Newly-elected Liberal MP refuses to say whether French is in decline in Quebec

Liberal candidate Anna Gainey addresses her supporters after winning the federal by-election in the Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Westmount riding Monday, June 19, 2023 in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

The new Liberal MP for the particularly anglophone Montreal riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Westmount, Anna Gainey, refused on Wednesday to say whether she believes French is in decline in Quebec.

"Today, we're here to get to Ottawa. We're starting our work. We've had some great partial elections in several regions of Canada. I'm really looking forward to being here for my first caucus", she replied to a journalist who asked her directly.

"I have other colleagues here who would like to speak," she insisted, turning to those following her in a corridor.

"I heard a question from the back," said one of them in English.

But the question about the decline of French kept coming up.

"Yes or no, (...) it's a word," insisted at least three journalists. "Why not answer the question?"

The former Liberal Party president then claimed that "it's up to Ben (Carr, another newly elected member) to answer the question," to which the parliamentary press pointed out that "we choose the questions, you choose the answers."

Gainey was one of four new MPs elected on Monday evening in byelections that did not change the colour of the Canadian electoral map in any way.

Her party, which is in government, has repeatedly expressed concern about the decline of French in Quebec and elsewhere in the country. It just passed a reform of the Official Languages Act in the hope of tackling this problem.

• Listen on CJAD 800 Radio: Anna Gainey stick handles through her first day on the job.

In recent years, Liberal MP for Saint-Laurent Emmanuella Lambropoulos was forced to resign from the Official Languages Committee after denying the decline of French in Quebec.

Asked to comment on the events that had just taken place, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet said that "she had to keep (Marc) Garneau's executive," in reference to his predecessor who was one of the main leaders of a charge to have all references to Quebec's Charter of the French Language removed from the new version of the Official Languages Act.

Above all, Blanchet criticized her for running an "arrogant" campaign in which she did not have "the respect" to "appear in a debate, go out and meet citizens, do anything other than one or two carefully selected interviews."

Statistics Canada repeatedly confirms the trend for French in Quebec. The most recent census data confirmed that French continues to decline in Quebec and the rest of the country. The percentage of Quebecers who primarily speak French at home fell from 79 to 77.5 per cent between 2016 and 2021.

Projections published in March by the Office québécois de la langue française also show that, as the language used in the home, French will steadily decline over the next few years, to the benefit of English.

And in the world of work, English is also becoming increasingly dominant. Half of Quebecers, and two-thirds of those working on the island of Montreal, regularly use English or a language other than French at work.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on June 21, 2023.