Opinion: Ensuring English-Speaking Quebecers Get What They Get

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Canada’s Official Languages ​​Act is vital to English-speaking Quebec. It guarantees our constitutional language rights at the federal level. It also provides the legislative basis for federal support for our official language minority community through the Official Languages ​​Action Plan.

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While most of the action plan’s funding goes to protect and promote French, the plan also supports a number of programs and organizations that enhance the vitality of Quebec’s English-speaking community, including the organization we represent, the Network of Community Groups of Quebec, which acts as an advocate for the policy and funding needs of our community.

Bill C-13, which seeks to modernize the Official Languages ​​Act, proposes a sweeping change that would greatly alter the relationship between Canada’s English-language minority and the federal government. It focuses on the promotion and protection of French throughout Canada, including in Quebec, an asymmetric legal approach to official languages ​​that puts the future of our community at considerable risk.

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Concerns about Bill C-13 are top of mind when Official Languages ​​Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor visits Quebec this week as part of the federal government’s consultation process for the next five-year action plan. We will be watching, and speaking out, to ensure that the modernization of the Official Languages ​​Act does not bring about an erosion of the federal government’s tangible support for the English-speaking minority.

It is extremely important that English-speaking Quebec be heard, not only during Parliament’s consideration of Bill C-13 in the fall, but also during ongoing consultations on the action plan.

Thanks to our collective efforts over the past two decades, our network and community have been able to increase Action Plan investments in specific areas such as literacy, access to health and justice in English, as well as arts and culture. . We must consolidate these investments and continue to advocate for our fair share of federal funds to ensure more resources reach more English-speaking Quebecers. At the same time, we must also send a clear message that the Government of Canada must ensure that English- and French-speaking Canadians continue to have equal rights.

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The Quebec Community Groups Network has long played a role as a facilitator in these consultation processes, bringing community groups together to ensure that the federal government listens and addresses our needs. Working together, we successfully advocated for the creation of the Community Innovation Fund in which Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) invested more than $2 million in social financing initiatives to help vulnerable populations, including older adults, youth and newcomers. The current action plan includes a $5 million fund for English-speaking Quebec, which has seen Canadian Heritage fund more than 50 projects. This dedicated fund is supporting groups that provide food assistance; accessible heritage institutions and performing arts centers; as well as senior centers and organizations serving marginalized youth.

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Our community lacks adequate access to provincial government information and services in our own language, a situation made even more precarious by Bill 96. We must also counter persistent myths that English-speaking Quebecers are a spoiled elite. Our unemployment rate is two percentage points higher than that of the French-speaking majority in the province. The proportion of our community living below the low-income limit (LICO) is 17.8 percent, compared to 11.9 percent for French-speaking Quebecers.

To address these and other serious challenges, our community needs innovative programs that must be renewed, strengthened, and funded in the next action plan. Our community organizations require sustained investments in core operations, political capacity, and research. We also need support to build connections between individual community members and our institutions and nurture a new generation of leaders.

Our members and stakeholders will actively participate in these consultations to ensure that the goals and priorities of the next action plan align with those of English-speaking Quebec. We hope that the minister and federal legislators are listening carefully to our realities and concerns.

Eva Ludvig and Sylvia Martin-Laforge are, respectively, Acting President and CEO of the Network of Community Groups of Quebec.