A Vaudreuil mother says she was shocked to find out what her 11-year-old daughter was learning in school about Quebec’s infamous language issues.
Selina Richard’s daughter attends Ecole de Coteau du Lac and was reading her social studies workbook aloud one day when the words “immigrant” and “Anglophone” caught Richard’s attention.
Intrigued, she decided to read the textbook herself. One of the questions asked in the book was “In what region of Quebec is the French language the most threatened?”
The answer written on the line below it, in her daughter’s handwriting, was “Montreal, because it has the most immigrants.”
There is a part of the book that addresses positive impact of immigration on Quebec and Montreal, but Richard said it is comparatively small, at the bottom of a page.
Another page refers to the Anglophone community’s reaction to Bill 101, saying many Anglophones were not happy with the law and moved to other provinces because of it. It also adds that Anglophones went to court to fight various aspects of the law.
“If they're going to teach it, why not say ‘Some Montrealers had this reaction?’ Why would have to be the Anglophones? My father is French Canadian, his reaction to Bill 101 was [that] he was appalled,” she said.
The lack of context is problematic, she said, since children as young as her daughter don’t even know what context is.
Jack Jedwab, executive vice-president of the Association for Canadian Studies, says it's important to take a balanced, nuanced approach when teaching kids about language issues.
“In this way of presenting it, there’s very little balance, which results in generalizations and will end up very possibly misleading students in regards to the issues, which are important,” he said.
He also pointed out though the workbook says some Anglophone groups went to court over Bill 101, history didn't end there.
“Back in the 1970s, Bill 101 did call for unilingual commercial signs and it was contested. The outcome was that the courts said there will be French predominance [on the signs and] that's what Bill 101 is today,” he said.
In a statement, the Commission Scolaire des Trois Lacs told CJAD that it's up to each school to approve their material, teachers teach historical facts without making judgements and it is out of the question to practice discrimination in any form.
That's not good enough for Richard. She said she wants the Ministry of Education to act.
“This blow out is because parents need to know what their kids are learning,” she said.