ULV IMPORTANCE DU FRANCAIS A VANCOUVER

que ceci puisse correspondre a la cité dont révaient le capitaine
Vancouver ou les péres fondateurs de la ville en 1886. D’une fagon
ou d’une autre, on pourrait douter que leur vision civique inclurait
une population qui, dans sa grande majorité (comme celle du Canada
dans son ensemble) ne serait pas d’origine britannique. En tant que
porte ouverte sur le Pacifique et en tant aussi que pdle d’attraction
pour les immigrants des autres provinces canadiennes et de l’extérieur
du pays, la ville de Vancouver est devenue, progressivement, d’un
caractére pluri-ethnique.

Par ailleurs, il existe aujourd’hui moins de réticences a l’égard du
francais comme autre langue officielle du Canada dans la mesure ou
les Vancouvérois—de deuxiéme ou troisiéme génération—se sont
maintenant habitués a la présence d’un grand nombre de résidents
dorigine chinoise, punjabienne, grecque, italienne ou allemande.
Un plus grand pluralisme ethnique a ainsi contribué a diminuer
l’'antagonisme historique des résidents anglophones de Vancouver,
la métropole la plus a l'Ouest du Canada, envers la langue d’une
communauté—les Francophones— qui se dressait comme un obstacle
sur la route d’un pays unilingue anglophone. Je ne voudrais pas
suggérer que le: destin de Vancouver soit de devenir un jour une

ville de langue francaise, mais dans la mosaique de 1986 un nombre
"croissant de jeunes résidents, et quelques-uns de moins jeunes aussi,
ont apptis a‘considérer la langue francaise comme une part intégrale
de l’équation canadienne et, donc, de la leur.

(*) Je voudrais remercier mon collégue, Paul Tennant, de m’avoir
communiqué des données démographiques sur les groupes ethniques
de Vancouver; le Département du Civisme de la ville de Vancouver
de m’avoir donné accés 4 sa publication “Vancouver Local Areas
From 1971-1981” ainsi que le Département des Communications
de la Commission Scolaire de Vancouver pour des données plus
récentes.

(TRADUCTION: Guy P. Buchholtzer)

FROM A BRITISH CITY TO A MULTICULTURAL ONE:
THE PLACE OF FRENCH IN VANCOUVER

In this short article I wish to reflect on the much altered position
which the French language enjoys in Vancouver today as compared
to that of a half-century or a century ago. It is not that Vancouver
has ceased to be an overwhelmingly English- speaking city, within
which French is encountered only in special enclaves like the Centre
Culturel Colombien, Radio-Canada, the Airport, or French-language
immersion schools. These last are cumulatively important, but have
not in and of themselves made Vancouver into any more of a “French-
speaking” city than before.

Rather, what I would stress is the social psychological change
that Vancouverites have undergone as the city has been transformed
from an essentially British one, within which residents of other
origins were few and far between, to one which is more truly

Le chronographe Volume III no. 1-2, Printemps-Eté 1986

multicultural in character. These changes have paralleled transfor-
mations that have occurred in Canada as a whole, within which the
British charter group has been reduced to but one (albeit still the
largest) element within a larger ensemble, and within which the
other charter group, the French Canadian, has won official recogni-
tion for its language and culture, through measures like the Official
Languages Act and the Charter of Rights.

My thesis, in a nutshell, is that multiculturalism in Vancouver
has in a way furthered the acceptance of the legitimacy of French by
residents of the city. Clearly this is not because the immigrants that
have flooded into the city in recent decades from central or southern
Europe, from Asia, or Latin America have themselves promoted or
used French in large numbers. But the presence of large numbers of

The First Permanent High School.
7

residents with non-British backgrounds has eroded the “John Bull”
mentality which in the past would have resisted any interference with
a British-coloured image of city, province, and country.

A few statistics might be in order. Back in 1911 fully 73.7% of the
population of Vancouver traced their origin to the British Isles. In
1921, this figure had risen to 79.8%, remaining at 77% in 1931 and

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