'Paradoxical:' Most Quebecers identify as a majority | The Corner Booth

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When Jack Jedwab surveyed Canadians last winter about whether they identify as a majority, a minority, or both, some answers were unexpected.

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Without prompting respondents with a specific geographic context, he found that francophone Quebecers are the group most likely to consider themselves a majority.

Meanwhile, “the English-speaking group in the rest of Canada did not define itself as a majority. In part, that’s because they don’t see their identity, at least from my analysis, through the prism of language,” said Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies and chair of the Montreal-based Metropolis Institute, in this latest episode of The Corner Booth.

He shared another curious insight with hosts Lesley Chesterman, Aaron Rand and Bill Brownstein: Francophones in Quebec are more likely to say the French language is threatened than Francophones living elsewhere in the country.

“It’s just how you sort of estimate that threat, where you put the bar.”