The reality of bilingualism in Quebec’s business

subject to penalty. Needless to say the suggestion of Parti Québécois arouses strong opinions, also from the financial decision-makers’ side; small businesses make up 95% of all businesses registered in the province, making re-regulation a highly bureaucratic and very expensive project. (Patriquin, 2011) This theme came up in some of the interviews, and the unrealistic nature of the proposition can be seen also in the responses:

“…They pushed [Quebecers] to become completely separate [from the Anglophone Canada]. And English and Anglophones to become alienated in the province. But they did not succeed and that’s why they’re at a loss and they’ll impose anything.” (CEO, Company F)

“…what makes an economy running is SMEs, and it probably would have a negative impact on business, since most of them are having difficulties to survive already, and imposing another legislation on them would increase the cost of doing business.” (HR Manager, Company C)

As the second quote points out, it is important to note that Quebec is already one of the most bureaucratic provinces where the cost of red tape is sixth highest, and cost-per- employee highest in Canada (Canadian Federation of Independent Business, 2010).

Further regulation would thus very likely drive independent business out of the province.

This concludes the background discussion on the regulatory, cultural-cognitive, and political-historic contexts of Quebec from the linguistic perspective.

This section has overviewed the historical and legal aspects of bilingualism in Canada both on the federal and the provincial level. It was found that most of the time language planning has been very extremist, with English first imposed on the French-speaking population through a strong assimilation strategy, with policy-making and planning ethnocentrically lead from Great Britain starting from the 1760’s. For the French- Canadians this meant a strongly discriminated position that lasted for two centuries, and shaped the cultural and political mentalities of the province towards nationalism and the will to protect the French language. Thereafter, with the Quiet Revolution in the 1960’s and the improved position of French-Canadians, the situation was gradually reversed and French was declared the only official language of Quebec. Even though the rest of the

country started promoting linguistic pluralism as an official language strategy, the province of Quebec moved in the other direction, advocating for assimilation in the favor of the French language. In the discussion at the end of section 2 we saw how language can be linked to the different levels of context. Next this framework is applied to the linguistic context of Quebec, with each of the components presented in Figure 2 (page 32) examined based on their effects on international organizations.

• Cultural-cognitive and political-historic contexts: From the overview of Quebec’s history we can draw the deep-rooted attitudes and mentalities prevailing especially amongst the generation of French-Canadians that lived through some part of the English assimilation era. As is often the case with the cultural- cognitive context, even though times change negative memories can persist, and this is essentially what has happened in the province of Quebec regarding the French language. This becomes evident to anyone who resides in the province for several months and follows the local political discussion. Due to the long-term discrimination based on language (which in the framework presented falls under conditions prevailing during a specific historical time period), the reality international organizations face today is characterized by high protection of the French language and sometimes even negativity towards English, which is demonstrated e.g. by the views of Parti Québécois presented earlier. French language in Quebec is strongly associated with the cultural mentality of being a Quebecer, not a Canadian. The generalization of English is often seen as a threat to the French language and culture. Key historical events shaping the context for international companies today have been the language laws passed in Canada and Quebec, especially Bill 101 in 1977.

• Normative context: The values and norms put forth by provincial authorities, with Office Québécois de la Langue Française at the forefront, advocate the superiority of French and using French in everyday operations in order to achieve business goals. This obviously has implications to international organizations, which cannot by definition function using only one language. In section 4.1.4 it

was shown that statistically Canadians and Quebecers have an increasingly positive stance when it comes to bilingualism and e.g. providing their children with competence in both official languages of Canada. Also the discussion on the college system of Quebec (CEGEP) featured elements that suggest the young generation to be more and more interested in acquiring better language skills; an increasing proportion of students wish to enroll in English college to improve international career opportunities. The development thus seems to be towards a greater appreciation of linguistic diversity and capability in Quebec, but the change is rather slow due to the historical heritage of several generations.

• Regulatory context: Together the cultural-cognitive and historical-politic contexts have shaped linguistic legislation; Bill 101 today supports the assimilation strategy adopted towards French by making it the only official language of Quebec. The direct effect of the law on all businesses with more than 50 workers is the demand to operate in French. It is thus the major channel of influence through which the context can limit international operations. The law is upheld by Office Québécois de la Langue Française, which engages in both the status and corpus planning regarding French. Apart from minor changes, the law’s content has not been revised since its adoption, even though there have been considerable changes in the business environment, demanding a greater need for an international approach.

As a general statement we can say that language planning in Canada and especially Quebec is far from complete, and continuously subject to influences such as increasing immigrant flows. As Wardhaugh (2006, 376) observes, the two official languages of Canada are increasingly becoming territorially based, much like is the case in Belgium and Switzerland. The constitution of Canada rejects this as a direction of development, as it does not suit the ideal of bilingualism flourishing across the country. This is however an ideal that seems to still require work in the province of Quebec, which should become evident as we next proceed to the empirical findings from the case companies.