Government has a critical role to play in providing support to people and organizations who seek to learn and promote the French language
[Français]
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here with all of you today, thank you for including me in this interesting and important conference focusing on the vital role that Francophones and Francophiles play in our evolving Canadian community.
Canada is known around the world for the fact that our nation embraces, and uses, two official languages, and Canadians are proud of this reputation, just as we are proud of our ability to foster two unique language communities – Anglophone and Francophone – in a cohesive way, from coast to coast to coast.
This annual conference marks an important opportunity to gather a group of influential decision makers to look at how best our country and governments can support French in our communities, now and moving in to the future.
I very much look forward to moderating our panel discussion a bit later this morning, when we will hear from several people about the direct impact that being a francophone or francopohile has had upon their careers or lives, or the lives of their children.
But first, I am honoured to have been asked to share with you some thoughts on our topic today, and to also share some of my personal history and experience with French.
Everyone gathered in this room today knows that Canada has a long and rich history of linguistic duality – it is part of who and what we are as a country.
Since the very founding of our nation, our federal representatives have had the freedom to express themselves in either English or French when speaking in Parliament, and the British North America Act stated that all laws passed by Parliament must be enacted in both languages as well.
But we've obviously come much further than this. For decades now, we have had an official languages act which stipulates that all federal institutions in Canada must conduct their business in English and French.
Our governments and laws have ensured access to services for all Canadians in both official languages. And many millions of Canadians themselves have worked hard to ensure that they, and their children, are conversant or fluent in both official languages.
The statistics, in a country of 34 million people, are telling. According to the 2006 Census, almost 7 million Canadians identify as Francophones. Outside of Quebec, one million Canadians speak French as a first language.
And those one million Francophones outside of Quebec are not just speaking a different mother tongue, they are enriching the communities in which they live with different perspectives, different opinions, different ideas.
They are strengthening our understanding of the importance of the Francophone language and culture in our greater Canadian community.
In addition to those Francophones, Francophiles are proudly asserting the importance of official bilingualism in Canada. This vibrant, strong network of individuals do not speak French as a mother tongue, but respect the language and culture enough that they make it an integral part of their daily lives.
One point five million people outside of Quebec, according to the 2006 census, speak French and identify as Francophiles. This means that Francophiles are represented in every single part of our country and every sector of our economy.
I identify myself as a Francophile. English is my mother tongue, but I live and work in both official languages. In fact, CPAC, my employer, is Canada's only bilingual television channel, where viewers can choose their viewing language.
French was everywhere around me growing up, as it is for many young Canadians, and speaking the language was simply a natural element of the life my family lived.
That was partly because we lived in Ottawa – and not just any Ottawa, but political Ottawa where, it will come as no surprise to any of you in the room – knowledge of French is generally deemed essential.
But it was also because my parents, neither of whom was raised speaking French, treated the language as an important element of our Canadian identity, to be respected and embraced.
While my parents' journeys into French were very different, they are both remarkable and courageous.
Their journeys are echoes of similar ones undertaken by thousands of Canadian families each year… families of different stripes, origins and approaches who decide that a knowledge of French will open doors for them and for their children for years to come.
My father was born and raised here in Alberta, in the town of High River, where his family had founded the local newspaper – The High River Times.
My grandmother, Grace Welch Clark, was a teacher. A French teacher, though my father recalls that she was not a particularly fluent speaker of the language.
In fact, Dad pointed out to me recently, a recurring problem in Alberta high schools at the time, particularly rural ones, was that there were so few fluently-speaking French teachers; and, in Dad's time, no use of recorded or "oral" lessons where one heard the language spoken.
While this put students at a decided disadvantage when trying to achieve fluency in the language, it had its upside too, as my father's self-described High River French undoubtedly sounded quite superb to his own ears and those of his peers.
But it was clear to Dad from an early age that a facility in both of this country's official languages was not just essential, but the only way to know and understand the nation as a whole.
When he became a Member of Parliament in 1972, he set himself the goal of bilingualism, as so many MP's do, and he achieved it, through much hard work.
It is my mother's story, though, that I find particularly moving, as it brings to mind the courage that is required of many Anglophone Canadian parents who choose to have a child or children educated in French.
My mother, Maureen McTeer, was the second eldest of six children born into an Anglophone, Roman Catholic family in rural eastern Ontario.
In the mid 1960's, about the time that Lester B. Pearson's government struck the ground-breaking Royal Commission on Bilingualism and bi-culturalism, my grandfather could sense the winds of change, and so, when it came time to enroll his children in school he chose to enroll them in the local separate school that was, given the rules at the time, essentially a French Roman Catholic School.
He encountered a tremendous amount of resistance from the local school board, who objected to a unilingual English family attending their French school.
"They will slow down our children, as they speak no French," my mother remembers a board member claiming to my grandfather in her memoir, In My Own Name.
And, if you will permit me, I will quote a passage from that memoir now :
My father called the school board's bluff. He struck a deal with them. We would all start grade one and if any of us did not come first in our class, he would withdraw us voluntarily.
So that he could help us, he sat at the head of the dining room table during the school year while we all did our homework around him, and he taught himself French by memorizing ten words a day from an English-French dictionary.
From the day my mother started school, she began to learn the traditions of her French-Canadian friends. Most of them were enriching lessons for a child who had, up until that point, lived parallel to a whole linguistic, religious and cultural community that she had been unable to penetrate because of language barriers.
Some of those lessons, though, were more humorous. Again, from her memoir, my mother writes:
We saw Canadian history through the eyes of our French-speaking friends, and it had its own twists. I remember telling my mother confidently that the French had won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. When she called to ask the teacher what was going on, she was told that the British had cheated!
My mother remembers feeling that her family never really fit in, either in to the community in which they lived, or into the one in which they were educated.
At school, they were the only family who spoke English at home. At home, they were the only kids in the extended family who spoke and were schooled in French.
While the walls of that cultural and linguistic divide are less pronounced now for most Canadians, they do still exist. Yet the spirit of cooperation between Francophones and Francophiles throughout Canada help to form a vital bridge.
Francophones and Francophiles may not always share a language, but we do share a common will and purpose. We believe that part of the greatness of our nation is based on our ability to celebrate cultural and linguistic differences, and we understand that this is to our country's advantage now and in the future.
First of all, in a world where communication is now instantaneous, our ability as a nation to speak two languages means that we can interact – personally and professionally – with twice as many of our global neighbours, expanding our individual horizons as well as our economic bottom lines.
Francophones and Francophiles are interested in living in a country with just that kind of global perspective, which helps to ensure that our children have a global presence.
We understand that French is a language of opportunity, providing us access to better jobs and more diversified professional growth, allowing us to expand our creative, artistic and intellectual borders.
Speaking French also means that we better understand the neighbours we have within our borders too – the people who are just like us, despite speaking a different language at home. That kind of understanding is key to a strong Canadian fabric.
As an example, when my husband, from a unilingual family in Peterborough, Ontario, was choosing where to go to school as the first person in his family to attend university, he chose Bishops, in Lennoxville, Quebec, because he understood the value of being exposed to a francophone environment, both for his ability to speak the language and for his understanding of the country in which he lives.
When we as parents had to make the decision about where to enroll our first child in school, we automatically chose to have her educated in French. We will do the same for our son.
And the truth of the matter is that, in an absolutely global society – where borders are only as far away as the click of a mouse – French may be the first of many languages our children will need to learn in order to compete and thrive.
However, it would be a mistake to take Canada's bilingual advantage for granted. Like any advantage, it requires maintenance and support.
Francophones and Francophiles must continue to work together to demonstrate the benefits that bilingualism brings to our country – the economic advantages, the professional advantages, the personal advantages.
By doing so, we also help to foster a global advantage, one that stems from the esteem in which Canada is held internationally for our ability to embrace and celebrate two languages and two cultures within one border.
It is also why government has such a critical role to play in providing support to people and organizations who seek to learn and promote the French language.
Pan-Canadian access to French-language education from early childhood, as well as access to a broad spectrum of quality services in French for people of all ages, is the very best way to ensure that the language remains a central part of our Canadian culture.
Also important are the festivals and cultural events that not only promote so effectively the French language and its vibrant culture to Canadians of all stripes, but which simultaneously bring in valuable tourist dollars to the Canadian economy.
Whether it's The Festival Franco-Ontarien in Ottawa, the Festival du Voyageur in Saint Boniface, Manitoba; or the FrancoFete in Acadie to name but a few, these events are a valuable way to enhance our country's reputation as a progressive nation which supports official bilingualism, diversity and the arts.
Supporting our French-Canadian culture and its language is more than just about ensuring equality and a common community, hallmarks of our Canadian identity; It is about celebrating and promoting an advantage that makes us unique in the world, the envy of other nations.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.
Last Update : 2012-07-03
