Friday, April 26, 2024

French at an inflection point in Canada

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Alan Binder
Alan Binder
"Alcohol scholar. Twitter lover. Zombieaholic. Hipster-friendly coffee fanatic."

We are the children of history, those here in Ontario who rose up against the disaster of Regulation 17. Who created our secret society, our credit unions, and the news media at our university. Who fought for our high schools in Sturgeon Falls and Penetanguishene. Who angered them during SOS Montfort and the Resistance. Who insist on speaking French?

Posted at 1:00 PM.

Isabel Bourgolt Tassi

Isabel Bourgolt Tassi
French-Antari writer

We are always here. We are still fighting for our language. We are still fighting.

However, I am writing these words from the “harsh reality” of Canadian Francophonie.

Recently released data from the 2021 Census on languages ​​spoken in Canada reveals our sad reality: French continues to decline – in Ontario⁠ 1 and on new bronze2 Moreover. Quebec. Manitoba3. and in all French-speaking communities in Canada – except for the Yukon.

None of this was inevitable, He tweeted the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities (FCFA).

There are 2,790,300 of us who speak French in nine provinces and three territories. This is a slight increase of 49,000 compared to 2016,” FCFA says.

But if the federal government had reached its Francophone immigration targets since 2008, we would be at least 2,860,000.

Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities

probably.

What does history tell us?

However, Canada’s great linguistic ambition in its aboriginal sovereign lands has always been to eradicate the French truth. John George Lampton, an aristocrat and imperialist, spurred on by “Jack the Radical,” considered my ancestors of French Canadians to be “a people without literature and without history.”

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Durham believed that the unification of Lower Canada and Upper Canada in 1840 as a single colony would inevitably lead to the assimilation of French Canadians into Lower Canada (now Quebec) which was dominated by the English-speaking majority in Upper Canada (present-day Ontario).

“No race other than the English race appears there in inferiority. To rid them of this inferiority,” he said lightly in 1839, I would give Canadians our English character.

We are the inheritors of Durham4. Just like our governments.

French at an inflection point. We need rage and fire. Solidarity and strategy. from Christmas.

We demand respect from our governments Compensation targets that will increase Francophone immigration into our communities and immediately correct the gross injustice of the French-African student visa issue throughout Francophone Canada. While we demand the speedy delivery of Official Languages ​​Law Strong and renewed, we must also ask ourselves how our institutions of government can demonstrate the example and promise of what Canada can be as a welcoming land.

French speakers in Canada are not yet a people of myth and folklore. We remain fierce, proud, and honest.

We haven’t said our last word yet.

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