Talk:French Canadians

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Map is terrible and needs to be replaced

The map given as an image in the navbox is terrible, inaccurate and misleads the readers (WP:Inaccuracy). Here are a few reasons why:

1. The map's percentages only go up to 10%. This heavily misleads the reader by not showing that this ethnicity makes up the majority of Quebec's population.
2. It uses the US and Canadian census as a source of information. However, the US census does not allow and has never allowed "French Canadian" to be picked as an ethnic group. This map is showing people who selected "French" descent, but presents it as though they selected "French Canadian". These ethnicities, though related, are different. This map is misleading the reader into believing that the US census gives "French Canadian" as an option, and that there are more people of this ethnicity there than there actually are. Though the image's description says this, most people will not read it.
3. The map shows results from Canada and the US only, leaving out other areas where French Canadians can be found.
4. It uses the US and Canadian census as a source of information. However, it is the 1990 US census and the 2016 Canadian census. These dates are very far apart. As the proportion of people with French Canadian ancestry is declining in both Canada and the US due to massive immigration, these mismatched dates are misleading because they lead the reader to believe that there are more people of this ethnicity in the US than there actually are.
5. This map, on top of confusing people of "French-Canadian" and "French" descent together, does not make it clear if the Canadian data is only showing those of "French Canadian" and/or "French" ethnicity, or if groups such as Acadians and "Quebecois" are included as well.

In short, this map has too many problems and misleads the reader too much to be acceptable. As stated on WP:Editing policy: "on Wikipedia a lack of information is better than misleading or false information". It should either be removed entirely, replaced with a better map, or replaced with an alternative image.

Safyrr (talk) 06:14, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Bonjour-hi @Safyrr: ! Points 2, 3 and 5 do not seem very important to me. It is already specified on the map that for the United States, it was respectively the "French americans" and for Canada the "French Canadians" (even if one may wonder what the French americans are doing on an article talking about French Canadians ... Afterwards, as the majority of French Americans have Canadian ancestry (of Québec, Acadie), this is not completely insane). I am for the removal of the card. There are too many problems, especially points 1 and 4 that you mention. In itself, it's not that disturbing the date so far between the two. However, it must absolutely be specified in the legend. As for point one, in fact, we cannot accept this map, which pretends that Québec is a bit of a territory like any other for French Canadians. Other subject… I removed the term "Franco-Canadien" which is really used very very marginally in French (and is usually considered incorrect to speak of the French Canadian people), and I suffered the contestation of someone opposed to it. What do you think ? Apparently, even in English, it doesn't really say ("Franco-canadians" 15,000 results, "French canadians" 872,000 results ....).--Æpherys (talk) 08:55, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Æpherys: I'm glad you agree with the removal of the map! And I can support that I have never heard the term Franco-Canadian before. In fact, when I google it, it refers me to Franco-Canadian affairs (the international relationship between Canada and France). Maybe the person who contested could provide a source as to why they think this is a real term? Just because Anglo-Canadian is a thing, doesn't mean Franco-Canadian is. Safyrr (talk) 13:41, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I believe that it is by analogy to the Anglo-Canadian term that some people support the presence of the Franco-Canadian term, whereas it is not really said neither in French nor in English. --Æpherys (talk) 14:35, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Just seeing this talk.....what image could we use keeping in mind MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES? On side note about guesswork.....we have academic studies of just what is being dismissed Quebec & Franco-Canadian Studies.Moxy- 03:02, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The terrible map in question is actually not the one currently in use. Safyrr and I worked out the former map's problems back in September, and we were both satisfied with the current version. It wasn't actually removed from the article in the recent edits, it was just moved to a different section (it's in the article twice at the time I'm writing this). I think sticking with the map as per MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES seems fine. Thiqq (talk) 03:51, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

We didn't, he just reverted every message I sent him. You can check his talk page history to see.Safyrr (talk) 15:02, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

[…] usually considered incorrect to speak of the French Canadian people […] it is not really said neither in French nor in English

That’s… not really what the OQLF says: “Le nom Canadien français et l’adjectif canadien-français tendent à sortir de l’usage. Le nom Canadien français peut être remplacé par Franco-Canadien”, neither does the Translation Bureau: [1] or the French dictionaries Usito, Larousse or Le Grand Robert (quote from Le Grand Robert: “franco-canadien, ienne : ◆ N. Canadien(ne) francophone. Les Franco-Canadiens de la Saskatchewan.”). Thibaut (talk) 21:25, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Merging Francophone Canadians

The article at Francophone Canadians seems to WP:CFORK a lot of content from here. It also seems to imply a definition of a "Francophone Canadian" (ie. a French Canadian not of French ethnicity) which is dubious and not clearly supported by secondary sources. I'd argue that Francophone Canadians are French Canadians, and that this content split is unnecessary at best and WP:OR at worst. 162 etc. (talk) 00:52, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

That's not true at all. There are ethnic French Canadians who are not francophone, and there are francophone Canadians who are not ethnically French (e.g. Vietnamese, Maghrebi, Haitian, etc.) — so while "French Canadians" and "francophone Canadians" obviously have a high degree of overlap, they are not identical sets by any stretch of the imagination. Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac and Emmanuel Dubourg and Maria Mourani, for instance, are all francophone by language but not French-Canadian by ethnicity, and they're not the only people (or even the only notable people) like that. Bearcat (talk) 19:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

"Undercounts"

I've removed the text alleging undercounts of the French Canadian population that were included in the article. There is no mention of "undercount" in the articles that are cited [2] [3]. Please see WP:PROVEIT. 162 etc. (talk) 21:28, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

See page two of this document and the related quote; 'Virtually all persons who reported “Canadian” in 1996 had English or French as a mother tongue, were born in Canada and had both parents born inside Canada. This suggests that many of these respondents were people whose families have been in this country for several generations. In effect the “new Canadians” were persons that previously reported either British or French origins. Moreover in 1996 some 55% of people with both parents born in Canada reported Canadian (alone or in combination with other origins). By contrast, only 4% of people with both parents born outside Canada reported Canadian. Thus the Canadian response did not appeal widely to either immigrants or their children. Most important however was the fact that neatly half of those persons reporting Canadian origin in 1996 were in Quebec this represented a majority of the mother tongue francophone population."

https://web.archive.org/web/20111002032711/http://www.acs-aec.ca/pdf/polls/12154527016855.pdf

This is data taken from the 1996 census and is clearly indicating that the self-identified French-Canadian population is an undercount, owing to multi-generational individuals solely selecting "Canadien" as an ethnic origin on the census. As such, I have changed the note once again. Van00220 (talk) 22:35, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I've read this. This paper was not authored by Statistics Canada, but rather by Jack Jedwab of the Association for Canadian Studies. To state that the French Canadian population was "undercounted" based on his inferences is misleading, especially if that statement is placed right next to a graph of Statistics Canada census data. 162 etc. (talk) 01:53, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

The census data is evidence enough that the paper inference is correct; see the massive population decline between the 1991 and 1996 census, coinciding with the addition of the creation of the "Canadian" or "Canadien" ethnic origin. Van00220 (talk) 05:48, 26 September 2022 (UTC)