Bilingual municipalities take action as Quebec’s native English speaking population falls

The 2021 Canadian census showed the number of Quebecers whose mother tongue is English has continued to decline, and several municipalities where native English speakers were once the majority have now fallen below the 50 per cent threshold.

As the mayor of the Laurentian town of Gore, Scott Pearce said he’s seen the decline first hand.

"When I took the job 20 years ago, the first few years we were over 50 per cent English. Now we’re down to about 20 per cent," he said.

It’s one of several communities in the Laurentians with deep English-speaking roots that has seen a decline. But the decline is also happening on the island of Montreal.

Depending on how you interpret the data from the latest census, cities such as Westmount, Pointe-Claire and Beaconsfield are already or on the verge of falling below 50 per cent.

Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies, said these numbers aren’t surprising, but care should be taken in how they are interpreted.

"On the basis of mother tongue, they are decreasing across the board," he said. "And the government argues so is the percentage of francophones in some places is decreasing as well, because immigration, which is largely, from persons whose first language is neither English nor French, allophones, has risen and continues to increase."

Under the old language law, Bill 101, municipalities that fell below the 50 per cent English speaking threshold would automatically lose their bilingual status. But the new language law, Bill 96, allows municipalities that fall below the 50 per cent threshold to retain their status as long they pass a resolution to do so in council. This is not a one-time action, and several mayors expressed to CTV that they were not certain how often this must be done.

The Office de la langue française confirmed to CTV News that 48 of the municipalities where English was no longer the mother tongue of the majority adopted resolutions to keep their bilingual status.

That includes the town of Gore, as well as the Westmount, once considered an English-speaking bastion in the city.

"People were very, very concerned at the beginning when this, when this all sort of rolled out with the government because we were unsure of what it meant, what were the implications?" said Westmount Mayor Christina Smith.

She said keeping their status ensures tax bills, newsletters and other official city documents can be in English and French, something that is important to their elderly population. All communications with the government are only in French, something Smith supports, adding that the number of bilingual residents in Westmount is steadily growing.

"We’re really involved in people's lives and we're, you know, they're dealing with us on permits, on where they're going to park their car, how they're going to manage their homes, what soccer or hockey team their kid is going to play on," she said. "I’m proud to live in a city that is totally bilingual."

Pearce agrees.

"I have my nine municipalities that I represent and five of us have our bilingual status," he said. "We always say we don't have an English community or a French community. We just have our community and we get along and it's not an issue."