Impact of Language Policies on Anglicization in Quebec and Canada

Charles Castonguay Associate Professor Departament of Mathematics University of Ottawa

The context

The winds of decolonization which followed the Second World War were felt even in the more boreal part of North America. Some two centuries after the British conquest of New France, the descendants of Canada's original European settlers decided the time had come to share an equal place in the sun, on a par with Canadians of British and assimilated stocks. By the late 60s, territorially-based nationalist movements, which led eventually to the creation of political parties bent on sovereignty, had sprung up in Quebec and New Brunswick, the heartland provinces of the French-Canadian and Acadian nations. The Canadian government attempted at first to manage the crisis by instituting a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (RCBB). The central element of its mandate was to

recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation [sic] on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races [peuples in the French version]... in particular... to make recommendations designed to insure the bilingual and basically bicultural character of the federal administration... and to improve the role of public and private organizations... in promoting bilingualism... and a more widespread appreciation of the basically bicultural character of our country... (RCBB 1965:151) The Commission quickly found the situation so alarming as to warrant an early warning that "Canada... is passing through the greatest crisis in its history. The source of the crisis lies in the Province of Quebec... and has set off a series of chain reactions elsewhere" (Ibid.: 13). Its preliminary report also recognized the link between Quebec separatism and the threat of Anglicization of French Canada. The final report of the B&B Commission, as it came to be called, contained telling observa¬ tions on linguistic assimilation. In particular, it documented substantial Anglicization of Canadians of French origin outside the province of Quebec, and noted that even within Quebec, English was the principal language of assimilation of immigrants, except for those of Italian origin. The report added that assimilation rates based on ethnic origin and mother tongue data from the Canadian census were not up to date: "the mother tongue of the individual does not tell us which language he most commonly uses. The information is a generation behind the facts" (RCBB 1967:18). As a result, the Commission suggested that future censuses include a question on "the main language of each Canadian... which language he speaks most often at home and at work".

The B&B recommendations concerning language policy were inspired by both the personality and territoriality principles. Patterned on the bilingual districts policy in Finland, the territorial approach aimed at bolstering French where it was most viable, starting with the provinces of New Brunswick and Ontario, next door to Quebec: "We consider the bilingual district the cornerstone of our proposed system... a balance will be achieved - the French-language minority will know that it can obtain, in a given area of Ontario or New Brunswick, the same services accorded to the English-language minority in Quebec" (Afc>/'c/.:117).

313 CHARLES CASTONGDAY

However, in 1968 the guiding lights of the B&B approach went out. André Laurendeau, the Commission's original instigator and initial French-Canadian co-chairman, died prematurely, and Lester B. Pearson, former diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner who had lent an encouraging ear to French Canada's grievances, retired as Prime Minister, to be replaced by Pierre Elliott Trudeau. By 1969, the Canadian Official Languages Act, giving French equal status to English, including the provision of bilingual districts, was passed. New Brunswick also adopted a policy of official bilingualism. But in Montreal, bombs were going off, and the development of Canada "on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding nations" was to go no farther: the federal government was abandoning the "basically bicultural character" of Canada in favour of multiculturalism. In October 1970, the War Measures Act was revived to douse separatist agitation in Quebec. Alarmed at reports that even Montreal's Italian community was sending its children to English schools, the Quebec government established in 1969 the Gendron Commission to inquire into the position of the French language in Quebec. Demographers called attention to a new and formidable challenge: traditionally high French-Canadian birth rates which had, until then, more than compensated for the assimilating power of English, was a thing of the past. Insufficient fertility was making the majority status of French increasingly vulnerable, especially in the Montreal area, where nine out of ten immigrants to Quebec choose to live (Charbonneau, Henripin, and Légaré 1970). It was recommended that to secure the position of French as the province's majority language required among other measures a vigorous language policy favouring the use of French in Quebec society (Charbonneau and Maheu 1973). The 1971 census provided data on the language spoken most often by each Canadian at home. Actual assimilation rates could now be calculated, based on mother tongue and current home language. They confirmed entirely the B&B and Gendron commissions' findings regarding the dominance of English, including among the younger generation of Italians in Montreal (Castonguay 1974). Following considerable public debate and social turmoil,1 the Quebec government passed Bill 22 making French the official language of the province. This was reinforced by Bill 101, adopted in 1977 by Quebec's first sovereignist government. Both laws sought to generalize the use of French as language of work, while Bill 101 made primary and secondary education in French schools more clearly compulsory for children of future immigrants to Quebec, as far as public schooling is concerned. Bill 101 in particular was decried as excessively coercitive, and has met with constant criticism, court challenges and federal interventions, including the 1982 reform of the Canadian Constitution. The foremost American sociolinguist has even stigmatized Quebec as an example of just how far one should not go in attempting to reverse the domination of an assimilating language: Francophones... fear that, if current trends continue, they will become a minority in their own province. Such fears may demonstrate the supremacy of emotions over reason... as many Anglophones claim. Pointing out that the census of Canada data pertaining to the early 80s indicate that... only 53.1% of English mother tongue residents of Quebec still spoke English at home, 46.6% of them having switched to French... doesn't seem to answer at all to French fears, suspicions and concerns for the future... Thus... it may very well be that 'the French enjoy making the English suffer' (Francophones would add: 'The way the French long suffered under English domination'). (Fishman 1991:318) Before condemning the French majority's attempt to reorient linguistic assimilation in Quebec as "invidious" and "punitive", one should get one's geography straight: Fishman's tale of massive Francization applies not to the province of Quebec as a whole, but to the tiny Anglophone minority in Quebec City! Disinformation about the situation of French in the rest of Canada is rampant as well. Though the 1971 census data shed a cruder light than ever on the plight of the French minorities, it is easy to construe why Ottawa considers a hard look at their current Anglicization rates to be potentially subversive:

1. For an overview of events in Quebec from 1960 through 1989, see Levine 1990.

314 IMPACT OF LANGUAGE POLICIES ON ANGLICIZATION IN QUEBEC AND CANADA

If French groups outside Quebec are assimilated, then the Quebec government has a strong argument to the effect that a new political arrangement is necessary to reflect the evolving Canadian duality. (Beaujot and McQuillan 1982:179)

As a result, following election in 1976 of a sovereignist government in Quebec, an important federal statement on language policy (Canada 1977) nowhere alludes to the 1971 Anglicization rates of the French minorities.2 On the contrary, the problems of the French language in Canada are treated as existing essentially in the minds of French Canadians, in the form of a rather paranoiac sense of vulnerability and insecurity:

English-speaking Canadians... have difficulty in understanding the sentiments of a minority who believe they are faced with a very real threat to the continued use of their language... A deepening sense of insecurity led increasingly to irritation and impatience among French-speaking Canadians... There does exist... a sense of insecurity about the future of the language and culture of French- speaking Canadians... French-speaking Canadians feel particularly vulnerable by reason of their position as a small minority in the midst of a vast North American English speaking mass. The anxiety of the French-speaking community is that the pervasiveness of English... will overwhelm the language that is the very base of its cultural life. While the anxiety is real... (Ibid.:17,21,29,47) Ottawa's withholding of the fresh facts supporting the B&B recommendations did nothing to counter a growing anti-French backlash outside Quebec, which also led to the abandonment in 1977 of the concept of bilingual districts. The federal capital area of Ottawa had been the only bilingual district ever proclaimed. In 1981 the New Brunswick legislature adopted Bill 88, An Act Recognizing the Equality of the Two Official Linguistic Communities in New Brunswick. Like the province's earlier Official Languages Act, Bill 88 had few consequences beyond symbolic recognition of equality. Control over its own French school system, achieved finally in the mid-80s, remains the major concrete expression of equality of the Acadian community vis-à-vis New Brunswick's Anglophone majority.3 Meanwhile, Francophone birth rates continued to plummet in all of the provinces, finally levelling off by the late 80s in Quebec at 1.5 children per woman, a figure comparable to that which obtains, for example, in Germany. The full realization of what this entails for the future of French Canada is yet to come: The ticking time bomb that may set off yet another nationalist upsurge is the threateningly low birth rate that is part of Quebec's modernization... a demographic revolution whose implications are only now being assessed and the 'national' consequences contemplated. (Cook 1989:316) Finally, in 1988 the Ottawa government revised its Official Languages Act, subsequently reducing the number of federal offices designated to service the public in both English and French.

* * *

Enough time has now elapsed since bills 22 and 101 to gauge the success of French in its bid to replace English as principal beneficiary of linguistic assimilation in Quebec. It is also high time to monitor the impact of Canadian language policy on Anglicization of the French minorities outside Quebec. Using the latest 1991 census data, we shall first take stock of assimilation trends in Quebec and the other provinces, then consider their joint effect, when combined with inadequate fertility, on the future of Canada's various Francophone populations.

The reorientation of language shift in Quebec

Current language shift between the English and French language groups works to the advantage of English in Quebec, though to a lesser extent than in the rest of Canada. Recent censuses

2. For a detailed critique of this policy statement see Castonguay 1979. 3. For an excellent overview of the Acadians' frustrated quest for greater autonomy in New Brunswick since the 60s, see Doucet 1995.

315 CHARLES CASTONGUAY

all show a somewhat greater number of persons of French mother tongue who speak mainly English at home, than of cases of similar shift from English to French. However, the difference is relatively slight, and has not varied significantly between 1971 and 1991 (Castonguay 1995). Consequently we shall only discuss the more notable assimilation trends, which concern Quebec's Allophone population (of mother tongue other than English or French). To a remarkable degree—more so than among comparable communities In the rest of Canada— most of Quebec's Allophones continue to speak mainly Greek, Arab, or Chinese at home. But as the B&B and Gendron commissions pointed out, among those who do adopt a new home language, Anglicization (adoption of English) is much more common than Francization (adoption of French). The 1971 census data made quantification of this relative dominance of English quite simple: among the minority of Quebec Allophones who claimed a new home language, 70% reported English, leaving only 30% for French.4 We shall refer to the latter as their relative Francization rate. Relative Francization was 32% among Canadian-born Allophones. and 27% among immigrants (Castonguay 1994:137). By 1981, relative Francization had dropped sharply to 25% among the Canadian-born, but had risen even more to 35% among immigrants, yielding a slightly higher overall relative Francization rate of 32%. The increased power of assimilation of English among the Canadian-born was the logical outcome of the growing preference for English schools noted by the Gendron Commission, particularly among the Italians of Montreal, whereas higher Francization among Allophone Immigrants resulted above all from a change in the composition of Immigration to Quebec, notably from the arrival of Haitian and Vietnamese refugees during the 70s. Table 1 follows the trend through 1991. While English continued to dominate French to about the same degree among the Canadian-born throughout the 80s, relative Francization rose markedly to 48% among Allophone immigrants.

TABLE 1: Relative Francization Rate of Allophones, by Immigration Status, Quebec, 1971 to 1991

1971 1981 1991

Total 30% 32% 39% Non-Immigrants 32% 25% 24% Immigrants 27% 35% 48%

Source: Castonguay 1994:137 and 1991 census special tabulation.

The sharpness of the latter increase is due to important changes in the 1991 census questionnaire. For example, it can be estimated that some 10,000 Haitians who had already immigrated to Quebec during the 70s had given French as both mother tongue and home language in 1981, but reported Creole as mother tongue and French as home language on the new 1991 questionnaire. If like cases of shift to French had been reported as such in 1981, growth in the French share of assimilation among immigrant Allophones would be more evenly spread over the 20-year period than Table 1 leads one to believe. As for explaining the increase per se, it cannot In the main be attributed to bills 22 and 101. The trend began at least a decade earlier, and springs from a very substantial change in the linguistic make-up of Allophone immigration to Quebec. Table 2 shows a high correlation between the Increase in relative Francization and the growing importance of the naturally French-oriented component of Allophone immigration, made up of newcomers either having as mother tongue a Romance language, or hailing from former French colonies or protectorates: to wit, immigrants of Portuguese, Spanish, Arab, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Creole mother tongues.

4. Aboriginal languages excluded, as the collaboration of Aboriginal populations with Canadian census-taking is highly erratic.

316 IMPACT OF LANGUAGE POLICIES ON ANGLOZATION IN QUEBEC AND CANADA

TABLE 2: Relative Weight of French-Oriented Component and Relative Francization Rate Among Allophone Immigrants, by Period of Immigration. Quebec, 1991 (in %)

Period of Immigration Before 1966- 1971- 1976- 1981- 1986 1966 1970 1975 1980 1985 1991 Weight of French-Oriented Component 8 26 50 53 57 57 Relative Francization 26 42 55 69 71 68

Source: 1991 census special tabulation.

While practically absent from immigration prior to the mid-60s, such French-oriented Allophones —as opposed to the English-oriented, who mainly assimilate to English— made up over half of all Allophone newcomers to Quebec by the mid-70s. Their increased weight accounts for more than half of the rise in relative Francization among immigrant Allophones: Table 2 shows clearly that even before Bill 22 came into full effect, the weight of the French-oriented component had risen from 8% to 50% of Allophone immigrants, and relative Francization had followed suit, already topping 50% among the 1970-75 cohort.5

The further increase in relative Francization, to around 70% among each of the three most recently arrived cohorts, appears due mostly to compulsory education in French schools for the children of Allophones who arrived since the mid-70s. Francization of the language of work seems to have had less impact on Allophones who immigrated at 15 years of age or more.

TABLE 3: Relative Francization of Allophone Immigrants, by Linguistic Orientation, Age on Arrival, and Period of Immigration, Quebec. 1991 (in %)

Period of Immigration Before 1966- 1971- 1976- 1981- 1986 Age on Arrival 1966 1970 1975 1980 1985 1991

English-Oriented Allophones

Total 23 29 27 41 44 40

0-14 18 14 16 46 65 57

15 and over 27 36 30 40 39 37

Portuguese, Spanish, and Arab Mother Tongues

Total 58 64 68 78 82 81

0-14 43 40 59 77 85 85

15 and over 69 76 73 79 81 80

Source: 1991 census special tabulation.

The upper half of Table 3 shows indeed that among the successive cohorts of English-oriented Allophones, the assimilating power of French upon those who arrived at school or pre-school age tripled as of the 1976-80 cohort, but increased much less significantly among those aged 15 years or more on arrival. A similar pattern can be seen in the lower half of Table 3, which singles out the Portuguese, Spanish, and Arab mother tongue components of French-oriented immigration. The remaining elements: Creole, Cambodian, and Vietnamese, are so massively French-oriented, with relative Francization rates of 95% or more among all ages on arrival, that their inclusion in Table 3 would merely have blurred the pattern under observation.

5. The latter observation was originally made using 1981 census data: , see Termote and Gauvreau 1988.

317 CHARLES CASTONGUAY

The only nuance In the second part of Table 3, Is that the upswing in favour of French among the younger French-oriented newcomers begins earlier, starting with the 1971-75 cohort. This no doubt reflects a more ready compliance with the schooling regulations of Bill 22 (adopted in 1974) than was the case among English-oriented Allophones (Levine 1990:105). The two factors favouring Francization of Quebec's Allophone immigrants —the new majority status of the French-oriented component of newcomers since the early 70s, and the language laws of the mld-70s— appear to have reached their full effect, in that the relative Francization rate has remained approximately constant at about 70% for each of the three most recent 5- year cohorts (Table 2). As the time these factors first came into play recedes into the past, the growing weight of more recent Immigration has caused relative Francization to rise from 30% in 1971 to 39% in 1991 for the overall Allophone population (Table 1), in spite of the decrease in the drawing power of French among those born in Canada.

Quebec's linguistic future

If one sets Allophones aside, the remaining Quebec population is over 85% French-speaking, and less than 15% English. Thus, even the 70% share of Allophone assimilation among the more recent immigrants —let alone the 39% share of overall Allophone assimilation attained In 1991— will not sustain the demographic weight of French relative to English in Quebec. One should also bear in mind that although it is no doubt the best indicator of the relative strength of competing languages, language shift plays a fairly minor role in the demography of language groups In Quebec, at least in the short term. Fertility and in- and out-migration are more decisive.

This can be seen by considering, for instance, the joint Impact of language shift and fertility on Quebec's English and French mother tongue populations. According to the 1991 data, in Quebec both languages now clearly benefit from assimilation. Since parents usually transmit their home language as mother tongue to their children, this means that a greater number of children than would otherwise be the case are of English or French mother tongue. However, both groups' linguistic reproduction rate —the ratio of children aged 0 to 9 with a given mother tongue divided by the number of adults aged 25 to 34 with the same mother tongue— was in 1991 well below the 1.00 replacement level. Because of English's greater power of assimilation, the reproduction rate of the English mother tongue group, at 0.81, is higher than that of the French group, which is only 0.73.6 But insufficient fertility more than wipes out gains made by both groups via language shift. To this one must add that immigration to Quebec Is mainly Allophone. It is no wonder, then, that even under the hypothesis of a higher relative Francization rate than that observed in 1991, demographic predictions foresee a coming decline in absolute numbers of Quebec's Francophone population (Termote 1994). In terms of relative weight, decline has already set In (Harrison and Marmen 1994:14). To adequately gauge the demographic impact of the recent reorientation of language shift in favour of French among Quebec's immigrant Allophones, one must look at the raw figures behind the percentages. In Table 4, we have grouped Canada-born Allophones with those who immigrated before the mid-60s, since relative Francization of both categories is close to 25%. We have done likewise for the three cohorts of Allophones who arrived since the mid-70s, as their relative Francization rates all hover around 70%. Table 4 shows that Allophone shift to French runs only in the tens of thousands. It can be estimated that to make up for inadequate Francophone fertility would require language shift À gains for French in Quebec of over 100,000 Allophones every 5 years! Only English, at the Canada-wide level, draws numbers of that order.

6. Statistics Canada publication 94-319 (1993). IMPACT OF LANGUAGE POLICIES ON ANGLICIZATION IN QUEBEC AND CANADA

TABLE 4: Language Shift Among Allophones, by Immigration Status, Quebec, 1991 (to the nearest hundred)

Immigration Total Shift to Shift to Relative Status Allophones English Freeh Francization (1) (2) (2) / (1+2) Total 582,000 134,100 86,400 39%

Quebec-born or 303,900 100,600 33,800 25% immigrated before 1966 Immigrated 1966-1970 41,700 9,400 6,800 42% Immigrated 1971-1975 43,100 7,500 9,300 55% Immigrated 1976-1991 193,00 16,500 36,600 69%

Source: 1991 census special tabulation.

Upon closer examination, Table 4 shows a total of 52,700 cases of Francization among Allophones who Immigrated to Quebec after the mid-60s. Had the relative Francization rate remained at 25%, as for earlier immigration or —since the 1981 census— as for those born in Quebec, the French share of total Allophone shift would have been about 21,500 (25% of 86,100 shifts to either English or French). The supplement of a little more than 30,000 is the total gain due to increased relative Francization of Allophones who immigrated to Quebec over the 25-year period between 1966 and 1991. A drop in the bucket, compared to the collapse of Francophone fertility: in 1991, there were approximately 350,000 less French-speaking children aged 0 to 9 in Quebec than in 1961.

Assimilation of the French minorities

Outside Quebec, the assimilating power of French is practically nil. Hence for each French minority, we need only investigate its net Anglicization rate, which equals the shortfall between French mother tongue and French home language counts, divided by the former. Change in home language behaviour is an age-specific phenomenon. It generally occurs during passage from one's childhood home to the home environment one defines for oneself —and for one's children— as a mature adult. Consequently, language shift among adults aged 35 to 44 appears the most relevant standard by which to measure the full impact of assimilation at the individual level (Castonguay 1977). Table 5 shows a general increase in net Anglicization rates of mature Francophone adults In the provinces outside Quebec. Rates for other adult age groups yield an identical result, even among the younger 15-24 and 25-34 age groups.

TABLE 5: Net Anglicization Rate of Francophones aged 35-44, French Mother Tongue Minorities Outside Quebec, 1971 and 1991

1971 1991

Newfoundland 35% 65% Prince Edward Island 50% 55% Nova Scotia 42% 51% New Brunswick 12% 11% Ontario 38% 43% Manitoba 45% 63% Saskatchewan 60% 79% Alberta 64% 74% British Columbia 77% 76%

Sources: Statistics Canada publications 92-733 (1974) and 94-319 (1993).

319 CHARLES CASTONGUAY

A small reduction of Angliclzation is apparent only In New Brunswick and British Columbia. The latter case is insignificant: Anglicization fluctuates slightly in British Columbia with the ebb and flow of young Quebec Francophones temporarily attracted to the West Coast and remains, in any case, phenomenally high. In contrast, the decrease of about 1% in New Brunswick has held up thus far under critical examination, including estimation of the impact of the new 1991 questionnaire on assimilation rates (Castonguay 1995). Similar comparability checks of the data from different censuses indicate that in the seven other provinces, a minor part of each of the increases in Francophone Anglicization rates indicated in Table 5 results from the inflationary effect of the 1991 questionnaire on assimilation rates of minorities of all kinds. However, the major part of each increase stands up as real, including among the numerically most important French minority in Ontario. We note furthermore that the 1991 language data is considered more accurate than data from earlier censuses (Statistics Canada 1994 and 1995). From the point of view of reducing —let alone eliminating—Anglicization of the French minorities outside Quebec, Canadian language policy may be considered, therefore, a distinct failure. The possible exception of New Brunswick can be more properly ascribed to the Acadian minority's tenacious sense of nationhood, as we shall see below.

The future of French as first language outside Quebec

Worse yet is in store for French as a first language —as opposed to mere learning of French as a second language— outside Quebec. Anglicized adults normally pass on English as mother tongue to their children, giving rise to intergenerational assimilation. In addition, Francophone birth rates have foundered not only in French Canada's heartland. In the whole of Canada ouside Quebec, the 1991 census shows only half as many children of French mother tongue aged 0 to 9 as there were at the 1961 census, upon which the B&B Commission based its recommendations.

In fact, in each and every Canadian province the modernization of French Canada, as Ramsay Cook put it —one could as well say its acculturation—, has wiped out the proverbially high birth rates which for close to a century more than compensated for Anglicization, both individual and intergenerational. Table 6 shows that in all provinces other than Quebec and New Brunswick, the linguistic reproduction rates of the French minority is now comparable —in most cases even much inferior— to that of the overall Allophone minority.

TABLE 6: Linguistic Reproduction Rate of English, French, and Other Mother Tongue Populations, Provinces Oustide Quebec, 1991

English French Other

Newfoundland 0.85 0.49 0.60

P. E. Island 0.99 0.37 0.35

Nova Scotia 0.81 0.36 0.50

New Brunswick 0.87 0.771 0.42

Ontario 0.88 0.52 0.44

Manitoba 0.99 0.51 0.56 Saskatchewan 1.06 0.36 0.70

Alberta 0.91 0.31 0.55

British Columbia 0.89 0.23 0.49

Note: The linguistic reproduction rate of a given mother tongue population equals the number of children aged 0 to 9 divided by the number of young adults aged 25 to 34.

Source: Statistics Canada publication 94-319 (1993).

320 IMPACT OF LANGUAGE POLICIES ON ANGLICIZATION IN QUEBEC AND CANADA

A language minority which suffers net losses through linguistic assimilation, and which does not sustain a sufficiently high birth rate to collectively make up for its losses, can be said to undergo aggregate assimilation (Lieberson 1965). Tables 5 and 6 show that this is so for all of the French minorities.

In such a case, the shortfall of the minority's reproduction rate with regards to the threshold value of 1.00 yields its aggregate assimilation rate.7 Based on Table 6, the aggregate assimilation rate of the French minority is now close to 0.30, or 30%, in New Brunswick, nearly 50% in Ontario, and even higher elsewhere.

The 30% aggregate assimilation rate of New Brunswick's French minority can be attributed mainly to inadequate fertility, and only to a lesser degree to linguistic assimilation. In Ontario, where Francophone children are only half the number they were a generation ago, inadequate fertility and language shift account in just about equal parts for the 50% aggregate assimilation rate. It is worth noting that even in New Brunswick, the number of Francophone children aged 0 to 9 in 1991 is also half of that enumerated roughly a generation ago, at the 1961 census. Economic underdevelopment of the regions in New Brunswick where French is the majority language has led to substantial interprovincial out-migration to job-rich urban centres such as Montreal and Toronto. This further clouds the future of New Brunswick's Acadian community.

Accounting for failure

It should come as no surprise that in a context where one official language is as crushingly dominant as English in North America, Canada's policy of balanced official bilingualism, based on the personality principle and on the fictive symmetry that Quebec's English minority is as much in need of assistance as the French minorities in the rest of Canada, has not succeeded in even stabilizing Anglicization rates outside Quebec, while jeopardizing Quebec's attempt to sufficiently increase the assimilating power of French. There is a lesson to be drawn here for proponents of official and personal bilingualism as the ultimate panacea in the quest to reverse shift from a minority to a majority language (see for example Fishman 1991). The failure of Canadian language policy to stymie Anglicization of the French minorities supports sociological criticism, which finds this kind of approach fundamentally wanting as regards the analysis of power and conflict inherent to language contact (Williams 1992). The federal government first pulled the rug out from under Québécois and Acadian demands for more power with which to pursue their cultural and national development, by deviating the B&B Commission away from the bicultural and binational vision which fired its original mandate. Soon after, Ottawa eliminated from its agenda the creation of bilingual districts, the territorial underpinnings or "cornerstones" of the B&B report. Now squarely based on individual liberalism, the remaining language policy doesn't even pay lip service to the problem of the survival of French as something more than a second language in North America.

In the light of its results, cynics could well judge Canadian language policy to be a devilishly efficient scheme of assimilation worthy of a more subtle latter-day Lord Durham.8 Let us instead simply reflect on some telling observations from the Office of the Commissioner of official languages.

7. Though reproduction rates of provincial English mother tongue populations are commonly less than 1.00, none can be considered to undergo aggregate assimilation, since all benefit greatly from language shift. 8. Famous in Canada for his 1839 report in which he recommended the Anglicization of the Canadiens, as French Canadians called themselves at the time.

321 CHARLES CASTONGUAY

More than a quarter century after the B&B Commission denounced the domination of English as language of work among federal civil servants in the Canadian Capital Region, a 1993 survey confirms once again that in the Ottawa area, three out of four French-speaking federal employees use mainly English in oral and written communications with their supervisor, and that a similar proportion report English as used exclusively or most of the time in internal meetings (Goldbloom 1995:45). Small wonder, then, that the net Anglicization rate of young Ontario-born Francophone adults in the Ottawa area has risen from 25% in 1971 to over 35% in 1991.9 This Canadian fact of life would be a national scandal in a less Pharisaic bilingual regime.

The Commissioner's Office also conducted in 1994 a survey on availability of service in English and French at federal government offices designated as bilingual, such as postal outlets or employment centres: we recall that their number had been reduced following the 1988 revision of the Official Languages Act. The Commissioner's auditors, who "were persistent when necessary —more so than the general public would be likely to be", failed to obtain satisfactory service in French in more than one third of the offices surveyed outside Quebec (Bragg 1995: 8). We are left to speculate as to the degree of success of the average member of a French minority, who would prefer to avoid akward situations. Even federal points of service designated as bilingual contribute in this way to the erosion of French outside Quebec. The French minorities' runaway assimilation rates bear eloquent testimony to the ubiquity and effectiveness of such everyday experiences.

* * *

Nor is there reason to wax euphoric over the scant 1% decrease In the Anglicization rate of Francophones in New Brunswick. In a province where the French minority weighs in at a full third of the total population, much more is to be expected from a policy of official blllngualism and formal recognition of equality of the two official language communities. The explanation for this relative failure is simple: the Acadians' situation is less rosy in real life than on paper. Perceptive analysts have thoroughly exposed the inefficiency —and often the outright hollowness— of these policies vis-à-vis thirty years of repeated demands for equitable representation in the provincial civil service, satisfactory public services in French, French as language of work for Acadian civil servants, regionalization of government on a linguistic basis, and the power and purse to control the social and economic development of the Acadian people (Foucher 1994; Doucet 1995). Schools and community centres alone appear indeed inadequate means with which to face tomorrow. With a 30% aggregate assimilation rate hanging over their future electoral clout, time is running out for the Acadians to gain a suitable hold over their own destiny.

* * *

As regards Anglicization in Quebec, we have seen that the demographic impact of the reorientation of language shift in favour of French among Allophone immigrants is slim. Relative Francization has also not progressed, stagnating among the more recent Allophone newcomers at the insufficient level of 70% reached in the late 70s, while Anglicization continues to reign supreme among those born in Canada. The new drawing power of French is, furthermore, fragile. Francophones will very soon drop below 50% of the total population on Montreal Island, and Allophone children already form the majority in a rapidly growing number of the island's French public schools (Paillé 1995). The

9. 1971 and 1991 census special tabulations. IMPACT OF LANGUAGE POLICIES ON ANGLICIZATION IN QUEBEC AND CANADA pervasiveness of English as lingua franca between Allophone immigrants, young and old, is challenging more and more the use of French in Montreal's schools and work world. From this point of view, the Canadian Commissioner of official languages is completely off base in lobbying for increased access to English schools in Quebec (Goldbloom 1994 and 1995). Compulsory education in French schools is the key element of Quebec's language legislation to have enhanced the Francization of Allophones, and Quebec complies fully with the Canadian Charter of Rights as regards access to schooling in English. Harassment like this is a patent example of how federal bilingualism actively seeks to undermine and discredit Quebec's efforts to raise the assimilating power of French to an equitable level, relative to that of English.

As for Ottawa's antidote to biculturalism and binationalism, Canadian multiculturalism is a wondrous thing to behold.10 On the 1996 census questionnaire, the list of some twenty-five examples of possible answers to the ethnic origin question will now include, alongside Scottish, Polish, and Somali, a rather problematic "Canadian", but not French Canadian, nor the centuries —old Acadian— nor, of course, Québécois.

Quebec's French majority has just begun to decline in relative weight, soon to be followed by decrease in actual numbers. Because of high Anglicization, low Francophone fertility, and mainly Allophone immigration in the rest of Canada, the overall French mother tongue population of Canada began its decline in relative importance much earlier, dropping first from 29% in 1951 to 27% in 1971, then more rapidly to 24% in 1991 (Harrison and Marmen 1994:14).11 The balance between English and French in Canada is now definitely history. It can be expected, therefore, that French Canada will call even more vigorously for development of "the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races", as expressed in the mandate of the B&B Commission over thirty years ago. Primed by the power of assimilation of English, Ramsay Cook's ticking time bomb is in the process of going off.

References

Beaujot, Roderic, and McQuillan, Kevin 1982. Growth and Dualism: The Demographic Development of Canadian Society. Toronto: Gage. Bissoondath, Neil 1994. Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism In Canada. Toronto: Penguin. Bragg, Mary Lee 1995. Service to the Public: A Study of Federal Offices Designated to Respond to the Public in Both English and French. Ottawa: Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. Canada 1977. A National Understanding: The Official Languages of Canada. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services. Castonguay, Charles 1974. "Dimensions des transferts linguistiques entre groupes francophone, anglophone et autres d'après le recensement canadien de 1971". Annales de l'Association canadienne française pour l'avancement des sciences 41 (2):125-131. —- 1977. "Opportunities for the Study of Language Transfer in the 1971 Census". In: Paul Lamy (ed.) Language Maintenance and Language Shift In Canada: New Dimensions in the Use of Census Language Data. Ottawa: Ottawa University Press, 63-73. — 1979. "Why Hide the Facts? The Federalist Approach to the Language Crisis in Canada". Canadian Public Policy 5(1 ):4-15.

10. Bissoondath (1994) offers an incisive inside critique of multiculturalism in Canada. 11. Thanks to Anglicization, low fertility and allophone immigration do not threaten the position of English in Canada. The relative weight of English as mother tongue has even risen slightly from 59% in 1951 to 60% in 1991. And 68% of the population reported English as current home language at the latest census (Harrison and Marmen 1994:7,10).

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— 1967. Final Report. Ottawa: Queen's Printer. Statistics Canada 1.994. Mother Tongue: 1991 Census Technical Report. Ottawa: Minister of Industry, Science and Technology. — 1995. Home Language: 1991 Census Technical Report. Ottawa: Minister of Industry, Science and Technology. Termote, Marc 1994. L'Avenir démolinguistique du Québec et de ses régions. Québec: Conseil de la langue française. Termote, Marc, and Gauvreau, Danielle 1988. La situation démolinguistique au Québec. Québec: Conseil de la langue française. Williams, Glyn 1992. Sociolingüístics: A Sociological Critique. Routledge: London.

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