Evaluating the Impact of Bill 101 on the English-Speaking Communities of Quebec

The author points out that after forty years of language policies, there has been much improvement in the status and use of French in Quebec under such provincial laws as Bill 101 (the Charter of the French Language). Conversely, he notes, these laws played a role in reducing the demographic and institutional vitality of the English-speaking communities of Quebec (ESCQ). He explains that pro-French laws maintained Francophones at close to eighty percent of the Quebec population and ensured that ninety-five percent of the Quebec population acquired knowledge of French. At the same time, he notes, language laws contributed to the decline of Anglophone mother tongue speakers from thirteen percent of the population in 1971 to 7.5 percent in 2016, while increasing to seventy percent French/English bilingualism amongst Anglophones. The author explains that with a net interprovincial loss of over 310,000 Anglophones who left Quebec for the rest of Canada, results show that Anglophones who stayed in Quebec are less educated and earn lower income than Quebec Francophones. Language laws limiting access to English schools succeeded in reducing the size of the English school system from 256, 251 pupils in 1971 (100 percent) to only 96,235 pupils in 2018 (37 percent). The author concludes that while the Anglophone minority bemoan their demographic and institutional decline in education, health care, and government services, many Francophones remains concerned about threats to French by bilingualism in Montreal and their minority status in Canada and North America.

Language Problems and Language Planning

Vol. 43

no. 2

198-229

2019

en