Demographics Change: Explosive Topic

Montreal Gazette Dept: I have written about many other things, often nowhere near as important in our lives as language. I have even written about gender, twice, which is a more potentially explosive topic, but not a word about language. And yet we think about it all the time. It is central to our lives in Quebec. It is at the heart of our Canadian story. I have lived my whole adult life in a Quebec where language has been a battlefield, according to Montreal Gazette. Language is always the elephant in our room. It is our "anxiety about the unknown, about the future," as Kurt Wallander, Henning Mankell's Swedish detective, describes the feelings we all have about the effects of demographic change, notably of falling birthrates and immigration. Will our children be able to function in a new language order? Will we still belong after the demographics change? Will the institutions which I need to live be able to survive? Will it be possible, for example, to publish an English newspaper? Will our English school commissions be able to thrive in a post-Bill 101 world? And, for another close example, will English CEGEPs survive if the PQ blocks francophones and allophones from having access and this is my 54th column and I have not yet written about language. I am even asking these questions in my head in both official languages. And I am anxious about the outcomes for both cultures. That, too, is part of being a Quebecer. As reported in the news.
@t henning mankell, kurt wallander