Poor retention rates for Core French, combined with the federal government's action plan to increase bilingualism in Canada, have led to the introduction of Intensive French (IF) in Grade 6 as an alternative for learning French. While anecdotal reports suggest that IF has no negative impact on English language skill development, empirical evidence is limited. The purpose of this study was to investigate how students in a one-year offering of a non-optional IF program performed relative to the rest of the province in English Language Arts (ELA), as measured by the elementary provincial criterion-referenced tests (CRTs). Comparison of students in non-optional IF programming to those in the rest of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador across an eight-year period, from 2005 to 2012, revealed that IF students, at the end of Grade 6, are at lower odds of achieving an adequate CRT ELA score on all tasks assessed: Demand Writing, Poetic Reading, Informational Reading, and Listening. Educational significance and implications are discussed.