Report card on French may bring more coercive measures, QCGN says
Will the Quebec government set French up to fail?
QCGN President Eva Ludvig raised that possibility today as Jean-François Roberge, Minister for the French Language, and other ministers presented the government’s long-delayed Plan d’Action for the protection and promotion of French.
“What’s new in today’s presentation,” Ludvig said, “is the report card, or dashboard, M. Roberge has introduced to measure the state of French in Quebec.
“What was missing in today’s presentation was mention of the yardsticks the government intends to use to measure the health of French. A news report on an early version of the plan suggested the expected measurements are largely those known in advance to automatically indicate declines in French: mother tongue, language used mainly at home, and first official language spoken. And Minister Roberge today mentioned mother tongue as one of the worrisome statistics the government has observed.