Quebec Plans to Bar Most Immigrants Who Don't Speak French

Quebec Premier Francois Legault, concerned about the decline of the French language in the Canadian province, has set a new goal for immigrants: They should all speak French.

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Legault’s nationalist Coalition Avenir Quebec party was re-elected with a huge majority in October, partly on a platform of protecting French as the dominant language in the province of 8.7 million people. His speech to the legislature Wednesday laid out his priorities for his second term, including a plan to bar almost all economic immigrants who don’t speak French by 2026.

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“The objective is to stop the decline of French, in particular in Montreal, and to reverse the trend,” Legault said. “The French language, it must be an imperative duty.”

The policy would apply only to those seeking permanent residency on economic grounds — not to refugees or people entering Quebec on temporary work visas. Legault said about 50% to 60% of economic immigrants selected by previous governments talked French.

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The percentage of Quebeckers declaring French as their first spoken language declined 1.5 percentage points to 82.2% between 2016 and 2021, according to data from Statistics Canada. Within the province, 80% of employees now mainly use French at work, while 14% mainly use English and 5% use both equally.

But in Montreal, the province’s largest city, French at work drops to 70%.

‘Enormous Damage’

Pierre Fitzgibbon, Quebec’s economy minister, told reporters there should be exceptions, such as workers in the electric-vehicle battery sector. Foreign firms from South Korea and Germany have plans to build plants in the province. “It would be fun to have 100%,” he said. “But you have to be realistic, and balance that with needs.”

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The Conseil du Patronat du Quebec, a lobby group that represents some of the province’s biggest companies, said the government should not penalize allophones — people whose first language is neither French nor English — especially in sectors such as information technology and video game programming, where talent is harder to find.

“We are sensitive to the situation of French in Quebec, but we must not rule out good candidates for immigration on this sole criterion,” said Karl Blackburn, the group’s president.

Legault’s government has been criticized by the business community for adopting a controversial law, known as Bill 96, aimed at protecting the French language. Under it, all companies providing goods and services in Quebec must now serve their clients in French. Another measure allows a provincial agency, the Office Quebecois de la Langue Francaise, to verify the language used in a company’s internal and external communications when investigating a complaint.

Executives at more than 150 companies have signed a letter to Legault warning the premier the law “is threatening to do enormous damage to the province’s economy” because it creates an unpredictable business environment.

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1. any of the various phonetic realizations of a phoneme in a language, which do not contribute to distinctions of meaning. For example, in English an aspirated p (as in pin ) and unaspirated p (as in spin ) are allophones of the phoneme /p/, whereas in ancient Greek the distinction was phonemic.

Debater Slayer said:

Countries and states have the right to set language requirements for immigration. If they can enforce this properly, I think it's a good measure to avoid the development of immigrant pockets consisting of people who refuse to integrate into their host country.

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Stevicus said:

Quebec Plans to Bar Most Immigrants Who Don't Speak French | Financial Post











I can see the point that this could hurt Quebec economically, if they're barring anyone who doesn't speak French. How do they measure that anyway? Do people have to take a test? Do they have to wear a beret?

I took some French in school, but I don't really speak it.

I can probably do a fair imitation of a French accent, kind of like Peter Sellars as Inspector Clouseau.

I've heard the word "allophone" before, which means:

1. any of the various phonetic realizations of a phoneme in a language, which do not contribute to distinctions of meaning. For example, in English an aspirated p (as in pin ) and unaspirated p (as in spin ) are allophones of the phoneme /p/, whereas in ancient Greek the distinction was phonemic.

But in this case, it means someone who doesn't speak French or English. I've never heard it used that way before now.

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Stevicus said:

French, English, Spanish - none of these languages are indigenous to the Americas; they're imperial languages of empires that no longer exist. But people still seem to have loyalty to their languages just the same.

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Stevicus said:

Quebec Plans to Bar Most Immigrants Who Don't Speak French | Financial Post











I can see the point that this could hurt Quebec economically, if they're barring anyone who doesn't speak French. How do they measure that anyway? Do people have to take a test? Do they have to wear a beret?

I took some French in school, but I don't really speak it.

I can probably do a fair imitation of a French accent, kind of like Peter Sellars as Inspector Clouseau.

I've heard the word "allophone" before, which means:

1. any of the various phonetic realizations of a phoneme in a language, which do not contribute to distinctions of meaning. For example, in English an aspirated p (as in pin ) and unaspirated p (as in spin ) are allophones of the phoneme /p/, whereas in ancient Greek the distinction was phonemic.

But in this case, it means someone who doesn't speak French or English. I've never heard it used that way before now.

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Revoltingest said:

Any language that becomes widespread
is going to be "imperial" simply because
it displaced whatever was there before.
What matters to me is practicality.
English is heavily entrenched here, &
no other language is worth switching to.
So English it is.

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Stevicus said:

How do they measure that anyway? .

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Revoltingest said:

Any language that becomes widespread
is going to be "imperial" simply because
it displaced whatever was there before.
What matters to me is practicality.
English is heavily entrenched here, &
no other language is worth switching to.
So English it is.

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Estro Felino said:

In fact...whenever I hear Trudeau pronounced englishly...
No offense.

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Revoltingest said:

I take no offense at a post I don't understand.

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Estro Felino said:

Trudeau pronounced like this

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Father Heathen said:

Canada should just let them secede already.

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Revoltingest said:

Any language that becomes widespread
is going to be "imperial" simply because
it displaced whatever was there before.
What matters to me is practicality.
English is heavily entrenched here, &
no other language is worth switching to.
So English it is.

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Stevicus said:

My point was that some people still seem to want to maintain some measure of loyalty to their own native language, even if it might be more practical to learn another language. Perhaps it's a matter of national pride.

In America, there has been an increase in the number of Spanish speakers, and Spanish is accommodated in numerous situations. Considering demographic trends, migration rates, and the relatively large numbers of Spanish-speaking people in the Americas, it seems reasonable to conclude that Spanish will become more and more prominent in the decades to come. I can see where English and Spanish could someday both become official languages in the U.S.

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Vee said:

It's very easy. I can tell if a person speaks french in a few of minutes talking to them.

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