Evaluating the impact of Bill 101 on the English-speaking communities of Quebec

Abstract

Though forty years of language policies much improved the status and use of French in Quebec, laws such as Bill 101 played a role in reducing the demographic and institutional vitality of the English-speaking communities of Quebec (ESCQ). Pro-French laws maintained Francophones at close to 80% of the Quebec population and ensured that 95% of the Quebec population acquired knowledge of French. Language laws contributed to the decline of Anglophone mother tongue speakers from 13% of the population in 1971 to 7.5% in 2016, while increasing to 70% French/English bilingualism amongst Anglophones. With a net interprovincial loss of over 310,000 Anglophones who left Quebec for the rest of Canada (ROC), results show that Anglophones who stayed in Quebec are less educated and earn lower income than Quebec Francophones. Language laws limiting access to English schools succeeded in reducing the size of the English school system from 256, 251 pupils in 1971 (100%) to only 96,235 pupils in 2018 (37%). While the Anglophone minority bemoan their demographic and institutional decline in education, health care, and government services, many Francophones remains concerned about threats to French by bilingualism in Montreal and their minority status in Canada and North America.