If you don’t live in Quebec, probably not, nor should you have to

By Rachel Braeuer
Photos by Mark Burnham

Memo to the Parti Quebecois: Bill-14 can reduce English-speaking Quebecers’ rights all it wants; it’s not going to add legitimacy to a language that, outside of Quebec, is virtually useless, nor is pandering to French speakers in a non-french speaking province going to help out your political party.

The bill seeks to increase French use in Quebec, and if enacted, would remove the bilingual status of some townships. If more than half of their residents speak French primarily, it will stop being a bilingual area and all services must be offered in French, forcing local workers to either brush up their French skills or lose their jobs.

However unfortunate this is for English-speakers in these smaller areas, Quebecers have a legal right to their language, and this bill would simply reinforce what was established in the British North America Act 1886 and the Charter in 1982. But what about languages in the rest of Canada?

French as a second language is virtually useless in most areas of Canada. It might look cool on a resume, and is required for a Government job, but that’s where its mystique ends. Universities outside of Quebec only require a language (that’s any language, including sign language) at a Grade 11 level to qualify for admittance. Unless you live in Quebec, the only province where French speakers outnumber English speakers, you will be fine with just English and your grade 11 level of Deutsch-sprecken.

According to 2001 census data, English and French are the predominantly spoken languages in Canada, with English spoken by 21 million and French spoken by seven million. Chinese languages follow in third place at 855, 000. But this isn’t necessarily indicative of Canada as whole; Quebec’s French-speaking rates skew the nation’s overall statistic.

If you remove Quebec from the 2001 equation, French speakers would only outnumbered Chinese speakers by about 100, 000. West of Manitoba, Canadians are more likely to speak Chinese than French. It’s not surprising, then, that businesses are looking for employees that speak languages other than English or French, especially in BC, where both Chinese and Punjabi speakers outnumber French speakers 6–1 and 5–2 respectively.

Thomas Mulcair recently used Vancouver’s Chinese New Year parade as a platform to decry businesses “requiring a language other than French or English” as a qualification. This pro-French pandering is unsurprising, considering the NDP’s gain in seats is largely because of Quebec’s support in the last election. While the larger implications of this requirement may hint towards unethical business practices in some cases, looking for employees who speak a language other than French or English makes sense, demographically speaking. When I worked at a bank, I only used my grade 12 French skills once to help a Quebecer on vacation with her Visa. Punjabi and Chinese got used constantly however. When I applied originally, I got passed over twice because I couldn’t speak Punjabi, Hindi, Mandarin or Cantonese, despite the fact that I knew two people in managerial positions.

A day into the job, I understood why having Punjabi or Chinese as a second language wasn’t just valuable, but necessary: I couldn’t help a large portion of the clients because I couldn’t communicate with them. Days where only two people with a non-French second language were working meant a long line up and people eventually getting impatient and deciding to take their chances yelling frustrated requests at me in languages I didn’t understand. No amount of French was going to help.

Quebecers have every right to maintain their cultural identity, and if Bill 14 helps them maintain a shared sense of culture rather than put people in small communities in a compromising situation, fine. Have your Royale with cheese and Bill 14.

However, as we gear up for election season, it would be nice if politicians would commit to resolving real issues, like questionable hiring practices and safe working conditions, instead of using them as a platform to pander for votes.