Bouchard-Taylor Commission - The linguistic analysis is misleading: Difference between revisions
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==Weak comparison== | ==Weak comparison== | ||
This inflation of the population whose origin is other than French or British is accompanied at once by reassuring remarks on the stability of the proportion of Quebecers of French mother tongue. To show it, the document compares the weight of the French-speaking population for the census of 1986 with that of 2001. However, Statistics Canada informed that the major changes brought to the questionnaire in 1991 render very complex the task of comparing the data of 1991 on the mother tongue with that of 1986. In other words, it is better to compare only the data of 1991 and 2001, collected using an almost unchanged questionnaire. Once then observes that the weight of the French-speaking people in Quebec fell of almost one point of percentage during the last ten years. | |||
The analysis of the linguistic situation that the commissaries present us thus clearly leaves to be desired. Their way of treating the question appears to aim before all to send the message that it is not necessary for the French-speaking majority to worry, whatever the growth rate of the population whose origin is not French or English. The commissaries seem to have their idea made the subject. This would be a pity. Because without an objective and adequate report of the linguistic situation which currently prevails in Quebec, the commission is very likely to miss its goal. | |||
It is the weakness of the consultation document in this matter which pushed me from the very start of the public hearings to suggest the commissaries to reveal, as they receive them, the studies which they ordered from experts to nourish their reflexion, in particular those bearing on the demographic profile of Quebec and the indicators of collective integration. Their fellow-citizens could then have also benefited from them or, if necessary, revealed the inaccuracies which they could contain. The commissaries preferred to keep these studies secret until the moment to present their final report. This remains regrettable. | |||
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