home should not be part of the debate,” Tanguay said.

pauthier@postmedia.com

twitter.com/philipauthier

1. Here's how 23 bilingual Quebec cities and towns plan to challenge Bill 96