Le Devoir: Quebec communicates with 27% of new arrivals in English when only 3.5% of them have English as a mother tongue

This was reported in Le Devoir yesterday, and I've used a shorter summary of the same article to glean information for the post. The post on Le Devoir is the one with all the comments below though, so take a look at that to see what people are saying about the issue.

Newcomers: Quebec continues to communicate in English

The government of Quebec continues to communicate in English with newcomers to the province, throughout their life.

This was reported Friday by The Devoir, which notes that in doing so, the government ignores the will of Christine St-Pierre, the minister responsible for the Charter of the French Language.

For example, the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ), continues to provide an English "code of language" to a large number of English allophones. This code requires this organization to address them in English. The same policy would be applied in respect to Emploi-Québec and the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ).

RAMQ statistics indicate that from January to November 2009, the agency categorized 27% of the 48,134 new arrivals who showed up as English speakers. However, recent statistics indicate that only 3.5% of these newcomers have English as their mother tongue. 81.5% have neither English, nor French as a mother tongue. 21% of immigrants say that they speak neither of these two languages when they arrive.

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