The French Language and Identity in Quebec

The rise of nationalism

The beginnings of nationalism tied to the ethnic identity of French Canadians can be said to have begun with the failure of the Patriot Rebellion (1837-1838) (Oakes and Warren 2009, 30), led by the president of Quebec’s legislative assembly, Louis-Joseph Papineau. The Patriots were primarily of French descent, although their ranks included some English and some Irish. In the face of British repression, they hoped to establish a Canadian nation that was “independent, bilingual, and secular,” drawing from the same republican ideas as the French and American Revolutions. However, the revolt was quickly put down by the British Army. 851 Patriots were captured and scattered in various prisons, 60 were sent to the penal colony of Australia, and 12 were publicly hanged in Montréal. Others, including Papineau, fled to the United States to avoid imprisonment or worse (Blood 2020, 81).

To avoid any further insurrections, the governor of British Canada, proposed the unification of Upper and Lower Canada - a plan that would have declared English the sole official language and forbidden the use of French (Blood 2020, 81). Such measures focused on the immediate need to fill Lower Canada with subjects loyal to the British Crown (Oakes and Warren 2009, 31).

By 1867, the time of Canadian confederation (when the various British colonies were formed into a federal union), “Canada was [...] a Dominion of the British Empire and French Canadians the descendants of a conquered nation” (Charbonneau 2017, 495). To survive as a people, French Canadians therefore turned to ethnic nationalism, based on traditional catholic and rural values (Oakes and Warren 2009, 31). “Led by those most sensitive or vulnerable to the changing sociopolitical situation, Quebecois developed nationalist ideologies in order to define their identity and interests in a society suddenly become plural at the center” (Handler et al., 1984, 58).

The divisions between French and English Canadians were no less apparent after Confederation. There was, for example, the 1885 Riel Rebellion, where a group of Metis (Half French and half Indigenous) tried to gain independence for Manitoba in response to increasing anglophone migration. In the end, its leader was hanged and became “a hero for French Canadians and a traitor for English Canadians” (Fenwick 1981, 202).
These conflicts had several different effects. “They point to the willingness of anglophone Canadians to limit or abolish the rights of francophone and Catholic Canadians outside of Quebec, and the struggle of francophone and Catholic Canadians to maintain these rights - to survive as a group” (Fenwick 1981, 203). They also weakened the position of French Canadians outside of Quebec, contributing to increased physical isolation between the linguistic groups.

Urbanization and industrialization reshaped the conflict as Quebec versus the rest of Canada, as people moved to the cities. The formation of a new bureaucratic middle class and an urban working class shifted concerns over minority rights into concerns about economic inequality, which was divided more along linguistic lines than religious ones. “And since access to economic power and equality in the new industrial order came to be determined more along linguistic lines than religious lines, language replaced religion as the primary line of communal cleavage in Canada.” (Fenwick 1981, 204).

Additionally, while French Canadian communities outside Québec had survived by being largely self-sufficient pre-industrialization, afterwards increased ties to the outside economy necessitated many to learn English. In some cases, the next generation were raised as monolingual English speakers, leading to a decline in the French-speaking population in such areas.

While there were some government efforts to combat this - the 1944 foundation of Hydro-Québec (today one of Canada’s biggest power companies) aimed to break up the anglophone monopoly on electricity - the trend persisted until about the 1980s (Bailey 2003).

The end of the 20th century saw the rise to power of René Levesque and the “souverainiste” movement. They advocated for Quebec sovereignty, ideally with some sort of economic agreement with English Canada, as a “fast track to equality with English Canadians” (Charbonneau 2017, 496). They argued that Francophones had been treated as second class citizens since the time of Confederation and government efforts to change that were “purely cosmetic” (Charbonneau 2017, 496). While the idea of separatism was fiercely divisive, the sentiments behind it were far from uncommon - even politicians against sovereignty called for changes to the status quo in favor of French Canadians.

In 1976, Levesque and his “Parti Québécois” gained their first majority government and enacted a series of policies with these goals in mind, including the passage of the Charter of the French Language (but we’ll get to that.)

This movement culminated in two separate referendums on independence - one in 1980, and one in 1995. Although “no” won both times, the race was very close. In the case of the second referendum, only 50.58% voted against sovereignty - a majority, but only barely (Blood 2020, 151).

Even now, people still identify as Québécois first and Canadian second. A 2003 survey by Statistics Canada found that 66.2% of anglophones described the sense of belonging to Canada as “très fort,” [very strong] compared with 29% of francophones (Oakes and Warren 2009, ). Additionally, when a survey conducted by La Presse, a daily French newspaper, asked if anglophones were “less québécois” than others, the general consensus was “yes.” (Oakes and Warren 2009, 199) - signifying, if nothing else, that the definition of "québécois" falls by popular perception along language lines.

Language Legislation since the 1970s

A series of legislative measures have been passed since the 1970s with the express goal of promoting the use of French in various aspects of society. This is seen as a pathway to protecting the unique Québécois identity so many were trying to preserve.
First, there was Bill 101, also known as the Charter of the French Language, passed in 1976. It pushed a policy of unilingualism, viewing Quebec as “an overwhelmingly Francophone nation-state in embryo” (Coleman 1981, 476).

One of the bill’s most significant impacts was the limiting of access to English schooling to:

“Children whose mother or father had received their primary schooling in Quebec in English.”

“Children whose father or mother lived in Quebec at the time of the promulgation of the law and who had received their primary instruction in English outside Quebec.”

“Children who in the previous school year had received legally instruction in English in the public school system.”

“Younger brothers and sisters of the latter”
(Coleman 1981, 469)

The end goal was to restrict freedom to choose English language education to those anglophones with “historic” roots in Quebec. This affected two main groups: the children of immigrants (who became the so-called “children of Bill 101”) and English Canadians who moved to the province later in life. In its first year of operation, the bill saw a 6.4% rise in the number of allophone children enrolled in French-language schools, and for the first time a majority of allophone parents with newly school-aged children sent them to French-language kindergartens (Coleman 1981, 470-471). At the same time, the English school system saw a 15% drop in enrollment after the first two years (Coleman 1981, 471). Between 1981 and 1971, 12% of native English speakers left the province, likely in response to the passage of the Charter (Oakes and Warren 2009, 195). The lasting effects are striking: from 1976 to 2015, the percentage of students attending French school whose first language wasn't French more than quadrupled, rising from 20 per cent to 90 per cent (Stevenson and Nakonechny 2022)

This is an initiative that has been backed almost continuously by the provincial administration. “Every single Quebec government since 1977 [...] have supported the fundamental elements of Bill 101” (Charbonneau 2017, 501). This includes the idea that because French is a minority language in North America, immigrants should have to send their kids to French schools to keep the province from being overwhelmed by non-French speakers that would “threaten the linguistic equilibrium of the province” (Charbonneau 2017, 501). The rhetoric behind Bill 101 again reinforces fears about “cultural pollution” - that the increased presence of other groups could erase what makes Quebec's national culture distinctive.

Nationalist groups argued the bill wasn’t restrictive enough. Some feared it would allow francophones already enrolled in English schools “to continue living on the margins of the Québécois nation” (Coleman 1981, 469), and called for the return of such children to the French school system. The Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal even suggested limiting English schooling to children with English as a mother tongue and whose parents lived in Québec when the law took effect - a plan that would have led to “the eventual disappearance of English language schools” altogether (Coleman 1981, 470).

More recently, there was the passage of Bill 96, which served as an update to the Charter of the French Language. Like Bill 101, its primary goal was to promote and preserve the use of French across many aspects of Quebec’s society. It is extremely explicit about such foals - it goes so far as to add a sentence to the preamble of the Charter, recognizing Quebec as “ the only French-speaking State in North America,” and goes on to say that that “that confers a special responsibility on Québec, which intends to play a leading role within La Francophonie (Bill 96).”

Bill 96 imposed a cap on English CEGEP (post-secondary) enrollment at 2019 levels and increased French proficiency requirements to graduate, even for anglophone rights holders. It also greatly limited access to English government services to a set of specifically defined groups, including new immigrants. However, after 6 months, these immigrants must communicate with the government in French. In addition to that, it requires businesses with between 5 and 49 people to disclose how many of their employees don’t speak French, and requires those with more than 25 employees to use French as their common language.