This was supposed to be a fairly straightforward piece about anglophone1 music in Montreal. Then, this week, Karl Tremblay, lead singer of Quebec band Les Cowboys Fringants, died at 47. Now it’s a convoluted piece about a complicated cultural divide, of which Montreal is the epicenter.
I have to confess right up front that, embarrassingly, I did not know who Karl Tremblay was until I saw a barrage of social media posts reflecting on his passing from my Quebecois friends and connections. Despite spending at least a few weeks a year in Quebec, somehow I totally missed out on the fact that French Canada had their own Gord Downie, and he was dying. Ninety thousand people turned out to the Plains of Abraham to see a stop on their last tour this summer. Almost no one in English Canada, myself included, knew this was happening.
Compare this with the Tragically Hip’s farewell tour. It was ubiquitous. They even got a shout out from Eddie Vedder in the middle of a concert. By contrast, I don’t recall hearing anything about Karl Tremblay on CBC radio. You’d think that English Canada might notice a “wave of love and sadness” running through Quebec. Alas.
There’s something especially poignant about French Canadians watching a cultural icon fade away on the Plains of Abraham without anglophones taking note. I took a tour of Quebec City years ago, and the tour guide noted that the Wolfe-Montcalm monument was the only statue on earth to both sides of a war. I have no idea if that’s true, but it’s a nice thought, and perhaps a metaphor for the state of Canada’s two official languages.
Canada is bilingual, in theory. We’ve got monuments to the French language everywhere from plaques to cereal boxes. It’s often a sop to francophones, and I’m sure it feels that way - whether it’s being greeted by an automated message on a flight from Toronto to Quebec City or not being able to ask simple menu questions at a restaurant in Montreal. Both generals are on the statue, but they’re not equal.
It’s easy for anglos to scoff at francophones who fret about the decline of French. That’s especially true when politicians make anglos out to be the bad guys. But let’s turn back to music for a second. What struck me the most about Karl Tremblay’s passing wasn’t the Premier or the Montreal Canadians sharing heartfelt remarks about a francophone icon I hadn’t heard of, but the fact that 46 out of the top 50 most streamed musical acts in Quebec are English. Imagine if fewer than 10 percent of the top artists in Ontario were English. Would we feel a deep cultural malaise? I suspect we would. I’m not confident we’d handle it better than francophones. They’ve at least had time to get used to it. General Montcalm went in the ground a long time ago.
Francophones are right to worry about the state of the French language in Canada. In my view, there’s a role for public policy to promote the French language both in Quebec and in the rest of the country. I’ve written about this twice for Policy Options. It’s something I care about. I believe so much in the importance of preserving the French language that I’m spending my free time trying to get back to bilingual, largely out of principle. People in Canadian public life should make an effort to speak French. Governments should encourage it. Wolfe and Montcalm. Downie and Tremblay. There’s room for both.
Both is important here. In their understandable zeal to protect the French language, Quebec politicians have on more than one occasion inflicted massive damage upon the provincial economy. Montreal was arguably the economic capital of Canada until the 1960s. Toronto was already catching up, but then came the 1976 election and hundreds of businesses fled over the newfound political uncertainty. Montreal’s loss, Toronto’s gain.
This gets me to the what I initially planned to write about: Montreal’s anglophone music scene.
While I didn’t know about the francophone Gord Downie, I’ve been listening to Montreal based bands for years. Montreal’s music scene in the early Aughts was on fire. Godspeed, Arcade Fire, The Unicorns, and my personal favourite, Wolf Parade. I was inspired to write this post, or the original version thereof, after seeing former Wolf Parade frontman Spencer Krug play in Toronto in late October (he’s still got it!). I’m not an expert, but I’d argue Montreal had the best music scene in Canada during the Aughts.
It’s also notable that many of the key figures in Montreal’s indy music scene came from outside of Quebec. Wolf Parade’s Spencer Krug and Dan Boekner (also of the Handsome Furs) are from BC, as were Nicholas Thorburn and Alden Penner of The Unicorns. Win Butler came from Texas. Stars frontman Torquil Campbell was born in England and grew up in Toronto.
I can’t tell you why anglo musicians have been drawn to Montreal. Migration decisions are complicated. Though at least two of the above mentioned artists, Win Butler and Spencer Krug, moved to Montreal for university (McGill and Concordia, respectively). I could speculate that the low cost of living and bohemian vibe help attract artists, or the fact that Montreal is the second most beautiful city on the continent (after Quebec City, of course). Whatever the reasons, a lot of anglophones are attracted to Montreal. They add to the culture, and they bolster the economy. Most places would kill to be an “it” city, and Montreal has been for a very long time.
When you’re an “it” city, people will put up with a lot to live there. But there are limits. It feels like Quebec might be nearing an inflection point where it’s no longer just potentially annoying to live and do business in Quebec, but where it’s not worth the effort.
Take Bill 96, for instance. It requires businesses with as few as five employees to report how many employees speak French. Anecdotally, I’ve heard people in Toronto based firms that do business in Quebec say that they’re assessing whether they need to do anything to comply with the law. That’s not a great incentive if you want to attract remote workers or satellite offices. No company wants to have to track the linguistic competencies of their staff.
This isn’t just something that affects businesses. Economic immigrants are now required to speak French before they arrive. That’s going to make it incredibly difficult to attract tech talent, for instance. Depending on how strict the language competence requirements are, some people perfectly capable of working and functioning in Quebec might get turned away. Just the uncertainty around this could be an insurmountable barrier for some. Why bother when you can move to Toronto?
Then there’s the current linguistic battle: tuition fees. The government of Quebec appears set to double tuition for Canadians from out of province. The rationale is simple: they want fewer anglophone students in Montreal. McGill in particular is a magnet for students from not only the rest of Canada, but the United States.2 Half of McGill’s nearly 40,000 students come from out of province. Would the city be better off with 20,000 fewer students running around supporting businesses in English? I doubt the service industry thinks so.
Forget about musicians and businesses and students. Let’s talk about me for a second. My partner an I move around a lot. We probably haven’t made our last move. My first choice is Montreal. Hers is Quebec City (we met in Winnipeg - she loves winters!). But here’s the problem: we have no idea how far any of this is going to go. In the wake of Bill 15, anglophones worry they might have trouble getting access to healthcare in English. We’re both perfectly content to embrace the French language. But neither of us feels overly comfortable with the idea of one day having to make complex healthcare decisions in French. Those are hard enough to make in English. Is this a rational concern? I’m not sure. Will it deter us? I guess we’ll see. But if we’re thinking this way, imagine people who are less in love with the province.
Preserving and promoting the French language makes sense. But embracing the outside world is important too.
Montreal will only ever thrive as a bilingual city. Canada will only ever work as a bilingual country. We should focus on promoting French in all of Canada rather than punishing English in Quebec.
Canada doesn’t have to choose between Karl Tremblay and Gord Downie. Quebec can support both McGill and Université Laval. Montreal is big enough for Westmount and Le Plateau. Wolfe and Montcalm…well, I guess they couldn’t get along. But if they can share a statue, anglophones and francophones can share a country.
We should all try a bit harder to bridge these gaps - linguistic, cultural, geographical. That includes me. My first step is getting to know Les Cowboys Fringants.
Forgive me in advance, but I’ll be lumping in anglophones and allophones.
Several of my friends went to McGill. I’m not sure any of them can string together three words in French. But they did support the local economy, even if it was just paying tuition and downing beers.