Quebec’s francization system not offering smooth integration for newcomers: French language commissioner

Quebec’s program for teaching French to new arrivals in their workplace doesn’t offer them a “realistic” change of success, says the province’s French language commissioner, Benoît Dubreuil.

He made the remarks Wednesday, in presenting his 2024-2025 annual report, after tabling it in the National Assembly.

“Our findings demonstrate that workplace francization, as it is currently offered, does not offer the majority of participants a realistic path to integrating into their workplace in French. To rectify this, we have therefore made five recommendations to the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration,” explained Dubreuil, in a press release.

It’s the second year that Quebec’s francization efforts are evaluated.

He found that temporary foreign workers represent the majority of those in francization and outlined flaws in the system. For example, many arriving without prior knowledge of French – leading to a dropout rate of 23 per cent.

“We definitely have to rethink our approach to recruitment,” he said.

“I think a lot of companies do not have problems or issues with French training because they make a specific effort to recruit in French-speaking countries. We’ve seen other companies who say, ‘I don’t find the type of workforce that I want in French-speaking countries, but I’m going to invest in people learning French prior to their arrival in Quebec’ — that’s another option,” he said.

“But I think companies in general should have incentive to bring in people who are not at level zero. Because once people have started to work at level zero, it’s very hard to make up the time to make real progress,” he added.

Dubreuil suggests Francization Québec deploys standardized courses with measurable objectives and recommends employers be obliged to give workers more time to participate in the courses.