French, one of the drawbacks of living in Canada?
By suggesting it on its site, a Canadian company specializing in immigration caused an uproar in the French-speaking community and forced its CEO to offer a flat apology on Thursday, March 18.
Read also: The inexorable decline of the French language in Canada
To summarize for potential immigrants the good and the bad sides of life in Canada, the immigration consulting firm, MDC Canada, based in Vancouver in the English-speaking west of the country, published a table with two columns, the pros and the cons".
In the latter, she had put, alongside the winter
"a little cold"
or sometimes long visa procedures, a statement that jumped:
"many people speak French
.
"
Read also: Happy as the French expatriates in Quebec
This publication on his Facebook page at the end of February quickly sparked a wave of indignation on Quebec social networks, in French-speaking associations and up to the federal government.
"These are deplorable and unacceptable remarks and the country's Francophones deserve an apology,"
said Minister responsible for Official Languages Mélanie Joly, who recently presented a project aimed at strengthening the place of French in this country with two official languages.
"Are we telling immigrants that 10 million people who speak French in Canada are a problem?"
, expressed indignation the president of the Federation of Francophone and Acadian communities of Canada, Jean Johnson, quoted by the media.
Read also: Is French really threatened in Canada?
Faced with this outcry, the CEO of MDC Canada withdrew the publication and apologized.
"Today, we have had a return of the understandable anger and discontent of the French-speaking community
,
"
said David Allon, in French (and in English) in the text.
"We therefore wanted to offer our sincere apologies in public."
The offending table was written by an outside collaborator and it
"could not be verified, our editor in chief having been hospitalized at the time of the facts"
, explained David Allon.
He describes himself as a
“proud French-speaking Canadian who grew up in Montreal”
and says he too felt “personally offended” by the article.
