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
English is the lingua franca (no, the irony is not lost on me…) of international commerce. If you remove English education from your populace then you are cutting them off from the rest of the world, economically. The only people who then will be able to comfortably buy and sell things overseas would be people who already have the spare time and money to learn a new language.
Unless you plan to get the entire rest of the world speaking primarily French as an economic vehicle as well, this is just shooting yourself in the foot. I think that ship has probably sailed already.