Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized for answering questions posed to him in English using French during a January town hall in Sherbrooke, Que.
During a Jan. 18 question-and-answer session at Bishop’s University, Trudeau used French to answer a woman who had asked in English about the difficulty accessing English-language mental health services in Quebec.
"We're in Quebec, so I'll respond in French,” Trudeau responded.
Judy Ross, who asked the question, told The Canadian Press she “felt disrespected” by his response.
Trudeau later appeared to defend his decision. “I will always defend official bilingualism,” he told reporters a day after the town hall. “I believe deeply in it, but I also understand the importance of speaking French, of defending the French language in Quebec, and that is something I will continue to do while respecting minority language rights across the country.”
Now he has written to the Quebec Community Groups Network, a non-profit anglophone group, to express his “sincere regrets.”
“Canada is a bilingual country, and as such, I recognize that I should have answered questions in the language they were asked, be it in Quebec or anywhere else in Canada,” he said in the Feb. 14 letter.
“As you may know, I grew up in a house where both languages were commonly used,” the letter went on. “My mother is English-speaking and my father firmly believed in the importance of bilingualism, the historical importance of our two official languages, and the richness that resulted from their coexistence. I share these beliefs …”
Trudeau also stated in the letter that Heritage Minister Melanie Joy has “heard you” and that she is “currently preparing our government’s first action plan on official languages.”
Trudeau said Minister of International development and La Francophonie Marie-Claude Bibeau “is also a great ally,” and that so too are “your English speaking MPs from Quebec who came to me and stood for your community.”
The Quebec Community Groups Network issued a press release stating they are “are very pleased” with the prime minister’s “personal commitment to the rights of our English language minority community and to those of the French language minority outside Quebec.”
“The letter was gracious and heartening, as it was clear our Prime Minister understands the importance of speaking to minority language communities in their own language,” the statement went on.
The number of people who told census takers that English was their mother tongue has declined dramatically in Quebec, falling from 13.1 per cent in 1971 to 8.4 per cent in 2001.
“From 1971 until the decrease tapered off in 2006, there was a total net loss of more than 180,000 persons, which included immigrants who spoke English only upon arrival in Quebec,” according to a Canadian Heritage research paper on Quebec’s English minority.
“Much of the decline in the number of Quebec’s English mother-tongue population was due to an exodus to other provinces following the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1976, the passage of Bill 101 in 1977, and a westward flow of key elements of the economy,” according to the report.
