Quebec French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge says that government workers will rely on the honesty of citizens who say that they are entitled to receive services in English. According to the Quebec Community Groups Network, there were some 600,000 mother-tongue English speakers identified in the 2016 census in the province, but 1.1 million Quebecers whose first official spoken language is English.
The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) expresses disappointment that Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s minister for the French language, does not see any need to use funding for the province’s Anglophones – newly earmarked under Ottawa’s fresh Action Plan for Official Languages – to support English-language community organizations in Quebec.
The federal Action Plan funds destined to assist Anglophones in Quebec should be utilized for French-language instruction of the English-speaking community, said Quebec’s minister of the French language, Jean-François Roberge, to reporters in a scrum this morning.
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While the approach adopted by Jean-François Roberge, Quebec minister for the French language, is disappointing, it is quite normal that some Action Plan funding is already used and will continue to be used to help francize Quebec Anglophones, Eva Ludvig, QCGN president, explains to TVA Nouvelles: “We need help. We have young people who are unemployed and who must be helped to learn French to enter the labour market.”
QCGN Director General Sylvia Martin-Laforge says that the action group created by Quebec French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge should consult with English-speaking Quebecers before taking concrete steps to further protect French.
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
