Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:13 on 2021-06-18 Permalink Reply  

• Tim S. 09:42 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  The crazy thing is, if nationalists realized how much French is spoken in the hallways and classrooms of English CEGEPs (in normal times), they’d realize that their policies are already a success. But they can’t ever admit to success, because the whole movement relies an an other to struggle against.

• Ephraim 09:58 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  Wonder how many kids we will lose, forever. Can’t get a spot here… go elsewhere and stay.

• Kevin 10:14 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  These morons are just making English that much more desirable.

• Paul 11:33 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  ‘Thank you for clipping our wings sir. May we have another’

• Jack 11:47 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  Just found out that attending CEGEP in English is comparable to going to a residential school.
  This from Quebec’s intellectual paper of record.
  https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chroniques/611985/l-assimilation

• JS 11:57 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  I graduated high school with a certificate of bilingualism, but my French was nowhere near strong enough to pursue higher education in it. What’s the plan here? To force a generation to flunk out of college and create an anglo underclass relegated to menial jobs?

• dhomas 12:03 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  They are penalizing “their own” with this. Many Francophones realize that it is to their advantage to ALSO speak (and write) English in order to be competitive on a global scale, so they choose, as adults, to get educated in English. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that a large portion of people can work from anywhere. (I myself work for a company in France where my bilingualism is seen as an asset). Will employers, even here in Quebec, be looking for unilingual francophones when they can hire remote workers that are multilingual? Doubt it.

• david741 14:10 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  Well, the idea here is that there are finite resources to put toward education, and that as few of these as possible should be put toward education conducted in the English language. When Pascal Bérubé was jibbering about the Royal Victoria, he was explicitly framing it in terms of the government’s committing resources to McGill rather than UQAM, UdeM, or universities in the regions. He put this down as especially egregious given McGill’s endowment which, while puny by US standards and a long way from the largest in the country, is Quebec’s richest. That’s the broad idea with this move. They believe government resources should go to institutions operating in the French language rather than those in the English language, and that those who want English language education can pay for it.

  Maybe more interestingly, if you talk with people in certain pro-independence circles, there is a real worry about brain drain. I think for many of these, phasing out most public funding of English language education is seen as part of a larger project to encourage the productive products of the education system (STEM graduates, entrepreneurs, people working with data, etc) to stay in Quebec rather than move to Canada or America.

• jeather 15:01 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  Under the theory that if they don’t learn English, they can’t leave?

• ant6n 16:37 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  Maybe some sort of …wall could keep out the angles and keep in the real Quebecers.

• Tim S. 18:03 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  Funny how David’s observations tie in with Kate’s comment about Coderre. We can try to make this an attractive place to live where bilingualism is an asset and talented people want to come or stay, or we can make it unpleasant place and trap people here.

• Uatu 18:52 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  David is right about it being about cash. Those who want English education can pay for it themselves if they want it bad enough ( just like all the MNAs who went to McGill and Harvard and rich Quebecois like the Desmarais that sent their kids to English schools). The rest are SOL. Also the future of hi-tech employment is supposedly online and remote so you’ll still need English even if you’re trapped in QC.

• JaneyB 18:57 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  @Tim S – You’re totally right about the amount of French spoken in the hallways at the English CEGEPS. About 30% of the students are Franco and they talk to each other, to the bilingual Anglos and trilingual Allos. A huge success story…for the dynamism of French in QC!

  @JS – Anglos can go to the Franco universities and do all their tests and assignments in English. The reverse is also true. Lots of people can understand their second language but are not so great with writing and speaking.

• David690 22:05 on 2021-06-18 Permalink

  @jeather – I think the idea isn’t just to trap Quebecois here by preventing them from getting the right mix of skills that would make them attractive in America or Canada, the idea is that if all Quebec engineers or whatever were fully bilingual, you’d have a lot more brain drain.

• Kate 09:00 on 2021-06-19 Permalink

  David, I think you’re saying the same thing in different words. Languages make people mobile. If you hobble people by limiting their ability to learn and function professionally in the dominant language on your continent, yes, you limit “brain drain” by trapping those people with one functional language. And make a virtue of it, into the bargain.

  Of course the rich avoid this by by getting educated privately at least partly in English. They always have, and it never seems to be a scandal that they do.

• Uatu 09:41 on 2021-06-19 Permalink

  Brain drain can be beaten by making the city or province more livable and inviting so that relocating is more trouble than it’s worth. And if you have a multilingual populace that means you can stay in one place in higher paying jobs while working online. This whole thing is posturing for older regional voters to show that the caq is doing stuff while the status quo of the rich getting more opportunities than regular Quebecers continues