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''Demography'' | ''Demography'' | ||
But .. | But maybe you are among those who blindly believe that the French-Canadian population is growing and that things will work out fine in the end. | ||
It is true that the number of French Canadians augments with passing years. But so does the number of Anglo-Canadians, and faster even. Because they benefit from immigration while we do not. So much that of the 29% that we were in 1951, we will no longer be in 2001, that is to say in 40 years, according to demographer Jacques Henripin*, more than 20% and maybe even 17% of the population of Canada. | |||
Do you realize the untenable - and absurd - situation in which our children and grand-children will be? You hope that English Canada will grant them, 17%, the rights that we, at 29%, or that our fathers at 35% could not obtain? | |||
Aren't you the utopian here? | |||
''Pact between two great races'' | |||
French Canada is unfortunately populated by people who, for lack of realism, love to tell each other stories. And one of the most dangerous ones is that the Confederation is a sacred pact between two great races, the French race and the English race. That is poetic. It makes you feel something strong. But it is nevertheless an illusion. Because one searches in vain, in the texts, and more so in the facts, just a little word or a little gesture that allows it to be supposed. | |||
The great and the small political decisions of Canada are taken in the Parliament or the Cabinet, where French Canadians are a minority. An example? the entry of Newfoundland in the Confederation or the adherence of Canada to the UN, NATO or NORAD did not need the approval of French Canada. Even if we had been consulted, the minority that we are could not have changed anything to it. | |||
You will reply that French is all the same an official language. You are wrong. Or at least, you are but partially in the right. French is, with English, official in Quebec - which makes it the ''only'' bilingual province - , in the Parliament of Ottawa and in the federal courts of justice. From the start, this limitation puts French on unequal footing vis-a-vis English. | |||
In the Parliament, 9% of speeches were pronounced in French since the installation of simultaneous translation. Are the French-speaking members of parliament less loquacious than the English-speaking colleagues? Or do they simply want to show the "superiority" of the perfect bilingualism? No. It is simply the reflex of a minority, conditioned by 200 years of trusteeship. | |||
The final result: From the inside, Canada is a country where English highly predominates and from the outside it is also an English country where, it is said, that English and French live in perfect harmony for the edification of human kind. | |||
* ''Conférence des sociétés savantes'', Montreal, June 6 1961. In the newspapers. | |||
=== Economic === | === Economic === |