Francophone immigration beyond the Bilingual Belt: wasting a precious resource

Inroads: A Journal of Opinion, Summer-Fall, 2008 by Charles Castonguay

This model must be delayed somewhat for immigrants and migrants from Quebec, who mostly arrive in the ROC as young adults. Learning English or improving one's mastery of it, then modifying one's habits to the point of using English more often than French in the intimacy of one's home is a process that normally takes several years. To register the full power of attraction of English on immigrant and migrant populations, it is thus necessary to focus on a group that is sufficiently advanced in age.

For this reason, in Table 3 we use francophone adults aged 45 to 54 to compare the assimilating power of English among the native-born with that among migrants from Quebec and abroad. As Newfoundland, PEI and Saskatchewan each had fewer than a hundred francophone immigrants aged 45 to 54 in 2001, and not many more francophone migrants of the same age from Quebec, the comparisons made for these provinces must be considered as highly approximate. Table 3 is again derived from a 2001 census custom tabulation, but preliminary exploration of the 2006 data suggests that the situation described would not be significantly different in 2006.

Table 3 reveals that within a given province, the power of assimilation of English is approximately of the same order among francophones from Quebec and abroad as among the native-born. So much so that with the exception of New Brunswick, anglicization rates of immigrants and Quebec migrants are as a rule higher than 50 per cent. (11) This means that right from the very first generation, francophones from Quebec and abroad contribute more to the ROC's English-speaking population than to its French-speaking population.

One may nevertheless note that in each of the four western provinces the anglicization rate is highest among the francophones born in that province, somewhat lower among francophones born in Quebec and a little lower still among francophones born abroad. Though Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario do not follow this rule, this may be due to the fact that a large share of francophones born in these three provinces live in rural areas where English is less invasive, whereas francophones from Quebec and abroad tend to settle in large urban centres where English holds sway.

It is worth clarifying this point by examining the situation in our nine CMAs where, regardless of their origin, all francophones share a common linguistic environment. As Halifax, Moncton and Sudbury each had only about a hundred francophone immigrants aged 45 to 54 in 2001, anglicization rates for the latter in these three CMAs are highly approximate.

Table 4 shows that in general, within the same linguistic environment, anglicization is indeed highest among francophones born in the province concerned, lower among those born in Quebec and lower still among those born abroad.

This is understandable. As a rule, francophones born in the ROC are exposed to English just about from birth. In contrast, francophones from Quebec have usually spent the first 20 years or so of their lives in a predominantly French-speaking environment. Upon immigrating, francophones from abroad are, on average, a little older still than migrants from Quebec, so that before arriving in the ROC they have normally lived for a few additional years in an environment where French is even less challenged by English than in Quebec.