Quebec Province Struggles With Its Split Personality

A department store is a magasin here and a big grocery store is a supermarche. You try on clothes at a boutique, get your hair styled at la coiffure and buy stocks at La Bourse.

The French-language signs that identify such places are a novelty for visitors to this lovely Canadian city, especially for Americans who revel in the exotic atmosphere of Montreal.

However, to a large minority of the people who live in Quebec province, where this city is situated, the signs mean something different: English is unwelcome and English speakers are second-class citizens.

In fact, more than just unwelcome, the public display of English is illegal. That is a constant and serious irritant to what otherwise has been an increasing easing of tensions between approximately 5 million French speakers in Quebec province and the million or so residents of the province who list English as their prime language.

“Our basic social contract has always been based on two languages and cultures,” said Eric Maldoff, president of the Alliance Quebec, a group that supports the concept of Quebec as uniquely French but fights government efforts to make the province unilingual.

“So, a sign is important to you if you feel that you have an equal role and place in society. It is important to you if the public use of your language is illegal.”

To the government of the province, dominated by the Parti Quebecois, the question of excluding English or any language other than French from public signs is not only of political importance, it is crucial to the protection and development of Quebec’s culture and identity.

So important is that concept to the Parti Quebecois that the focus of its legislative program after it came to power in 1976 was to pass a so-called French Language Charter embodied in the provincial assembly’s Bill 101. The bill severely restricted the public use of English, including signboard advertising and business identification, to underline the point that French is Quebec’s preeminent tongue.

Persistent Problem

“So even if the signs are side by side (French and English), it wouldn’t solve the problem,” Gerald Godin, the provincial minister of culture, said in an interview. “It would still leave the impression that this is not a French-dominant society. It would mark a return to the status quo ante when English signs were everywhere and English was the language of business and employment. That we won’t allow.”

Allow it or not, the Parti Quebecois appears to be, if not losing the fight, at least on the defensive. It is under pressure from the courts and from public opinion, which has shifted significantly from the French-only militancy of the past.

The latest polls show that overwhelming numbers of Quebeckers, including a large majority of Francophones, as French speakers are called, support the use of English on signs as long as French is given at least equal prominence.

Alongside this change in public sentiment are a series of court decisions ruling that provincial laws that exclude the use of English violate the guarantees of freedom of expression in Quebec’s Charter of Rights.

Issue Remains Alive

Those decisions are being appealed and, for the moment, the provincial government is withholding new prosecutions until the matter is sorted out. Still, the issue remains alive and it is doubtful that a judge’s ruling is going to settle a painful problem deeply rooted in Canadian history and the province’s psyche.

The situation has evolved from the English conquest of French Canada in the mid-18th Century. The new rulers allowed the French settlers to keep their institutions, including the use of their language in official life, and this agreement was incorporated into Canada’s Constitution when the country achieved full independence in 1867.

However, while Quebec was officially a French society, in reality its English minority controlled the province’s most important economic and social institutions. The dominance of the English speakers was so marked that some Francophones called themselves “white niggers” to indicate their place as oppressed members of their own country.

Told to ‘Speak White’

English was the language of commerce and the country club. English was necessary for all but the most menial of jobs. French speakers were told “to speak white” if they wanted to be served in department stores or restaurants. The officers of most corporations were Anglophones, and there was a significant wage gap between English speakers and workers who spoke French only.

This second-class status of French speakers and of their language was blamed by Francophone intellectuals and politicians for causing serious psychological and sociological problems among Quebec’s majority population and was threatening the vitality, if not the existence, of the culture.

By the 1960s, the protection of what was left of French culture and the effort to insure a dominant future role for it became the backbone of a growing movement to make the province an independent nation. So powerful was the fear that the language would be lost that even Francophones who opposed independence joined to re-establish the preeminence of French.

Thus, the first law to guarantee the use of French in schools, on signs and in business was passed in 1974, during the term of a Liberal Party government. The Liberal Party opposes independence for Quebec.

New Language Charter

But the Parti Quebecois was not satisfied and, when it came to power two years later, it assigned one of its most militant and brilliant leaders, psychiatrist Camille Laurin, to write a new language charter. The result was Bill 101.

To Godin, the minister of culture, the law was a major success. “It gave French Quebeckers a new sense of pride, a new perspective,” he said. “They don’t fear anyone.” His assessment is backed up by statistics.

Improvement in the Francophones’ situation had begun 20 years earlier, when they made gains in politics, education and the arts, but the passage of Bill 101 coincided with--perhaps brought about--a surge in commercial achievement by French speakers as fluency in their language became an essential for business success in Quebec.

The resulting confidence is apparent. In a change from Bill 101’s early days, Francophones no longer get upset and treat visitors rudely if they don’t speak French. “I don’t worry that I’m being taken for granted if someone speaks to me in English,” Robert Guimond, a Montreal bookseller, said. “I’ve learned that speaking French is a benefit, not a minus.”

Bill 101 Attacked

Even though the Alliance Quebec’s Maldoff agrees that Francophones were badly treated in the days before Bill 101 and that French needs protection and promotion, he still bitterly attacks Laurin and his language legislation.

“I don’t think what Laurin did was fair,” he charged. “Quebec is a multicultural and multilingual society, and no amount of legislation will change that. . . . Bill 101 was the centerpiece of a new society that was aimed at isolating and driving out the Anglos and closing the door to all English immigration into Quebec.”

As part of the Anglophone opposition, the Alliance Quebec undertook what Maldoff describes as “carefully designed court challenges” aimed not at returning to the English-dominated past but at insuring the protection of English guaranteed by the Canadian and Quebec constitutions.

“They’ve (the Parti Quebecois) lost every challenge,” Maldoff said, adding that the courts have not invalidated portions of the law that promote French but have set aside the law only when it discriminates against English.

Will Press Fight

In spite of the court decisions and even in the face of some modifications by the government itself, the current Parti Quebecois leadership seems determined to battle on. Godin insisted, “You just can’t put English rights on the same level with French” in Quebec.

And Acting Premier Bernard Landry said recently that Montreal is a French city that should not be allowed to put on a bilingual face. He added that he hopes there will be a resurgence of activity to create French dominance in such English institutions as McGill University.

But despite all the militancy of the Godins and Landrys, the great bulk of the Francophone population either disagrees or has other concerns. The question is, why?

On one level are Quebec’s economic and political problems. The province has Canada’s second-highest unemployment rate and many younger Quebeckers are more worried about keeping body and soul together than whether signs include English.

Weary of Subject

Furthermore, polls indicate a general weariness with the intense attention paid to language by the government for so long a period, particularly because the Parti Quebecois has lost a great deal of credibility after eight years in power.

But to many experts, including Godin and Landry, the problem is one of too much success. “The polls (showing that most Francophones agree with having English on signs) say to us that 101 was too successful,” said Godin, adding that it lulled Francophones into complacency and overconfidence about the ability of their language and culture to survive.

“We see in the polls,” Landry said, “that the people have become desensitized to the necessity of taking linguistic action. When I tell my children about being told to ‘speak white’ on St. Catherine Street a few years ago, they can’t believe it.”

Even some Anglophones believe that the French culture and language of Quebec are still endangered. “French has to be predominant,” argued Gary Caldwell, a demographic and language expert, in order to establish the credibility of what is called here “the French Fact,” the reality of French dominance.

Zero-Growth Birth Rate

He also brought up an important new ingredient in the debate: new immigrants, most of whom do not speak French when they arrive. The French population is near a zero-growth birth rate, and unless the immigrants take up French, the unique nature of Quebec could be lost, Caldwell argued.

This requires an artificial effort to promote French and to require the new settlers to learn the dominant language and educate their children in Francophone schools as required by Bill 101 and associated laws.

If this isn’t done, he argued, “the process (of English dominance) could start again, particularly when faced with the increasing influence of the United States and its dynamic economy.”

Optimism Persists

Even though the fight seems sharp-edged and often bitter, there are signs of optimism that the past battles and divisions can be avoided. Godin says his goal is to prevent tensions and fears and to assure the Anglophones that they have a secure place in Quebec.

Maldoff for his part says most of the people his group represents agree that French must be maintained and that Anglophones appreciate and enjoy the distinctive culture that French Quebec represents. He points out that the majority of Anglophones now also speak French.

And even if the survival of a major French culture in North American depends on immigrants accepting French over English, as Caldwell maintains, the outlook seems relatively bright.

“The immigrants came to Montreal,” Caldwell said, “because it is unique. And they know if they want to keep Montreal the way it is, they have to adopt the culture.”