Like many Canadian children of the 90s, I first encountered French from a singing pineapple. I sang French before I could speak it, getting comfortable in a new tongue through showstoppers like “C’est L’Halloween” and “Je suis une pizza.”

My French classes in Manitoba public school began in Grade 4. The education system didn’t make me fluent in a foreign language, but it did pique my interest in cultures and peoples beyond the prairie canola fields.

Three decades later, my professional life continues to feed this interest. As a Canadian immigration consultant, I speak daily with a wide variety of people from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas who are seeking to become permanent residents of Canada. Even as we talk about their professional and personal lives in Canada, they help me understand the parts of the world they come from.

For the past three years, these chats more frequently involve check-ins on their French-language skills. For many of my clients, learning French is part of their Canadian immigration strategy.

These conversations were not something I envisioned when I first began learning French in my farming village. At my little school on the prairies—not a far drive from small historically francophone communities—I certainly didn’t envision that I would one day offer advice to newcomers about learning French as part of my career.

These conversations are practical and strategic: we connect test scores to immigration statuses, rather than pronouns to verb conjugations. Most of my clients are already living in Canada with temporary resident status. They seek my help in trying to stay permanently.

But competition for permanent residence has become exceptionally fierce since a global post-pandemic migration wave that was especially pronounced in Canada. Right now, we’re living through the backlash of that wave. The Canadian government is limiting quotas for permanent residence space. The situation is challenging for my clients.

There’s another reason that the competition for permanent residence has heated up: the federal government added non-Quebec French-language immigration targets in 2023. The targets have been on the to-do list since 2003, but the political will to get it done was only recently discovered.

A significant allocation of annual permanent residence spaces are now reserved for candidates with an upper-intermediate command of the French language. That proficiency is measured in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The vast majority of the 2.7 million temporary resident of Canada moved here with the expectation that the central criteria for obtaining permanent residence was a combination of Canadian education, skilled Canadian work experience, and strong English-language skills.

French had not been a part of most people’s pre-2023 plans. The change has caused a stir.

Learning French in 2004

By the time I finished high school in rural Manitoba and enrolled at my local university, I had no idea what I would do for a career. The only criterion was that it didn’t involve farming. Thinking I might want to be a teacher, I decided to major in English literature and minor in French.

During my first week at university, I took a placement test: Upper-level Beginner. While I had definitely not achieved fluency between Grades 4 and 12, my anglophone teachers had at least imparted a heart for the French language.

So, in my second year of university, I applied to participate in a government scholarship program called Explore. The program pays for anglophone Canadians to study French in Quebec and vice versa. I gained university credits, received room and board with a host mother who spoke not one word of English, and had six life-altering weeks in Chicoutimi, a few hours north of Montreal.

By the time I arrived in Chicoutimi, I tested into the lower intermediate level. 10 years after my first Grade 4 French class, I was no longer a beginner!

But I could still barely speak. Even buying beer at the dépanneur was a linguistic adventure. Functioning in French every day was tiring, but I had to follow through on my committment. The program had a three-strike rule: I was expected not to use English at all during the six-week period, even with other anglophone students. Getting caught three times would have got me sent home early.

After my school day, I often spent the evening with my host mother, who would ask me questions and patiently coax words out of my mouth. Night after night, she sought to get to know a 19-year-old anglophone from Manitoba, just as I sought to get to know her, a single mom from northern Quebec whose son had recently graduated and moved away. We became fast friends.

Week after week, night after night, chain-smoking cigarettes at Jinny’s kitchen table, I finally wrangled my tongue into speaking French.

Learning French in 2026

Subsidized government programs like Explore aren’t available to temporary residents of Canada. But business seems to be booming for private French-language providers. I get regular connection requests on LinkedIn from French teachers, language-learning software developers, and test-prep coaches.

Testing centres are struggling to keep up with demand, especially in Western Canada. Newcomers to Canada are busy learning French.

Two of my clients went to Quebec City to pursue immersion like I did. After four months, they reached the level required to be invited for permanent residence.

Very few of the people I speak to pursue immersion programs though. Most add French-language studies on top of their regular work lives in non-francophone environments.

Linguistic progress is fastest for those who are motivated enough to self-study grammar and can afford to hire tutors for Zoom classes to verify understanding and practice speaking/listening. I have several clients who prefer in-person classes, and I know others who have joined community groups where they meet others and practice their language skills.

Some intensive course-based options exist online as well. One language school delivers group classes online for three hours per evening from Monday to Thursday. That requires significant energy and commitment, especially after a work day.

Twice per week, I do my best not to listen in on my husband’s Zoom classes in another room of our Montreal apartment. Igor—who moved to Canada for his anglophone husband 13 years ago—decided to enrol in French classes when we relocated to Quebec last summer. I see firsthand how much time, money, energy, and commitment is required of adults to study French at the end of the work day, even when immersion is just outside the apartment door.

*A motivational sign at the entrance of my neighbourhood gym in Montreal.*

Language-level Targets

I strategize with my clients around two distinct targets for their level of French-language proficiency. Proficiency is measured according to the “Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB)” system, which works on a scale of 1 to 12.

For reference, to gain admission to a bachelor’s degree program at a Canadian university, level 8 would be the standard minimum requirement across the country. A Canadian college would require something closer to level 5.

Canada has two immigration-related language targets in French. The first is CLB 5 in speaking and listening. If a foreign national has a job offer outside of Quebec and can demonstrate speaking/listening proficiency of level 5—that is, lower intermediate, about the level of Matthew after his program in Chicoutimi in 2004—that person can get a work permit for that specific employer, even if French is not part of their job. They simply have to convince their employer to do the paperwork and pay a230 compliance fee to keep them, but it’s the most flexible work permit program Canada has at present. I’m a big fan.

It was launched as the Francophone Mobility Work Permit program with a CLB7 criteria in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. After limited uptake, the language requirements were lowered to CLB 5 in speaking and listening, with no requirement for reading and writing. In calls with my clients, I have unofficially rebranded it as the Work Permit Program for French-language Learners.

In an era when Canada is aggressively reducing immigration levels, it has made an unspoken bargain with temporary residents: if they demonstrate a certain proficiency in French and have the support of an employer, they can stay in Canada.

The next immigration target for my clients is CLB7 in all four areas: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The writing, in particular, is challenging in French. The language is grammatically persnickety, a joy for nerds and pedants but a curse for everyone else. I’m told that many francophones struggle to get CLB7 in writing as well.

But those who reach this level have enjoyed a seemingly guaranteed invitation for permanent residence in Canada for the past three years.

For many of the 2.7 million temporary residents in Canada who are want to stay, the policy is frustrating. The system doesn’t make sense until you untangle the politics behind the policies. But even when I have a political explanation, I agree with many others that the government has not attempted to build an economic argument for its policy decision.

When I see the motivation and skill of my clients learning French, I recognize that they are the type of people who thrive in life. Canada is lucky to have them. Linguistic skill development fits within Canada’s human capital model of immigration, but the federal government has poor messaging and debatable methods for reaching the annual French-language targets. As a result, the language targets are getting blow-back. For every eager French-language learner, there are multiple others becoming soured on the status of French in Canada.

Francophone Perspectives from Inside and Outside Quebec

As a Francophile Canadian unsettled by the separatist chatter of 2026 in both Alberta and Quebec, I worry about how resentment towards the French language among newcomers could fester.

Just before Christmas, over an impromptu dinner with two Quebecois friends, I did my best to give a summary of how the French language intersects with my work. They helped give me fresh eyes on the situation.

As I explained the targets and challenges faced by temporary residents with expiring work permits, I also shared my observation of an emerging anti-French attitude that can be seen on the edges of online discourse. I shared my worry about the growing French-language resentment among some newcomers and legal professionals. That blunt conversation with francophone friends has given me plenty to chew on in the months since.

To get perspective from a non-Quebec francophone, I scheduled a call with another Canadian immigration professional who works in New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially bilingual province. In the conversation about French-language targets outside of Quebec, New Brunswick often gets forgotten—much like the francophone populations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia do.

I have a personal reason not to forget: my first boyfriend was a proud Acadien from Moncton. We mostly spoke English to each other during our summer together in Quebec City for internships, but he made sure to expose me to chiac, a patois from his region of New Brunswick,

The various French-speaking Canadas can be hard for anglophones and newcomers to understand. Language is a barrier. Even after decades of Francophilia and increasing proficiency, I have much to learn.

Immigration policy decisions regarding French especially baffle English-speaking temporary residents competing to stay in Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. But that isn’t stopping newcomers from learning. Despite our country’s many challenges, Canada’s immigration system continues to experience high demand for both temporary and permanent residence. Those who demonstrate a linguistic commitment to the country’s official languages are the most competitive.

The disconnect is that newcomers outside Quebec don’t often feel that there is opportunity to use French in their lives. French-English bilingualism outside of Quebec fell from 20.3% to 18% between 2001 and 2021. During the same period, bilingualism in Quebec increased from 40% to 46%. Francophones are getting better at English, but Anglophones are getting worse.

My clients’ French-language lives are often locked in the realm of online classes, while English-language immersion is the reality outside their front door. An immersion program in Quebec is an out-of-reach dream for temporary residents working full-time jobs. But still, many persist with their studies on evenings and weekends and achieve their Canadian immigration goals.

French-English bilingualism may be on the decline among English-speaking Canadians, but newcomers to Canada are increasingly speaking a minimum of three languages. In the years ahead, this new generation of Canadians will have much to teach us about our country’s two official languages and how to we can get better at learning them.