It seems like an annual event, the painful debate in the various English school commissions in Quebec as to which schools to close in the face of declining enrolment.
What makes the annual cull so sad is the continued drum-beating in the French language militant community that English is somehow taking over.
Incidentally, the meetings discussing the school closings and mergers, at the English Montreal School Board took place at the same time the Quebec government was announcing 300 million dollars to build 20 new French schools! LINK
So what gives?
First of all, I don't agree that the Anglophone population is declining as stated in the CTV news report quoted above. Recent numbers from the last census actually show that the community has grown slightly.
What is true, however, is that the number of students attending English primary and high school has dropped precipitously.
Now if as I stated, the English community's numbers in Quebec are remaining relatively steady, how is it that we are seeing our elementary and high schools closing and merging at an astounding rate?
The first reason that is happening is because anglophones are choosing to send their children to French schools in greater and greater numbers.
The second reason for the decline is of course, Bill 101 and its prohibition on new Quebeckers (replacement citizens) attending English school.
Both English and French Quebeckers don't produce enough children to keep our population steady. Each family needs to produce about 2.1 offspring to maintain equilibrium, but that doesn't happen.
In Quebec, just like the rest of the western world, we are well below that threshold, somewhere between 1.4 and 1.6 children per family, about thirty percent too few.
So that is why we allow for immigration. Some argue that we let in too many newcomers, but that is another argument for another day, however, there is no denying that we do need immigrants to keep our population stable.
Now according to Bill 101, almost all of these immigrants must go to a French school. There is an exception for Canadians educated in English but this represents the tiniest of percentage. The vast majority must attend French school, Anglophones included if they arrived from anywhere but Canada, and even if they speak nothing but English.
If our English community is naturally shrinking, it's fair to ask how can we maintain our numbers if all the newcomers are forced into French schools?
It would seem logical that in order to maintain linguistic balance, some immigrants should be streamed into English schools.
But that of course, is not the case. Not according to Bill 101!
And so it's natural that our English schools continue to close in a slow and inexorable decline.
But curiously, our community does persevere and we do maintain our numbers.
How?
It seems that many immigrants choose to associate and assimilate to the English community despite being forced into French schools. Apparently, the heart wants what the heart wants.
It is this linguistic 'transfer,' of immigrants who although forced to attend primary and high school in French, choose to learn English on their own and associate and settle in with the Anglophone community.
It is this 'transfer' that so infuriates French language militants who see this go-around as dangerous and unfair.
In a furious effort to diminish this 'transfer' effect, language militants are now demanding that Bill 101 be applied to cegeps (colleges) and that those ineligible under Bill 101 to attend English school be forced to attend college in French as well.
It's a silly and futile response, meant to somehow stave off linguistic transfers to English. I've written about this before,where I argued that English cegeps aren't responsible in any way for the anglicization of non native anglos who attend the school.
This week a detailed study on the subject, commissioned by the Conseil supérieur de la langue française was released that came to that very same conclusion. Download the PDF{FR}
The 40 page study is very detailed and well prepared and as can be expected, its conclusions have rankled French language militants who have reacted rather bizarrely, accusing the commission, which is charged with advising the government on French language policy, as being a 'sellout,' lacking independence or alternately just plain wrong in its findings.
Pierre Curzi and Mario Beaulieu were beside themselves, stunned at the 'betrayal', that the Commission concluded that the status quo should remain in effect and students should have a choice vis-a-vis the language of instruction.
The report has been cast aside by those in the PQ who wish to hold onto the fiction that English cegeps anglicize students. The party has re-iterated that it wants to go ahead with legislation to apply Bill 101 to cegep, even in the face of the damaging report.
The facts don't seem to matter not when it comes to English!
Whether students go to English cegep or not, people will continue to learn English, and assimilate to the anglophone community. The process of transformation and the commitment to English commencing years and years before cegep.
And so English primary and high schools (perhaps cegeps in the future) will close, yet English will survive.
It's a nightmare scenario for those who believed and hoped Bill 101 would have the effect to cripple or eliminate the English community over time.
For these people, it's annoying that the plan didn't work and frustrating that there is no other 'cure' available to take care of the 'English' problem.
Demanding that Bill 101 be applied to cegeps in the face of such compelling evidence that it won't change anything, smells of desperation.
The real problem is that there is no problem.
The English community is stable and no threat to French. The anglicization of Montreal is a myth, dreamed up by separatists looking for a new scare issue that can justify sovereignty.
