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September 16, 2025
Growing up in Québec in the 1960s, English-speaking students like myself were required to pass a French language exam to graduate. No certificate, no diploma, without demonstrating competence in the language of the majority. At the time, it felt less like an opportunity for bilingualism and more like a government-imposed barrier, rooted not in fairness but in cultural insecurity.
History Cannot Be Rewritten
Let us not forget: the French lost the wars. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ceded New France to Britain. Sovereignty passed decisively to the English Crown. Yet, despite losing politically and militarily, Québec’s French-speaking population refused to fade away. They clung fiercely to their language, their religion, and their civil law system. That persistence is admirable, but it does not give license, centuries later, to impose compulsory French language requirements on English-speaking students whose families were loyal citizens of Canada.
The Nationalist Logic
Québec’s nationalist project argues otherwise. The recent Rapport sur la laïcité (2025) insists that French, alongside secularism and gender equality, forms the very foundation of Québec’s identity. To them, French is not simply a language; it is the nation’s safeguard. Rejecting Canadian multiculturalism, the report states that French as the common language — together with laïcité — is the “prerequisite for social cohesion.” In this framing, the mandatory French test was never about fairness, but about national survival.
A Binary Foundation of Equality
The same report also makes clear that equality in Québec is anchored in the binary of women and men. It recommends that the law be amended to spell this out explicitly: “l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes.” By doing so, Québec draws a line against what many call “gender ideology creep.” While Canada embraces multiple self-declared identities — non-binary, gender-fluid, two-spirit — Québec’s laïcité affirms equality in the traditional sense: male and female, nothing more, nothing less.
This is more than semantics. It reflects Québec’s belief that true secularism protects women from patriarchal religious practices, not by multiplying categories, but by enforcing equality between the two sexes.
The Problem of Coercion
But here lies the contradiction: if French is strong enough to be the cornerstone of identity, why force it upon others through compulsion? True confidence in a culture comes from openness, not coercion. Compelling English-speaking students to pass a French test in the 1960s — and continuing to entrench similar requirements today — undermines the very values Québec claims to defend: freedom of conscience, equality, and fairness.
The same risk applies to gender: by fixing equality narrowly on men and women, Québec may appear unbending to broader currents of Western liberalism. Yet, unlike the language test, here the firmness sends a clear cultural message — Québec defines equality on its own terms.
Toward a Healthier Model
Bilingualism should be celebrated, not enforced. Québec could lead by encouraging young people to see French as an asset in a global world, not as a mandatory gatekeeper. Likewise, on equality, it could present its binary model not as exclusionary but as principled: an insistence that male and female both matter equally, without dilution.
Bottom Line: Whether in language or in gender, Québec has chosen to stand firm against accommodation and ideological drift. The challenge is ensuring that firmness does not become coercion. True cultural survival must inspire confidence, not resentment.
SOURCE:
https://www.quebec.ca/gouvernement/politiques-orientations/laicite-etat/comite-etude-respect-laicite
