Les anglophones du Québec sont-ils en voie de disparition?

An examination of the difficult survival of Anglophone Quebec communities outside of Montreal, which have experienced the exodus of young people, isolation, poverty, and an inability to receive health care in English. This film looks at three regions of Quebec where Anglophone communities are trying to maintain a presence: the Gaspé Peninsula, the Saguenay, and the lower Laurentians. In the Gaspé Peninsula, unilingual Anglophones have difficulty receiving services in their language. This is particularly worrying when it comes to health care needs. The English-speaking community of the region has set up a program that particularly helps the elderly to come out of their isolation and to ask to be served in English. In the Saguenay, the English-speaking community is dying. The large factories which had attracted the English to the region at the beginning of the last century have since ceased their operations, causing the exodus of many of them. This once flourishing presence now boils down to a secondary school, a small bastion where young people try as best they can to keep their identity. In the Laurentian village of Sainte-Adèle, the Anglican Church saw its adherents reduced to five individuals. Threatened with closure, its last parishioners chose to take great measures and convert to French. Since then, the community has found a new lease on life as a growing number of faithful now attend the ceremonies in French. For the English speakers, the switch of languages was the only one possible to save their church.

Société GRICS

2011

Documentary

22 min, 58 sec

fr