Q&A: Quebec minister on the $603 million plan to protect the French language

The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government announced that it would invest $603 million over five years to protect the French language. There is money to help temporary immigrant workers learn French and a push for more French content on streaming platforms such as Netflix.

Quebec Minister Responsible for the French Language Jean-François Roberge spoke to CTV News Montreal anchor Maya Johnson about the government's plans for the money.

This article has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the video above for the full interivew.

Maya Johnson

It's not every day you have six cabinet ministers together on a Sunday morning. Yesterday is when you made this announcement to unveil an action plan. So it seems with that number of ministers coming out announcing this plan, your government clearly wants to send a strong message. The PQ though, is calling this a public relations exercise. So I'm curious, how do you see this? Is the CAQ better positioned than the PQ to protect French?

Jean-François Roberge

Well, we don't think about the PQ and we make our politics. We're thinking what's the best for Quebecers, what's the best for the French language here in Quebec. We've seen that during the past year, a lot of numbers, a lot of statistics coming from the Office de la Langue Francaise or from Statistics Canada showing a decline of French. So we've decided to put our strength together, six ministers working as a group for 15 months, and we are really proud about what we what we bring to the table. We have an important plan and I'm happy to explain it to you and to everyone here in Quebec.

Maya Johnson

I want to pick up on something you said about the statistics. For example, coming from the OQLF, the OQLF actually released the results of a survey earlier this month, showing the use of French in public spaces remains stable at 79 per cent, so that's a level that's basically unchanged since 2007. But it seems instead of using the numbers from a Quebec government agency, you're basing these measures on different data from Stats Can. Why not use the Quebec government's own numbers?

Jean-François Roberge

We use the Quebec government's own numbers. We had a lot of studies coming from the Office de la Langue Francaise. All those studies show the decline of French. It's true that one of the studies said it was like stable, but it's shown that we have a problem here in Montreal and we have a problem to (sic) the generations. Younger [people] don't use French as much as older Quebecers. A lot of statistics coming from the Office de la Langue Francaise show that we have a decline in French in work, when we shop online, when we shop here, when we use the digital platform for our series [and] movies, so there's a lot to do, and that's why we came up with this plan: $603 million, 21 measures. I think it's obvious that we have to do something to stop the decline of French in Quebec.

Maya Johnson

But Mr. Roberge, I suppose it's the numbers that you choose to look at or how you choose to interpret them. For example, I do know there was the bonjour-hi numbers that came out also from the OQLF showing that yes, more people may be getting greetings or fewer people are getting greetings just in French. But, on the other hand, 98 per cent of people are still able to get service in French if they ask for it. So, is that not a good sign?

Jean-François Roberge

Well, 98 per cent is a good result, but in Quebec, it should be 100 per cent, and the fact that we lost 13 per cent in 13 years for the welcoming in stores with French, it's like a symptom of the sickness of the French language. So it's important to move on and to have a lot of actions. The Commissaire à la langue française came with four studies during the past year since we created this institution, and all those studies showed the decline of French. The immigration of asylum seekers, the numbers of asylum seekers is a real problem; not asylum seekers are the problem, but the numbers of them is a huge, huge problem here because a lot of them don't speak French. This is why we've decided to invest $320 million in francization Quebec, so we will be able to help them learn French.

Maya Johnson

Okay. So, everyone can agree that the French language needs to be protected in this North American context. Anglophones will agree with that as well. But also, people are asking how you can justify spending this much money on language right now, when so many Quebecers are concerned about other bread-and-butter issues like health care, education and housing. People saying, 'I can't get a family doctor,' 'there isn't a teacher for my child's classroom,' 'I can't find an affordable place to live.' How do you respond to that criticism; that the priority is in the wrong place?

Jean-François Roberge

We can do a lot of things. We can do some politics and invest on the housing problem, we can address the education problems and we can take care of one of the top priorities here in Quebec, which is the French language too. It's not because we take action on French that we won't take action on other problems.

Maya Johnson

Okay. Minister Roberge thank you again for your time today. We appreciate it.