Lucien Bouchard was very indulgent to accept my request for a meeting in the summer of 2000. I had given him a hard time by publishing a book entitled Emergency exit, where I dared to assert that unless there was a major strategic shift, the great man would not achieve independence. I added that he would be forced to resign later in the year when he realized that Jean Chrétien would obtain, in the federal election, a greater number of votes in Quebec than Mr. Bouchard had obtained. in his own election.
These predictions would not come true until six months later, but it seemed urgent to let the Prime Minister know that more bad news was on the horizon. In the year since my resignation as councilor, he had succumbed to the grandiose project of the mayor of Montreal at the time, Pierre Bourque, “Une île, une ville”. Statistics in hand, I tried to show him that by integrating (by force) the west of the English-speaking island into the historic town of Jean Drapeau, the electoral weight of the French-speaking people, and therefore their political strength, would dramatically decline. The news would immediately make the election of an openly sovereignist mayor impossible and severely undermine the island’s French-speaking status. The situation was only going to worsen, according to the projections of the demographer Marc Termotte that I showed him, because in all the cases, the proportion of Francophones would decrease in the decades to come in Quebec, on the island, and in the city. I remember using the terms “municipal linguistic suicide” to talk about the Montreal merger.
Mr. Bouchard seemed to discover this aspect of the problem in front of me. But he was counting on francophones to “defend himself”, he said. And he was keen on his project. I had done what I could. The 2009 municipal election was going to test one of my hypotheses. Louise Harel was the formidable opponent of outgoing mayor Gérald Tremblay. Everyone knew that she was a sovereignist and fiercely favorable to French. (Besides, his English was not that great.) You will be surprised to learn here that Mr.me Harel won the election. Yes. Within the limits of the city of Montreal as it existed before the mergers, the sovereignist obtained a clear plurality of votes (39%, against 33.5% for Gerald Tremblay and 27.5% for Richard Bergeron). But now, she lost in the new town. The one that she herself had merged with less French-speaking portions. It would have been much worse, of course, if Jean Charest had not been there, allowing 14 cities (Westmount, Beaconsfield, Côte-Saint-Luc, etc.) to hold demerger referendums in the meantime. Yes, it must be said: without Jean Charest, Montreal would have already asserted, or at least claimed, a bilingual status.
A French-speaking metropolis on borrowed time
The appearance of a Balarama Holness at this point in the story is not an anomaly. Claiming that Montreal proudly display its bilingual character, even proposing a status of City-State that would separate Montreal from Quebec from the regions are not new ideas. They have circulated in English-speaking Montreal and among certain French-speaking elites for decades. Demographics helping, these are now ideas whose good times have come.
I predict Mr Holness will easily get 20% of the vote in the November election. (Which will contribute to the victory of Valérie Plante.) If he had been a candidate in the completely merged city planned by Mr. Bouchard, he would be at the gates of the town hall.
An Angus Reid poll tells us that 82% of
Anglo-Montrealers believe that Quebec does not form a nation and that French is not the official language. Yes, they dispute the fact that French is legally an official language. This is to say how high they climbed. They are followed on this denial scale by 53% of allophones and 19% of francophones. An anti-nationalist coalition in the making. There will certainly be no referendum on the bilingual status of the city of Montreal during the next term. The fruit is not yet ripe enough. But if there was one, what would be the result? A survey on this subject was conducted by Léger three years ago for the Association for Canadian Studies. The question was both simple and ambiguous. In your opinion, is Montreal a bilingual city?
The sample, for the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (and not for the island or the city), offered an impressive answer of clarity: a massive yes. By group: 86% among allos, 83% among Anglos, 80% among French people. The referendum proposed by Mr. Holness would rather ask: do you want the city of Montreal to have bilingual status? The No camp would make a point of emphasizing the distinction between the real city, which has a majority of bilingual inhabitants, and its legal status, which must remain French-speaking. I would gladly participate in this effort. But I owe it to lucidity to affirm that the Yes would prevail. Montreal would claim to be officially bilingual.
This would only be one more step in the municipal linguistic suicide that began in 2000. In its current state, law 96 of the CAQ on language does not have the muscle needed to avoid this gloomy future. But I would have a few suggestions for the current Prime Minister, if the French-speaking future of Montreal really interests him.
jflisee@ledevoir.com ; blog: jflisee.org