Relations Between Anglophones and Francophones

The French Language in Québec: 400 Years of History and Life Part Four I – The Reconquest of French Chapter 11 – A Language Taking its Rightful Place 42. Relations between Anglophones and Francophones GRETTA CHAMBERS For over two centuries, Québec’s Francophone and Anglophone communities have shared a common history. To trace the evolution of their relations during this period, it is necessary to look beyond the events which shaped the way each responded to the evolution of time and of their priorities. Each community was subject to very different cultural and demographic influences. The Francophone community, in spite of the radical changes it has undergone, particularly over the past fifty years, has always succeeded in preserving its sense of identity. Even though it questioned its former social, religious and political convictions, it has retained strong cultural ties with the past. French-speaking Québécois are united by their language and their sense it is their duty to defend it. Their “national” objectives, in both senses of the term, are undoubtedly very different from what they were but, though they themselves have experienced a modern economic, social and religious revolution, they have succeeded in preserving their collective identity. This, however, is not the case for the Anglophone community. Apart from the fact that it is a mere shadow of what it once was, its unity is not ensured by ethnicity or shared cultural spaces. What Anglophones in Québec have in common are their ties with the language in which their institutions were created to serve their community. In fact, these institutions constitute the 1 The French Language in Québec: 400 Years of History and Life Part Four I – The Reconquest of French Chapter 11 – A Language Taking its Rightful Place substance and ensure the security of English-speaking Québec. Anglophones are not afraid of losing their language in a Francophone Québec. When this phenomenon occurs, it is considered the consequence of a deliberate decision and not the result of a cultural diktat. What they are really afraid of, as far as language is concerned, is the loss or weakening of their institutions. The uncertainty as to plans for access to health or social services in English is an example of a situation which greatly troubles Anglophones in Québec, regardless of whether or not they are sufficiently bilingual or whether they know both cultures well enough to receive services in French. The institutional basis for this feeling of belonging to a community now applies to disparate groups of Québécois. The institutions themselves have changed and have adapted over the years to a very different population from the one for which most of them were created. It was for a population that was mainly Protestant and English, Scottish or Irish from all over Britain that the Anglophone community network was established. This population has practically disappeared. As immigration has become increasingly multicultural and multi-denominational, it is not easy to define or describe today’s English-speaking Québec in relation to those to whom we owe the English fact in Québec. French-speaking Québec is only just starting to feel the effects of the pluralism which has characterized the evolution of the Anglophone community for generations. A decreasing number of Anglophone Québécois describe themselves as Anglo- Saxons; they categorically reject this term when their Francophone compatriots apply it to them. Nevertheless, there are still, among this patchwork Anglophone community, people who feel nostalgia for the memory of this bygone era. 2 The French Language in Québec: 400 Years of History and Life Part Four I – The Reconquest of French Chapter 11 – A Language Taking its Rightful Place Over the past fifty years, two waves of Francization have swept over Anglophones and have had very different repercussions both on them and on the language relations between those who speak the language of the majority and members of the minority language group. In the areas of Québec which have always been massively Francophone, the language issue has never been raised. The relationships between French-Canadians and English Canadians were less abrasive and real than about stereotypes and images. Even in Québec City, where English was formerly endowed 7 with true economic power, the dread that the English would invade the whole of the territory has never been a real political or cultural issue. The fact that Québec City has been the seat of government is certainly a factor as is the fact that Francophones were not only numerous but also had their own leaders in all sectors of public, private, professional and institutional life. Montréal and the adjacent regions of the Eastern Townships and the Ottawa Valley were the nerve centres of Francization in Québec. In the Eastern Townships, for generations a region with an Anglophone majority 8, the process was so natural and gradual that is was almost imperceptible. However, it was no less effective for that. As the number of Francophones settling in the region continued to grow, they purchased the farms, took the town councils by storm, increased their school commissions, built schools and took control of commercial establishments. Today, the region is Francophone. The transition took place with hardly any conflict. Even the older and more unilingual Anglophones accept the fact that they now live in a predominantly Francophone region and their Francophone neighbours treat them with great politeness and 3 The French Language in Québec: 400 Years of History and Life Part Four I – The Reconquest of French Chapter 11 – A Language Taking its Rightful Place extreme patience in regard to their linguistic disadvantage. The people themselves appear to have found their own linguistic modus vivendi. The situation in the metropolis, however, is entirely different. The Montréal area is the flash point of the Anglophone-Francophone interface in Québec. Ever since its beginnings as a major city, Montréal has been dominated by the Anglophone business world 9 and English became synonymous for trade, retail, industry, transport, banking, in fact everything that really earns money including the well-paid jobs. Before Law 101 (1977), immigrants sent their children to English schools, not because Anglo-Protestant schools in Québec accepted everyone, in contrast to Francophone Catholic schools which only admitted Catholic immigrants, but because this was North America and it was socially easier to become an English-speaking Québécois than to be accepted as an equal in Francophone society. The Québec Anglophones no longer dominate the economy to the exclusion of the Francophone majority. Since Law 101, their network of schools, to all intents and purposes, is reserved for Anglophones who have acquired rights. The Anglophone community is now smaller than is was and its renewal has considerably diminished. It is difficult for Anglophones to understand how they could possibly be a threat, individually or collectively, to French Québec. Montréal, the principal area of cohabitation and interaction between the two cultures, has never been more French visually and audibly or in reality. 4 The French Language in Québec: 400 Years of History and Life Part Four I – The Reconquest of French Chapter 11 – A Language Taking its Rightful Place The Francization of Montréal is not only attributable to the adoption of language laws. These laws channelled and accelerated the process of linguistic and cultural assertion, they did not create it. Montréal became a French-speaking city through the efforts of its Francophone majority, not by government decree. This is a noteworthy distinction in the eyes of the Anglophone minority which is still averse to government linguistic diktats which it often considers being more punitive and meddlesome than constructive and sensible. Furthermore, since the withdrawal of Law 178 (on French-only signs), the majority of Anglophones in Québec understand and accept, as best they can, the bastion of language rights that Law 101 constitutes for Francophone Québec, while still believing that Montréal will remain Francophone as long as the Québec majority is determined it be this way. This change in linguistic direction, Montréal’s literal retranslation into the language of the majority of its inhabitants, can be explained as much by economic and demographic factors as by political and social pressure. The two World Wars and the westward migration of Canada’s financial markets initiated a process which radically changed the socio-economic face of Montréal. Then the Quiet Revolution, followed by the election of the first separatist government and two referendums, exerted political pressure on adapting the language to this new socio- economic reality. And the rest, as the saying goes, is history. The Anglophone community, in the face of Montréal’s decline as the country’s financial capital, rapidly lost its economic influence. Yet the view that it had lost de facto its language 5 The French Language in Québec: 400 Years of History and Life Part Four I – The Reconquest of French Chapter 11 – A Language Taking its Rightful Place rights had a much greater effect. Bill 63 hardly caused a stir but Law 22, on the contrary, alerted people to the aims of language laws. Anglophones in Québec had the shock of their life. The idea of legislating on the use of the language was completely foreign to Anglo-Québec political culture and, whether it is justified or not, undoubtedly always will be. Anglophones were so appalled by the Bourassa liberal government’s first incursion into the language regulations that an overwhelming majority voted for the Union Nationale Party in the following election, the indirect result of which was to guarantee the election by a comfortable majority of the Parti Québécois. From that moment on, a rapid succession of language laws ensued. Law 101 forced Anglophone Québec to cease fighting the inevitable and to try to save what they could from the situation.

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