This past weekend, the Ottawa Citizen reported on a rather bizarre new policy being implemented in Quebec’s largest school board, the Commission scolaire de Montreal, that will inflict what can only be described as one of the biggest censorship efforts in recent Canadian history on its 110,000 students.
Schools within the Commission will be classifying playgrounds, hallways and cafeterias as “French-only zones” for students and teachers, even while on recess. The board’s chairwoman, Diane De Courcy was quick to say that the approach was not as bad as it sounds, saying “There will be no language police… If they were automatically switching to another language [than French], the monitor will gently tap them on the shoulder — not the head — to tell them, ‘Remember, we speak French. It’s good for you.’”
“It’s good for you” sounds oddly maternal, doesn’t it?
The policy, to be implemented next September applies to all students, even the 53% of Commission students who have a mother tongue other than French.
Private schools that want to mandate the speaking of French, English, Polish, or even Vulcan should have every right. That same courtesy should not apply to taxpayer-funded schools, however.
De Courcy can say, as she has, that the school board is not “infringing on children’s freedom,” but that doesn’t make it so. With the exception of sensible profanity policies that schools have, restrictions on language — especially when the all but one language is restricted — are an abridgment to freedom of expression, which is already under attack enough in Canada.
The unwritten rule of Canadian rights and freedoms is that French trumps all. La belle Province has taken an inch and run 10 miles, going further and further to codify the formerly unwritten assumption of Franco-supremacy. The result? Attitudes like the one being expressed by the Montreal school board that remove not only non-French students’ right to speak in their native tongue on recess, but also the right of French students attempting to use recess time to perfect their English, or whatever other language they are trying to attain proficiency in.
Whether this is a bizarre feat of social engineering to instill a loyalty to Quebec from a young age, or merely a misguided attempt for control by a government agency, it’s safe to say, as my friend did, that “This is just a little too Animal Farm-ish, even for Quebec.”
More appalling "dictatorship" from the floundering separatists. It is hard to believe that this could be allowed to happen within a democratic country, however, la belle province does seem to be the exception to the rule more often than not. I am an ex-Montrealer; one of many "401 refugees" whose mother tongue is English and who felt pushed out of my place of birth. My rights as an English speaking Montrealer (born there) were trampled on and I was forced to leave as I was not fluently bilingual. Funny how the French speaking people did not have to be bilingual to work in Quebec but the Anglos had to be completely proficient in the French language – no justice there 30 years ago and none today. Well written article Andrew.
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Altough I agree this is bad, you got to understand that even if you are not a fucking seperatist, french is a minority language out there, and that influance the school activities. You see, we calculate what we call a language power of attraction in certain region of the globe. In montreal(And a lot of quebec bilingual areas) english have a great power of attraction, often more powerfull than french. What they are trying to do by this mesure is to make sure that the children actually integrate in french society. You see, child hood, especially in elementary school, make someone really easelly influanced by other, Language get in or out easelly too. The problem is not the young not learning french: their in french school annyway, it's them not having them as favored official language. Now I dont believe that french, in Canada as a whole is threaten, even thought is most regions outside of quebec it is, but we are looking at a language that is loosing importance beacause more people speak english and annother language. French people are a minority in this schoolbord, children who go to this school board are a minority in the region it covers. So basically they act like if they would be thrown in manitoba(example). But maybe they should talk with french teatchers of Ontario and Manitoba: Coercion does not work. Nor does reminder. What you got to do, is try to explain to the children why it is importent to learn and use french when possible. Beacause when they get the big picture, they start liking their language. but coercion is making them Hate their language. They want to throw it away. French Canadian who live in areas that are english, tend not to work in their language. But still, they keep it and their children learn it (most of the time their spouse dont). Why? It's close to useless after all! Beacause this language speak how they really feal, what they really think. And, well, for most of the children in this school board, the language in witch they can express themselfs isn't french. That's ok, beacause they need french, unlike in other areas of Canada. Maybe they should have think about that first…