Right now French and English are the official languages of Canada. There are the English parts (the majority of the country) and the French parts (the biggest being Quebec). But it seems to me that the French-speaking parts punch well above their weight culturally. Because their language insulates them from the strong US cultural influence, giving them space to develop their own unique cultural identity and not have to compete with US media. So it would be a big cultural upgrade if all of Canada spoke French. Plus the French language is cool. Wouldn’t it just be cooler if we all spoke French more?
Q: But how would that work?
A: Good question. Well French immersion is already really common (when English-speaking families sent their kids to French-speaking school). What we need to do is make all schools French immersion, and once we have a generation fluent in French we can begin the process of slowly purging the English language from any sort of government institution. Overtime people will be speaking French so much that it will seep into their private lives and they’ll just speak French at home.
Q: But wouldn’t a policy like this be massively unpopular and cause widespread backlash?
A: Absolutely it would that’s why it’s an unpopular opinion. But in an ideal world, we would do it. 🇨🇦🇫🇷
If anyone wanted to phase out English in favour of some indigenous languages I would be in favour if that too.
Edit for spelling
Another edit: why are you guys downvoting this for disagreeing, you’re supposed to disagree thats the point of this sub
It would have to be implemented slowly, and start with the school system, to prevent this kind of thing. There have been successful language elimination campaigns before, even in our own country. Usually it’s done to promote English, and it’s done as an act of cultural genocide, but still. It’s possible.
Like I said in the post I’d also be in favour of reintroducing some Indigenous languages if that means stamping out English. If we are going to carry out a language elimination campaign it might be more fair that way. A reverse uno of sorts.
I wonder if eliminating English would even be legal. Because our head of state is technically King Charles, there may be some stipulation of keeping English in there.
Might be tricky but King Charles seems like a polite fella who doesn’t want any trouble so I don’t think he’d make a big fuss about it if we changed the laws around