Quebec anglos as victims- the Richard Bourhis version
The Bourhis argument
Anglophones in Quebec face discrimination and should be included in the province’s employment equity program alongside women, visible and ethnic minorities, Indigenous peoples and people with disabilities, Richard Bourhis, a academic psychologist and long-time anglophone advocate, says in an article by Andy Riga in The Gazette.
Though mother-tongue English speakers represent about 10 per cent of Quebec’s population, they make up just one per cent of provincial government employees.
The anglophone community must mobilize and show that “it will be better integrated into Quebec society if more of them are in the public administration,” he said.
Bourhis noted candidates for Quebec government jobs must hold professional qualifications, including French proficiency. That’s not an issue, he added, noting 71 per cent of mother-tongue anglophones are French-English bilingual. He claims the poor anglos (he uses median income data) are victims of linguicism — discrimination based on language.
The reality- bilingualism
Bourhis dismisses the lack of french proficiency. How? He uses a 71% bilingualism figure that is a fake number invented by Statistics Canada. It only requires a person to be able to hold a short conversation in french.
First, this figure suggests that 29% of anglos canno't hold even a short conversation in french, a dismal figure in itself. Secondly, the 71% figure goes way down if you require the person to be able to:
- hold a lengthy conversation in french
-write in french
-read in french
- think in french.
Fake bilingualism has no correlation with the ability to master and work in french. Worse, it is not sufficient to motivate anglos to want to work in french for a french speaking boss.
Merit principole ignored
The Official languages Act (s.39) states that equal opportunities for anglos and francos to obtain employment at the federal level does NOT derogate from the principle of selection of personnel according to merit.
We assume Bourhis accepts that establishing french as the language of work in QC is not discriminatory against anglos (amazingly, liberal Pablo Rodriguez has stated it is) and is a bona fide competence requirement.
Yet, Bourhis still seems to wants to scrap the merit principle requirement for the Quebec civil service. This is supposed to be progress?
Fake lower income argument
Bourhis presents data from 2021 showing that, compared to francophones, anglophones are economically disadvantaged: anglophone median income ss $32,000, compared to $37,200 for francophones.
The reality is that average income is HIGHER for anglos. What's up? The anglo community is much more unequal than francos, so it has a smaller number of very rich, and a larger number of poor. This is NOT the fault of francos. It has existed continuously since Quebec was a English colony, as the irish, who traditionally have been at the bottom of the pyramid, know.
Bourhis is blaming the wrong people. As an English community hired gun, he should know better.
The need to do something, but what?
Bourhis says the anglophone community must mobilize (to do what is NOT stated), but completely ignores the root problem.
Quebec is a french speaking society, so just like anyone elsewhere in North america must attend school in English to master the language, anglos in Quebec should do what is required to MASTER french.
In my opinion, this means being able to write and pass all high school exams in french to graduate. Regrettably, few anglo parents do this by sending their children to french school (an exception are the parents of federal minister Marc Miller, kudos to them).
Why not?
The english majority in the Rest-of-canada adopted a constitutional amendment in 1982 creating out of thin air a constitutional right for QC anglo parents to send their children to school in english. By the way, Quebec has never consented to that amendment. For why that amendment never made sense, see here. For the moment we are stuck with the current constitution creating segregated school systems.
The other way to proceed is for the QC government to require that students in the english school system write and pass all high school exams in french as well as english to graduate. I will not hold my breath waiting for Bourhis to advocate for this.
Conclusion
This article is part of a long list of texts that portrays anglos as victims. This is not helpful. The Gazette should balance the publication of victimhood articles by others articles with another viewpoint. Regretably, a Toronto owned and controlled media finds it difficult to do so.
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Marc Ryan
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