Bill 96 goes against science, Montreal expert says

Quebec’s language law, Bill 96, goes against science and won’t help preserve or promote French in the province, says one Montreal neuroscientist specializing in language.

“I haven’t found a lot about the science, if any, that went into informing these decisions,” said Dr. Kaija Sander.

“It’s sort of just more forms of colonizing like we’ve seen it throughout history, situations where people have prevented people from speaking a certain language and when has that ever been a good thing or had a good outcome,” explained Montreal neuroscientist.

Among other things – Bill 96 will force immigrants to learn French in six months, English CEGEP students to take additional French courses and will cut most English services for non ‘historic Anglophones’ who didn’t attend English school.

Dr. Sander says motivation is a big factor that dictates how quickly and well people learn a new language, but rather than encouraging newcomers Quebec is doing the opposite.

“So if you feel like you’re moving here and people are accepting and welcoming you into not only their society but their culture, you will want to make an effort. So you will learn the language you will want to be part of, I don’t know, celebrating aspects of the culture and I think that that part of that aspect is not being emphasized. I think it’s just right now it just feels like oppression and fear,” she said.

“It’s not just making it free is is a great step, but people need to have the time. They need to not be losing their wages so you need to create the right conditions for learning, not just in terms of being able to practically attend the classes, but actually you retain information in your brain. You know, if you’re stressed and overworked and distracted by other things, likely the learning will be less good. I think they would need to base sort of the curriculum and the way that things are being taught on on research and that domain, um, and just make it an overall positive social experience, not a, a survival requirement.”

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Many Montrealers speak two or more languages – and multilingualism has been scientifically proven to be good for your brain experts say, but now, some feel the province is discouraging that.

“We need to promote bilingualism, not just the learning of French to function in like Quebec society, but also all the languages. And to be honest, we should probably be learning the Indigenous languages because if anyone should be fighting for their language rights, it should be indigenous people,” said Dr. Sander.

The Montreal neuroscientist questions if Bill 96 will do anything to actually help promote the French language

“I would say that will likely have the opposite effect. You know, people never like being told what to do which is quite a normal reaction. So yeah, I don’t think this will do much to promote and preserve the French language,” said Dr. Sander.