In Canada’s French-Speaking Quebec, Immigration Sparks Anxieties about Language and Identity

Canada’s efforts to increase immigration are meeting a mixed response in Quebec, where provincial identity has long been perceived as under threat. Immigrants (not including temporary residents) account for 23 percent of Canada’s 37 million residents, according to the 2021 census, the highest proportion among G7 countries and a historic high in Canadian history. Their share is expected to reach 30 percent by 2030. Indeed, the federal government intends to welcome about 1.5 million immigrants by the end of 2025. The Canadian government justifies this increase for economic reasons (particularly to counter labor shortages) but also to ensure the country’s demographic growth. Immigration accounts for up to 90 percent of Canada’s labor force increase and about 75 percent of population growth.

In May, Quebec’s legislature formally disapproved of this plan, calling it incompatible with the province’s ability to preserve its French-speaking heritage. Although the federal government sets immigration thresholds, it shares jurisdiction with Quebec and the 12 other provincial and territorial governments, all of which have signed immigration agreements with the national government. Immigration is a particularly potent issue in Quebec because it is the only province where Francophones represent a majority. For decades, public debates on immigration in the province have been fuelled by the fear that newcomers would hasten the decline of French, representing both a linguistic loss and a profound cultural shift.

Recently, this concern has been stoked by high levels of spontaneous arrivals. In 2022, nearly 40,000 asylum seekers arrived at Roxham Road, a rural, unofficial crossing point that links Quebec and New York State. Arrivals at Roxham Road, which has become internationally known as a place where people can cross into Canada to apply for asylum, accounted for 42 percent of all Canadian asylum claims made by people who crossed the border irregularly in 2022. From 2017 to 2022, 96 percent of unauthorized border crossings into Canada occurred in Quebec. In response, the Canadian and U.S. governments earlier this year revised their Safe Third Country Agreement governing handling of asylum seekers, closing a loophole that incentivized people to cross irregularly to make an asylum claim.

Concern over immigration is also based in longer-term anxieties in Quebec about Francophones’ majority. The share of the provincial population speaking French as its mother tongue (the first language learned at home) remained relatively stable throughout the 20th century, at around 80 percent. However, the 2021 census showed a decline, from 78 percent in 2016, to just under 75 percent. Across Canada, Quebec-based Francophones accounted for 17 percent of the population. In Quebec, Anglophones represented about 8 percent of the population, while the proportion of allophones, (people whose mother tongue was neither French nor English) was 14 percent (4 percent primarily spoke more than one primary language).

English exerts a strong attraction given the opportunities for social and geographic mobility within Canada, North America, and globally. It is the language most often spoken at home by 13 percent of Quebec’s population, almost double the proportion of people who grew up speaking English. Moreover, 35 percent of workers regularly use English at their job. Consequently, even though Quebec Francophones represent a majority within their borders, the French language is nevertheless in a vulnerable position given the hegemony and prestige of English.

As such, the question of what language immigrants speak has become both a social issue—about the perpetuation of a French-speaking society—and a political issue, about immigration thresholds and the integration of immigrants into a French-dominant area. The national government has sought to confront these issues in multiple ways, most recently with the 2022 law known as Bill 96 that seeks to solidify French as the primary language for delivering many public services, including for immigrants. This article reviews immigration in Quebec, language policies, and debates involving the two.

The Focus on French

Quebec’s official prioritization of the French language is a relatively recent development. Until the end of the 1970s, English was the main language of business transactions, workplaces, and the public sphere, particularly in terms of commercial signage. Francophones tended to constitute an undereducated and cheap labor force. In the mid-1960s, the federal Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism found that Francophones ranked 12th (out of 14) on the income scale based on ethnic origin, and had an average income 35 percent lower than Anglophones.

Furthermore, immigrants, particularly those rejected by French Catholic educational institutions, historically enrolled their children in the English Protestant or Catholic school system in large numbers and integrated into the English-speaking minority for reasons of success and social advancement. This fuelled social tensions at a time when the birth rate was dropping below replacement level. Concerns about anglicization of immigrants became a major issue. Since the early 1970s, Quebec’s government has adopted a series of laws aimed at enhancing the status of French in social, cultural, and economic life, and making it the language of integration for immigrants.

Canadian and Provincial Immigration Policies

The federal government is responsible for setting annual immigration levels and immigrant admissions. It is responsible for conducting health, criminality, and national security checks before granting residence permits; removals; defining immigration categories (skilled work, business, family reunification, refugee, and temporary stay such as for workers or international students); setting admissibility criteria; and recognizing refugee status.

In 1991, the Canadian and Quebec governments signed an agreement defining their respective immigration responsibilities (although Quebec leaders have since often tried to secure more control). Under this agreement, the number of immigrants headed to Quebec can be no larger than the province’s share of the national population (about 23 percent, according to the 2021 census), plus 5 percent (bringing this proportion to 28 percent by 2023). Quebec is solely responsible for selecting immigrants abroad according to its recruitment criteria (which are primarily economic), with the exception of refugees and family-class immigrants (although the province has its own process for locals sponsoring refugees). The Canada-Quebec accord is the only one that allows a province to select its own economic immigrants abroad. Between 50 percent and 60 percent of foreign-born permanent residents are selected by Quebec, with the rest chosen by the federal government (see Figure 2). It is the national government that determines who is a refugee; those who come to Quebec must meet the federal selection criteria. When a refugee is already in Quebec, the province's consent is no longer required. In other words, Quebec does not control the flow of cases filed by asylum seekers who arrived irregularly. Under the agreement, the federal government no longer offers welcoming, linguistic, and cultural integration services for immigrant arrivals in Quebec and instead financially compensates the provincial government for providing them. Quebec has also consented to admitting foreign students and temporary workers.

Between 1991 and 2021, Quebec received an average of about 43,000 permanent residents annually, less than 17 percent of Canada's average of nearly 258,000 (see Figure 3). This is a disproportionately small amount, and the gap will likely only increase with Ottawa’s new immigration targets. While the number of permanent residents admitted to Quebec has been relatively static, the number admitted nationwide has generally grown, aside from the drop marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although the 1991 agreement determined that Quebec must receive no more than 28 percent of all immigrants to Canada in a given year, the proportion has rarely exceeded 20 percent (except in 1991 and between 2011 and 2013). The trend over the last decade has been downward; in 2022, just 13 percent of new permanent residents to Canada settled in Quebec, less than half as many as the province was able to welcome.

One effect of this gap is that Quebec's share of the Canadian population could decline to about 20 percent or less by 2043, according to Statistics Canada projections. This decline will automatically translate into a reduction in the number of seats in the federal House of Commons, since representation is based on proportionality.

Immigrants to Quebec

Quebec tends to select immigrants who have French as their first language. This proportion varies from year to year but has been between 50 percent and 70 percent over the past decade. These permanent immigrants come from French-speaking or Francophile countries or regions, such as France, Haiti, the Maghreb, or sub-Saharan Africa.

However, it should be noted that Quebec (like Canada as a whole) increasingly grants entry to temporary workers (generally with little education, to fill low-wage positions) or those who have access to the international mobility program (to fill skilled labor needs), and in 2022 admitted 34,000 and 42,000, respectively. To these non-permanent residents must be added international students (55,000 in Quebec in 2022), asylum seekers (60,000), and others. Although the total number of temporary residents is difficult to estimate, the combined data suggest there were between 260,000 and 350,000 in Quebec as of January 2022.

This approach of favoring temporary immigrants allows Quebec to maintain a relatively stable number of permanent immigrants while meeting escalating labor market needs. Holders of a diploma from a Quebec institution and skilled temporary workers can benefit from a transitional open work permit that allows them to eventually obtain permanent residence after holding a job. In this regard, the government established the Quebec Experience Program (Programme de l'expérience Québécoise [PEQ]) in 2010. Reformed in 2020, the program allows foreign graduates of a Quebec institution or temporary foreign workers (in certain targeted occupations) residing in Quebec to obtain a Quebec Selection Certificate (Certificat de sélection du Québec [CSQ]) and apply to the federal government for permanent status. In all cases, advanced intermediate knowledge of French is a requirement.

Although most permanent immigrants selected by Quebec speak French well, a significant proportion does not speak it upon arrival. Thus, francization of immigrants is a government priority for integration. Quebec’s Ministry of Immigration, Francization, and Integration (Ministère de l'Immigration, de la Francisation et de l'Intégration) funds francization programs offered by partners (community organizations or employers) working on integration or institutional actors (schools, school service centers, higher education institutions, and vocational or adult training centers). Other ministries are involved in francization, particularly those responsible for health and social services, higher education, or labor. Even though the provincial government invests tens of millions of Canadian dollars per year to fund a multitude of programs, many stakeholders feel that it is still not doing enough. Nevertheless, according to Statistics Canada, more than 81 percent of recent immigrants (those who arrived in the previous five years) in Quebec could conduct a conversation in French as of 2016. Still, this represented more than 208,000 people who were unable to do so and for whom learning French often remains a condition for active participation in social, cultural, and economic life.

The Legal Framework for Language Use in Quebec

Through the 1960s, most immigrants in Quebec enrolled their children in English schools. Between 81 percent and 85 percent of schoolchildren who had neither French nor English as their mother tongue attended elementary or secondary schools in English. In 1976, Quebec’s government issued a policy statement arguing for further government intervention to establish the primacy of the French language. The document claimed that, in the private sector, French was the language of low-paying jobs while English was the language of senior positions and promotions; Canadian federalism disadvantaged French speakers, despite institutional bilingual policies; and the quality of French needed to be improved. Quebec adopted the Charter of the French Language in 1977, which in its preamble stated as its objective “to make of French the language of Government and the Law, as well as the normal and everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business.”

One provision of the charter particularly affected immigrants and Francophones who had previously sent their children to English-speaking schools. In practice, Francophones and allophones had to have their children educated in French at the primary and secondary levels; only Anglo-Quebecers retained a free choice as to the language of instruction for their children, provided that a parent had received primary education in English (from 1983 onwards). The immediate effect was to redirect to the French school system almost all children of foreign-born parents unless one parent had attended school in English in Canada. As of 2021, immigrants accounted for 36 percent of the English-speaking population of Quebec and immigrant children or children of immigrant parents accounted for 38 percent of those in schools where English was the language of instruction.

In June 2022, the Quebec government updated the Charter of the French Language by adopting Bill 96 (formally An Act Respecting French, the Official and Common Language of Québec), to further prioritize the French language. The law established new fundamental linguistic rights, including the right to French language learning services. In addition to reinforcing provisions concerning the world of work, administration, and justice, it established that, starting six months after an immigrant’s arrival, reception services will be offered only in French, except where health, public safety or “the principles of natural justice“ so require (sections 22.3 and 22.4). For public technical and vocational colleges known as CEGEPs (the equivalent of community colleges in the United States), the government can cap the number of students in English-language instruction at 17.5 percent of the overall student population (corresponding to the percentage of students eligible for instruction in English in Quebec at the primary and secondary levels).

Quebec's language regime means that mastery of French is essential for immigrant integration, particularly in the workplace. It is possible not to speak French and access public and social services, but social interaction and upward social mobility are negatively affected. Opposition to the revision from the business community, English speakers, and allophones (regardless of origin) focused on the constraints imposed by the Charter of the French Language, especially regarding access to education in English.

Immigration as a Source of Cultural Anxiety for Francophones?

Since the early 1960s, debates about immigration in Quebec must be understood in light of three broader issues: the preservation and development of Canada’s only majority French-speaking society, the integration capacity of the host society, and demography. Thus, immigration is widely seen by most provincial political and social leaders as contributing to the decline of French in Quebec. They have responded by trying to maintain Francophones’ demographic weight, encourage immigrants to integrate into this majority group, and make French the main language in public and private spaces, although this all remains difficult.

The idea that the French language is under threat in Quebec is growing more popular. In November 2020, a survey conducted for the Mouvement national des Québécoises et des Québécois (National Movement of Quebecers) found that 71 percent of Francophones were concerned about the French language’s situation, an increase of 17 percent over the previous year; more than two-thirds of respondents wanted the Charter of the French Language strengthened. In 2021, a peak 75 percent of Francophones were concerned about the role of the language. In part because of these kinds of concerns, the governing, center-right Coalition Avenir Quebec (Quebec Future Coalition [CAQ]) increased its control of the provincial National Assembly in 2022 elections, securing the largest majority in decades.

Demographic projections show that the share of Quebec's French-speaking population will decrease between 69 percent and 72 percent by 2036. This trend is mainly explained by the province’s fertility rate of 1.6 children per woman, well below the 2.1 necessary to maintain population size. Therefore, international immigration is the primary fuel for the growth of Quebec's population. This means that even if all immigrants adopted French as their primary language, the fundamental trend of Francophones' declining demographic weight would not be reversed, due to the increasing number of immigrants with a mother tongue other than French (even if they speak the language fluently). This explains why the proportion of people with French as their mother tongue can only decrease in Quebec.

Still, the federal government's new immigration levels have become a topic of societal debate. Some critics contend that Quebec does not have the capacity to admit more than 50,000 permanent residents per year (the current threshold, which some consider too high). For example, CAQ promised during the 2018 campaign to reduce the number of immigrants admitted annually by 20 percent, which supporters deemed essential to promote immigrants’ integration. More recently, Quebec Premier François Legault said raising the province’s immigration levels would be “suicidal” for the French language. Since 85 percent of Quebec’s immigrants settle in the Montreal region, where the foreign born comprised 34 percent of the overall population as of 2016, it is assumed that the conditions for successful integration are not met. On the island of Montreal, French was the first official language spoken at home for 48 percent of the population in 2021, compared to 78 percent for Quebec as a whole. In short, the government has invoked the nebulous notion of limited “carrying capacity” to admit fewer permanent residents than federal thresholds would allow. This discourse links immigration and the decline of French and feeds the cultural anxieties of Francophones. Nevertheless, the government announced in late May that it intended to raise the threshold to 60,000 immigrants per year by 2027, while tightening French proficiency requirements for immigrants arriving via economic pathways.

A study by economists Ibrahim Bousmah, Gilles Grenier, and David M. Gray shows that the income of immigrants in the Montreal area is higher among those who use English at work, and those who use only English at work earn 6 percent more than those who use only French. This disadvantages immigrants from regions where French is widely used. While more education was linked to higher incomes, it also corresponded to greater use of English. Thus, the Quebec government's policy making French the primary language of work is coming up against the labor market reality, where the broader hegemony of English penalizes immigrant workers who work mainly or exclusively in French. For immigrants who do not speak either language when they arrive, the appeal of English is therefore greater.

A Threatened Language?

Bill 96 doubled down on the Charter of the French Language to specify that French is “the common language of the Quebec nation,” an element that “bind[s] society together,” and “the language of integration.” Nevertheless, French competes with English, which is considered not only one of Canada's two official languages but also the language of mobility and social ascension.

Many immigrants and Anglophones opposed this measure. Approximately 77 percent of Francophones in Quebec supported Bill 96, while 95 percent of Anglophones and 67 percent of allophones opposed it, according to an Angus Reid Institute poll in October 2021. The statement that “Quebec is a nation and its official language is French” was supported by 76 percent of Francophones but only 14 percent of Anglophones and 44 percent of allophones. A similar gulf in support between Francophones and non-Francophones was observed for various measures proposed by Bill 96, including requiring employers to prove that knowledge of English is indispensable to the performance of work; allowing businesses the right to use English as a second language; extending certain language requirements to businesses with more than 25 employees; communicating exclusively in French with immigrants six months after arrival; limiting the number of places in English-language CEGEPs; and limiting access to English-language programs in French-language CEGEPs. In short, the status of French remains both ambiguous and sometimes contested for many non-Francophones, which feeds the concerns of the Francophone majority. In this context, immigrants are sometimes blamed for the decline of French in Quebec.

Still, the 78-29 vote in the National Assembly to pass Bill 96 was a clear signal that the government considered the matter a priority and was undeterred by criticism. Going forward, policymakers find themselves in a difficult position of advancing a language that faces multiple threats. One path forward would be to better explain the reasons for the decline of French in Quebec, which for the most part is due to the low fertility rate of French speakers. Quebec is not alone in this situation—in fact, its rate is slightly above the 1.4 children per woman for Canada as a whole. The challenge affects all Western societies and, as such, all minority language communities struggling to compete with the hegemony of English.

Addressing the underlying issues behind this trend might resolve minority communities’ anxieties, rather than seeking to limit immigration. Trying to limit the number of newcomers or expecting them to adopt behaviors that members of the majority society do not themselves fully embrace is an insufficient short-term response to a long-term challenge.

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