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But a combination of wealth, ambition and government legislation and initiative has created a culture that increasingly values bilingualism.

In Alberta, the provincial government has implemented measures to ensure children with learning disabilities have better access to French immersion. And as the West has become more wealthy, it has become home to more higher-income parents who tend to better appreciate the value of a second language.

A second language gives children another advantage in the workplace and, some parents believe, access to better schools; but bilingualism is viewed as a core Canadian value, even in provinces where once French inspired skepticism and ambition.

“There’s always a difference between the stereotype and reality,” said Marc Doll, a former French immersion teacher who has enrolled his twin daughters in a French immersion program in Calgary.

Generally, you’re looking at a pretty highly educated populace and because of that high level of education you find that the parents who put their kids into French immersion highly value that education

Like most immersion parents, he did not speak French growing up, although he can boast a family background that hails from French-Canada.

“Generally, you’re looking at a pretty highly educated populace and because of that high level of education you find that the parents who put their kids into French immersion highly value that education,” he said.

As in other areas of Canada, there’s also a perception French immersion offers a kind of quasi-private school.

“There’s a feeling that the kids who would be more disrupted in a typical classroom don’t make it to Grade 8 or 9 French immersion. There is a weeding out that makes the classes more academically oriented than in your standard community school,” Mr. Doll said.

As for Alberta’s anti-French bias, he thinks much of that is overblown. Sure, many of the province’s more conservative politicians may lament the equalization program, but apart from the failed 1992 Charlottetown Accords, or the 1995 Quebec referendum — both political events that raised Anglo-Franco tensions across the country — he feels there’s no more anti-French sentiment in Alberta than in anywhere else.

National Post