Gateway getaway

Before getting to my main comment, here is a bit of background. In Quebec, immigrants are expected to enroll their children in French schools. The only children who can go to publicly funded English schools in Quebec are those for whom at least one parent was educated in English in Canada. Those coming from outside Quebec must have already been enrolled in an English school elsewhere in Canada before moving to Quebec, or have a brother or sister who was enrolled in an English school before the move. In all these cases, at least one parent must be a Canadian citizen, unless the parent was schooled in English in Quebec.

The main idea is that any immigrant settling in Quebec should send his or her children to French schools. Thanks to a loophole, some people whose children don’t immediately qualify for English education in Quebec would send their children to private English schools for one year. After this, they were then allowed into public English schools. The provincial government passed legislation to close this loophole, but the legislation was declared unconstitutional. Rather than use the “notwithstanding clause” as provided for in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Quebec government recently chose to pass Bill 115, which sets out tougher criteria for parents wanting to have their children qualify for English school in this way.

End of history lesson. On to my usual blog entry:

Aspiring writers have long been told to write what they know. Tasha Kheiriddin is from Montreal, Quebec, and would be expected to be familiar with the province and its education system. But I wonder if that’s truly so. A National Post editorial signed by Kheiriddin and titled Quebec chooses language purity over prosperity is a good example. Here's an excerpt:

"But when children are in the picture, things change. Parents want to equip their kids to take on the world, not just the province. If their children have already been educated elsewhere in English, putting them in French school could affect not only language skills, but their grades in all subjects. Knowing how most immigrants prize education, this is a risk many do not wish to take. And for immigrants coming to Quebec from other parts of Canada, it is downright discriminatory that they cannot move within their new country and school their children in the language of their choice."

Unlike Kheiriddin, I'm not a Quebecker and my knowledge of Quebec is rather limited. But in this golden age of the Internet, it’s easy to get the information needed to be well-informed. In this case, I went to the Quebec government website, in English, and looked up the rules regarding education, the same ones that appear above. Obviously, the matter of citizenship is vitally important. As with many things, citizenship has its privileges. Many immigrants will be permanent residents long before gaining citizenship. If the parent's move to Quebec is inevitable for reasons of employment or otherwise, this could indeed have implications for the child’s education.

And yet, this is a rather limited perspective. Countless children remain unilingual anglophones in Canada because they do not have the chance to interact with francophones or receive an education in French. I understand that we don’t like to see our children’s marks suffer when moving into an area where the culture and language is different. But then we should put the school system on trial for summing up everything in a series of grades. When an employee goes through a performance appraisal, we don’t just see quantifiable factors like the number of tires installed or the number or words translated. There are also the unquantifiable aspects like relating with colleagues, customer service, problem solving. Why can’t we do the same thing with school?

But I digress...

What does Tasha Kheiriddin mean when she writes that immigrants coming to Quebec from another region of Canada cannot have their children educated in their language of choice? Clearly, when Kheiriddin says "their language of choice," it is code for "English". Otherwise, by now, there would surely have been Polish and Russian public schools in Ontario, and Ukrainian schools in Manitoba. If immigrants from France came to Alberta or Ontario, I’m sure Kheiriddin would be delighted to offer them the opportunity to go to an English school.

In many provinces, not just anyone can enrol in a French school. In New Brunswick, a child must be francophone, have a francophone parent or speak neither English nor French to enrol in a French school. In other provinces, the criteria could be even more restrictive. So, why should we be so indignant that Quebec would apply a similar principle regarding English?

And why should a French-language education not make these children ready to take on the world? Is she implying that French-language education is somehow inferior to English schooling? Why? And in what way?

The main thrust of the editorial is that the recently adopted Bill 115 has flaws. On this, even the French agree, though for different reasons. But Kheiriddin protests the creation of another level of bureaucracy to enforce a law that she believes shows that non-French-speaking people aren’t welcome in Quebec. We have every right to hate bureaucracy in Quebec. We have every right to believe that new legislation will create a new level of bureaucracy in Quebec, though we then have to prove it. But saying newcomers are not welcome if they do not speak French is something else. Canada itself insists that immigrants know at least one of the two official languages, or promise to learn one. If Canada can impose such conditions, why can't Quebec impose conditions regardings its schools?

Further on, Kheiriddin complains of deteriorating municipal infrastructure and unreasonable waiting periods in hospitals. She believes whatever money will be spent applying Bill 115 would be better spent if invested in infrastructure or to address the problem of delays in the medical system. But the problem of wait times and crumbling infrastructure is not limited to Quebec. What should Ontario cut to address the crumbling infrastructure in Ottawa or Toronto?

Kheiriddin says Quebec is choosing language purity over prosperity. (To be fair, the term "linguistic purity" should be defined. But again, I digress...) What she does not say is why one must necessarily preclude the other. The columnist does not seem to accept the possibility that both can coexist and even complement each other. She also said that Quebec is depriving itself of young immigrants by applying its language policy at a time where the population is aging. What then of Spain, Mexico, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Brazil? When moving to a new country, one must learn the local language. And if I move to a new province, I should learn the language used in that region too.

Finally, she complained that Quebec would received equalization payments despite – or given – its language policy. She says that Quebec can afford to offer seven-dollars-a-day daycare and free in vitro fertilization services only because it receives equalization payments. If an English-speaking province applied an English version of Quebec’s Language Charter and offered seven-dollars-a-day daycare, would she be so critical?

The two solitudes still exist. And some people and institutions seem determined to make sure they live on.