Language debate, daycares don't mix: workers
Plan would help improve school success rates, PQ says
Last Updated: Friday, November 20, 2009 | 1:11 PM ET
CBC News
The PQ says daycare educators should be required to speak with the children in their care in French. (CBC)The Parti Québécois' desire to amend Quebec's language law and restrict access to English daycares is "ridiculous" and "concerning," says early childhood educators and parents with toddlers.
PQ Leader Pauline Marois has called for amendments to Quebec's contentious Bill 101 language law, in order to limit access to English daycares to children of parents educated in English in Canada. The changes would funnel more immigrant children into French-language institutions.
Marois and her sovereigntist party have adopted the issue of school and language with gusto this fall, and yesterday attacked the province's Liberal government for not doing enough to stem the spread of English in Quebec, especially in Montreal, among its youngest residents — babies and toddlers.
But for Gina Gasparrini, a subsidized daycare director, even discussing language in daycare is "quite concerning."
'The exposure to the second language is certainly an advantage before you attend a school system which expects you as a pupil … to learn in French,'—PQ MNA Camil Bouchard
"We should be worried about [children's] well-being and the care they get, not politics in Quebec City," said Gasparrini, who runs a daycare at a Montreal hospital. "Immigrant families may have good reasons to want to send their toddlers to English-language daycares."
Young children are easily overwhelmed and "let's not forget who we are dealing with," Gasparrini said. "They are zero to five years. They need to feel safe in their environment. If they're left in an environment with a language that they are totally unfamiliar with, it can be quite traumatizing."
For Erik Wright, the father of a one-year-old girl who attends a subsidized daycare at Concordia University, the PQ should be focusing on how to provide more early child care instead of politics.
"It shows that the party doesn't have a good sense of the priorities of Quebecers," he told CBC News. "I can assure you, if parents had a spot available for any subsidized daycare they would grab it, regardless of language.
"We want our children to be functional in both languages, as well as to succeed in a highly-integrated Canadian and global economy," Wright added.
The issue of language, immigrants and provincial law is up for discussion this weekend at the Parti Québécois' two-day party convention.
Daycare director Gina Gasparrini says the idea of discussing language in daycares is quite concerning. (CBC)
Among the motions being debated is one calling for requirements to be imposed on daycare educators with regards to their communication with their charges in French.
The party's immigration critic, Vachon MNA Camil Bouchard, defended the idea. He pointed to statistics showing 35 per cent of children are ill-prepared for primary school — many of them from cultural communities.
"A childcare provider should know how to interact in French with the children they’re responsible for," Bouchard said. "The primary objective is that all kids will have the opportunity to be successful in school."
Though he acknowledged children must first gain a strong grasp on their mother tongue, he said it is also important for a second or even third language to be taught early.
"The exposure to the second language is certainly an advantage before you attend a school system which expects you as a pupil … to learn in French, Bouchard said.
