QCGN/AGS survey explores language and belonging in Quebec

Press release

Results from a survey conducted by Léger Marketing for the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) and the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) in May reveal that attachment to one’s language community is equally important to Quebec’s English and French speakers. Beyond that, differences persist in the degree to which French and English speakers feel attached to Quebec and to Canada. “Over the past two decades that I have been surveying on this there has been little or no change in the sense of belonging of Quebec’s majority and minority communities to Quebec and Canada,” said ACS president Jack Jedwab, who oversaw the survey. “But the addition to the survey of linguistic community and municipal or regional attachments helps us to better understand the connection between English speakers [and] Quebec. This attachment is clearly less pronounced compared with their connection to the community as well as their respective municipalities and regions.”

The poll, which measures the degree of importance that Quebec’s majority and minority language groups give to key markers of identity, indicates that the vast majority of both English- and French-speaking Quebecers say they are very attached or somewhat attached to their linguistic community. For anglophones, 59 per cent respond that they are very attached while 30.1 per cent say they are somewhat attached to Quebec’s English-speaking minority community. For francophones, 58.5 per cent respond that they are very attached and 34.7 per cent say they are somewhat attached to the French-speaking community. The vast majority of anglophone Quebecers (84 per cent) say they are very attached (41 per cent) or somewhat attached (43 per cent) to their city, town, or region. An even greater majority of francophone Quebecers (86 per cent) say they are very attached (40.4 per cent) or somewhat attached (45.6 per cent) to their city, town or region. Some 80 per cent of English-speaking Quebecers report they are very attached to Canada and only one-third (33.1 per cent) say they are very attached to Quebec. Less than one-third (27.1 per cent) of French speakers say they are very attached to Canada while two-thirds (66.8 per cent) say they are very attached to Quebec. Two out of three Quebecers (66.7 per cent) whose mother tongue is neither French nor English are very attached to Canada and only one-third (34 per cent) say they are very attached to Quebec. The poll sampled 1,501 Quebecers, 18 years of age or older, including 573 Quebecers speaking primary languages other than French. Full results can be found here.