The more you examine Statistics Canada's latest report on the state of bilingualism in Canada the worse it looks.
This week's study, whose findings were initially reported by The Globe's Ingrid Peritz, showed that the proportion of Canadians who can hold a conversation in both English and French fell to 17.5 per cent in 2011, according to that year's Census. It marked the first decennial drop since 1961 and suggested that, outside of Quebec, English Canadians have become increasingly disinclined to learn the country's other official language.
Indeed, on the 50th anniversary of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which led to the 1969 Official Languages Act, one solitude is far more bilingual than the other. While 44 per cent of francophones across Canada were bilingual in 2011, the proportion of English Canadians who could converse in both official languages stood at 8 per cent. Outside Quebec, it was a mere 6 per cent.
The Statscan report suggests the "French fact" has become an increasingly marginal part of life for English Canadians outside of Quebec or the federal public service. This is bound to have political consequences, both within Quebec and beyond.
As Le Devoir's Antoine Robitaille noted, former prime minister Jean Chrétien announced a $751-million program in 2003 that aimed to double the rate of bilingualism among young Canadians to 50 per cent. But young anglophones outside Quebec are less likely to be bilingual now than a decade ago. And the proportion appears set to decline further in coming years, largely because fewer and fewer English Canadian students are taking French.
To be sure, enrolment in French immersion has risen in recent years. But, for most parents, this is more about getting their kids placed in advanced classes than about learning French. Besides, the study confirmed the use-it-or-lose-it theory of language retention. It tracked the 15 per cent of anglophones between the ages of 15 and 19 who were bilingual in 1996; by 2011, almost half of them had lost their French.
What's more, outside of Quebec, fewer and fewer English-speaking students have an opportunity to learn the country's other official language. In 2011, only 44 per cent of students in English-language primary or secondary public schools had access to French-as-a-second-language (FSL) programs. That is down from 53 per cent 20 years ago.
In an interview with Le Devoir, Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser called the drop "worrying" and noted that no province west of Ontario requires French to be taught in public schools.
Immigration is another reason the rate of bilingualism is falling outside Quebec. Statistics Canada found that only 6 per cent of immigrants outside Quebec could speak both French and English in 2011. Among those who born in Canada, the rate stood at 11 per cent.
In Quebec, however, immigrants are more likely to be able to speak both French and English than those born in Canada, by a proportion of 51 per cent to 42 per cent. In an ironic twist, Quebec's immigrants seem to embody the Canadian bilingual ideal more than any other group except, perhaps, English Quebeckers.
Konrad Yakabuski