This story is a collaboration between Concordia University’s journalism department and CBC Montreal.
It’s become part of Warda Waheed Kausar’s daily routine.
Each weekday at 3:20 p.m., she stops by the Roxboro United Church in Montreal’s West Island to drop off her three children, aged six, nine and 10, for after-school tutoring in French.
Saying goodbye to each of them in their native Urdu, she then picks up her youngest, aged four, from the daycare program, always met with a warm embrace.
Talking about her children’s progress in learning French, Kausar can’t help but smile. “They speak Urdu. They speak English. Now they are learning French. That is very good for them,” she said.
Part of her children’s progress can be credited to the Projet communautaire de Pierrefonds (PCP), a community organization helping immigrant families, like Kausar and her children, adjust to Quebec society.
Originally from Pakistan, Kausar and her family arrived in Montreal four years ago. Nobody in the family had prior knowledge of French, but they have been able to get by in English while living in Pierrefonds.
According to the 2021 federal census, some 89 per cent of Pierrefonds residents are either unilingual anglophones or speak both English and French. Though this linguistic composition can be convenient for newcomers who have a better grasp of English than French, it could limit the chances for them to practise their French, and by extension, integrate into Quebec’s majority francophone society.
In view of this, Kausar knew that additional efforts would be needed if her family were to learn French. Six months after arriving in Montreal, she learned of the PCP.
Operating out of the Roxboro United Church, the organization works to alleviate some of the stress immigrant families often face. This includes teaching participants about the local culture, guiding them through the network of social resources, assisting them in building resumés and breaking the isolation often felt by immigrant families through community connection.
But one of the PCP’s paramount services is its French-language programming for young immigrants.
These services are meant to help build opportunities for success academically and beyond in the French language — giving young newcomers the necessary support that some say is lacking from the Quebec government.
Politics of language
The programming is ongoing against the backdrop of heightened political and social tension around language and identity in Quebec.
The ruling Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government has passed several controversial pieces of legislation viewed by many as targeting newcomers. Such legislative measures included giving newcomers just six months to learn French.
CAQ officials, including Premier François Legault, have also made numerous divisive remarks about immigrants, including suggesting that non-francophones who live in mostly English-speaking areas of Montreal have no desire to learn French or about Quebec’s unique identity.
However, this is not the reality on the ground, said Michael Leclair, the PCP’s executive director.
Working with around 500 participants a year, Leclair said he has met numerous immigrant parents who have been keen to learn as much as they can about Quebec society and the French language.
“I’ve heard and I’ve witnessed all sorts of people just trying to fit in,” he said.
Leclair added that a significant number of the PCP’s clientele have endured hardships to get themselves and their families to Canada. Now that they’re here, he adds, “they’re doing their best to try and communicate and they’re doing their best to try and integrate into the community.”
But he said the CAQ’s use of the stick rather than the carrot approach doesn’t help to encourage newcomers to embrace another language and culture.
“I have seen families who have genuinely tried to adapt and integrate be extremely demoralized,” he explained. The CAQ’s approach to newcomers, he adds, is “very mean-spirited and misguided.”
WATCH | PCP executive director on best ways to support newcomers:
Michael Leclair, executive director of the PCP, discusses the need to provide a welcoming environment for immigrants trying to adjust to French and Quebec culture.
Columnist Toula Drimonis, herself the child of Greek immigrants, has written extensively about the thorny issue of identity in Quebec centred around language.
She agrees that newcomers are generally open to embracing French, and most young immigrants are “sponges” who eventually learn to speak “perfect French with a Québécois accent.”
However, she added that if the Quebec government is truly looking for concrete solutions to protect French, more free and easily accessible resources are required to help newcomers adjust.
“I should not be able to walk two blocks down the road in Montreal without bumping up against a sign showing me where to go for free French lessons,” said Drimonis.
Positive, not punitive measures
Being against the Legault government’s measures has nothing to do with one’s commitment to Quebec’s French fact, according to Leclair.
“I love the French language,” he said. “But by calling certain groups out, by demonizing them, by turning this into something that’s negative is extremely demoralizing.”
Brooke Kolter, the PCP’s preschool programming co-ordinator, agrees that the desire for integration is alive and well among the participating families.
She recounted an instance where an immigrant mother registering her child for preschool programming asked if she could listen in on the French activities.
“The mom was saying how she really wants to learn French,” Kolter explained. “She wanted to come and just sit in and listen in so that she could learn as well.”
Part of why Kausar has been registering her children in PCP programming for the past four years has been the positive environment it provides for them to learn French and to socialize with other children from immigrant backgrounds.
Her second oldest child, Hafsa, 9, says she enjoys coming to the PCP after school each day to socialize, get help with French homework and participate in fun activities with other kids her age.
She believes the PCP has helped her in learning the French language — though she admits making the “r” sound at the back of the throat is still a challenge.
Despite the political rhetoric, Kausar says she has found Quebecers to be quite tolerant, helpful and accommodating to her family as they navigate their way through the francophone society.
She is also awaiting her own entrance into the province’s government-funded French courses, looking to learn the language as her children are.
Kausar admits that adjusting to French has been a challenge for her and her family over the past four years, “but it’s OK,” she said.
“We are trying our best.”