"The Action Plan for Official Languages needs research to be a success"

Humanity presently finds itself at a crossroads with respect to languages. It is being acted upon by two opposing pressures: on the one hand, there is the force of assimilation which is stronger than ever, and on the other, an emphasis as never before on linguistic pluralism.

The force of assimilation stems from the explosion in communications, which is driving virtually every community out of its isolation. For the first time in the history of humanity, the number of languages spoken is decreasing instead of increasing. English, in particular, can lay claim to the status of international language as no other language has ever been able to do in the past, not even Latin in Antiquity.

As for linguistic pluralism, this is a new value. Not so long ago it was linguistic uniformity that was sought. Now, more and more countries are realizing that having citizens and communities who speak different languages might be an asset, not a handicap.

In Canada as elsewhere, it is only in recent decades that multilingualism has come to be seen as an asset and an enrichment, rather than a constraint or a problem. We can even talk of a revolution in Canadian attitudes: according to one survey, support for official bilingualism stands at 69% among young Anglophones (18 to 29-year-olds) living outside Quebec, compared with 27% among their elders (60 and older).¹  In New Brunswick, on June 7, 2002, the province’s Legislative Assembly passed a new Official Languages Act that was very well received by Francophones and Anglophones alike, whereas the same legislation would likely have been divisive only ten years ago. A recent survey has revealed that in the Canadian business community, proficiency in both official languages is valued as an asset in finding better and more well-paid jobs.²

And so Canada too is at this crossroads between assimilation and linguistic pluralism. For Canada to focus, as it should, on the strength that its two official languages represent, as international languages, it needs a good action plan. Canada acquired such a plan on March 12, 2003, when the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Jean Chrétien, made public “The Next Act: New Momentum for Canada’s Linguistic Duality”. The next Prime Minister, the Honourable Paul Martin, a great Liberal dedicated to the cause of linguistic duality, made a commitment last May 24^th to support this plan in full: “I endorse the activities and initiatives by Stéphane Dion 100%, as well as the $750 million in spending. I support it unreservedly... ”³ [translation]. However, this plan will not be able to succeed unless governments, communities and citizens can have the benefit of the full contribution of researchers.

That is why I thank you for having invited me to be the keynote speaker at this roundtable entitled “The Action Plan for Official Languages: Research Perspectives”. This gives me the opportunity to say how much I rely on the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities to guide us in implementing the plan. But first, allow me to look back in time for a moment. It is nothing new for Canada’s language policy to draw inspiration from the work of researchers, for this has been the case from the very beginning.

1. What the Official Languages Policy owes to research

I am in a good position to know the extent to which Canada’s Official Languages Policy, which is surely one of the most successful policies there is, is the product of quite an extraordinary research effort. My father, the political scientist Léon Dion, was special research advisor to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, to which he devoted many years of his life.

The Commission had the support of a social sciences research program that was more extensive than anything Canada had seen to that date. André Laurendeau mentions in his memoirs that Lester B. Pearson was actually worried about this: he was afraid there would be no end to the work of the researchers.⁴  In fact, thanks to the Commission, legislators were able to act on a solid foundation.

Even if some suggestions of the Commission were not adopted, it is a fact that certain of its recommendations continue to form the basis of the Official Languages Policy of the Government of Canada. A number of recommendations were subsequently acted upon:

•   that English and French be declared official languages of the Parliament of Canada, the federal courts, the federal government and the federal administration;

•   that the federal Parliament adopt an Official Languages Act and the Governor General in Council designate an official languages commissioner;

•   that the right of Canadian parents to have their children educated in the official language of their choice (according to demographic concentration) be recognized;

•   that the Constitution be amended so as to incorporate the fundamental principles supporting the proposed policy.

Thus, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, on the strength of an impressive research program, identified the proper objectives: to help Canadians learn both of the official languages and to provide them with institutions capable of serving them in those two languages. What the Commission succeeded in doing must inspire the researchers of today and serve as an example, at this time when new momentum is being given to the Official Languages policy.

Canada must continue to pursue the objectives mapped out by the Commission, and to do so on the basis of the work of contemporary researchers. For in carrying out this task, the context of today must be taken into account. At the time of the Commission, the fertility rate was higher and more young people were staying in their communities than is the case today. Similarly, young people from different language backgrounds were not starting families together in proportions comparable to those of today. As such, we must reconsider our policies in order to help these young people strengthen their ties to their language and their community, in a context where they are much more mobile than they used to be. We must also help these many exogamous couples transmit their dual linguistic heritage to their children. To achieve this goal we need the advice of researchers.

2. The Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities

A year before the launch of the Action Plan, I announced the creation of the new Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities. It was on February 15, 2002, in Moncton, that I confirmed the Government of Canada would provide $10 million to the Institute’s endowment fund. I indicated at that time what I hoped for you: that you would become“the focal point for the research community throughout Canada which has a keen interest in French- and English- speaking communities”. I proposed to you the ambitious objective of guiding Canadians “in what they can do together to ensure that official-language communities not only survive, but flourish from coast to coast."⁵

I was confident of your success, owing to my high esteem for the Université de Moncton – to which I am indebted for my first teaching job! – and also because a number of universities and research centres from all across Canada had already confirmed their official support for this project.

Since then, you have set yourselves to work, and this roundtable is one of the significant results. Since yesterday, you have been discussing the three themes of the action plan, namely education, community development, and the federal public service, as well as the accountability framework. We are closely following the work of this roundtable because we are confident that it will help us establish ever closer and more effective collaboration with the research community. You can make a powerful contribution to achieving the objectives of the Action Plan.

So you will understand how eagerly the government is awaiting the results of the eleven ongoing research projects announced in the Institute’s activity report. These projects include a broad range of knowledge which we have to acquire in the fields of education, community vitality, institutional development and governance in a minority context.

Allow me to mention, among the research themes you would do well to pursue, the one that was addressed with such precision and talent by my host today, Professor and Director of the Institute Rodrique Landry, in the recent study he did for the Commission nationale des parents francophones: “Libérer le potentiel caché de l’exogamie.”⁶  Exogamy is the phenomenon which has most inspired the orientation of the Action Plan, for as you well know, it is by far the leading source of assimilation by English in minority Francophone communities.

In fact, when both the parents are Francophone, transmission of French takes place in 95% of cases. But when one of the two parents is not Francophone, that rate falls to 42%. Now exogamy is becoming more widespread. In fact, nearly two thirds of these children now find themselves in families where only one of the two parents has French as his or her mother tongue. This is a phenomenon that was far less prevalent at the time of the Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, a phenomenon which the Official Languages policy of today – and the research of today – must take into account.

From this perspective, one very important piece of information to be reckoned with is the fact that, when the Anglophone parent does not speak French, the probability of the children learning that language is only 32%, whereas it climbs to 70% if that parent is also proficient in French.

The same phenomenon can be found in Quebeckers whose mother tongue is English, although the consequences are less significant given the strong attraction of their language. The rate of transmission of English to the children is 86%, but it falls to 54% when one of the parents is Francophone. So the transmission of English to the children is not automatic among intermarried couples in Quebec. The couples from which the Anglophone community is formed are now exogamous nearly six times out of ten.

Therefore there is a positive link between the learning of the other official language by the majority and the vitality of the minority official-language communities: the more that parents in a minority situation have a spouse who speaks their language, or at least has some proficiency in it, the more likely it is that they will transmit their language to their children.

One way to help families, be they exogamous or endogamous, as you know full well, is to give them more opportunities to include French in family life starting at the early childhood stage. The Action Plan emphasizes this crucial aspect (p. 27). I urge you to continue research on this issue, like the project recently completed by the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Citizenship and Minorities of the University of Ottawa in partnership with the Canadian Teachers' Federation. The very title of the study is a whole program in itself : "La petite enfance : porte d'entrée à l'école de langue française" [Early childhood: gateway to French school].

Canada has need of the light you can shed, of the recommendations you will draw from your research, to help all of these exogamous couples transmit to their children the full richness of their dual linguistic heritage.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we are counting on you. But it can also be said that you are counting on us!

For we can all agree that we need more knowledge on official languages and the communities that speak them. This was confirmed by a representative of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) in an appearance before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages.⁷   Some of you have also mentioned this shortcoming in your testimony before that same committee, indicating that it can be explained by the difficulty for the smaller Francophone universities and colleges encounter when participating in the major research trends, and their inability to sufficiently reduce the course loads of their researchers/professors. In addition, the work produced by researchers interested in language issues lends itself to hands-on research (which benefits communities in the short term but enjoys less recognition by donors).

We must give ourselves, in dialogue with your Institute, the means to remedy this defiency. Moreover, that is why it is one of the partners in the Coordinating Committee on Official Languages Research which I established in the context of the Action Plan.

We might focus more, for example, on the SSHRC’s Community-University Research Alliances (CURA) program and its new field of strategic research “Citizenship, Culture and Identity,” which incidentally is mentioned in the Action Plan for Official Languages. Discussions between the government and the SSHRC in this regard have progressed sufficiently that we will soon be at the stage of consultation with the research community. You shall soon be called upon to advise us on the best way to design this new initiative. It is my pleasure to announce this to you today.

We will also have to take a close look at the full potential offered by the 13 Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The Standing Committee on Official Languages has issued a number of recommendations in this connection, which the government will be examining carefully.

When Prime Minister Chrétien asked me in April 2001 to prepare an action plan and bring some new momentum to Canada’s linguistic duality, he assigned that responsibility to a researcher who is the son of a researcher. I know that it is with researchers that we will succeed in implementing this Action Plan. We shall do this, governments and researchers, in close co-operation with the communities. There lies the path to success.

The Action Plan sets objectives which are ambitious but realistic. For example, the proportion of eligible students enrolled in Francophone schools, which is currently 68%, must reach 80% in ten years. In ten years, the percentage of young Canadians aged 15 to 19 who know the other official language should double. At the moment, that percentage is 24%. The objective is for one young Canadian in two to be proficient in both official languages in ten years. To achieve this, we will have to improve basic French and English teaching, give new impetus to immersion, increase the number of qualified teachers, and offer graduates the opportunity to benefit from their skills. Together we shall reach these goals, by combining university research, government action, both federal and provincial, and community life.

Our linguistic duality is an asset for our future, at the beginning of the 21st century, in this increasingly global world, where communications are ever more important and the economy is increasingly knowledge- and innovation-based. At a time when the other developed countries are investing heavily in the language skills of their populations, Canada must take full advantage of its linguistic duality. Canadians demand it. Let us act together to meet this legitimate and necessary need.

1. Environics Research Group, Focus Canada (2000).
2. “Language skills add value: survey: Bilingualism viewed as asset for job candidates,”National Post, December 1, 2003, p. 2.
3. Statement by the Honourable Paul Martin in the third debate of the candidates for theleadership of the Liberal party of Canada, May 24, 2003.
4.  “The Prime Minister speaks of the criticism around him of the Commission and itsresearch program. ‘While I have occasional moments of impatience with you,’ he says(research that never ends and proliferates indefinitely), ‘you will understand that forothers that impatience extends to the point of exasperation’.” André Laurendeau, Journalkept during the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (Montreal: VLBÉditeur/Le Septentrion, 1990), p. 358 [translation].
5. Stéphane Dion, “Minister Dion announces the creation of the new Canadian Institute forResearch on Linguistic Minorities,” News release, February 15, 2002.
6. Libérer le potentiel caché de l’exogamie (Profil démolinguistique des enfants des ayantsdroit francophones selon la structure familiale) Là où le nombre de justifie... IV, studycommissioned by the Commission nationale des parents francophones, October, 2003.
7. Access to Health Care for the Official Language Minority Communities: Legal Bases,Current Initiatives and Future Prospects, Report of the Standing Committee on OfficialLanguages, October, 2003, p. 21.