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TORONTO – “What are you going to do to stop the haemorrhage of the decline of French in Ontario?” asked MP Guy Bourgouin this Thursday in the chamber, addressing Caroline Mulroney, Minister of Francophone Affairs. When the decline of the Francophonie makes waves in Queen’s Park.
Echoing recent Statistics Canada data on the declining demographic weight of Francophones in the country, Official Opposition spokesman for Francophone Affairs, Guy Bourgoin, criticized the government for underestimating this decline and not reacting enough strongly to this trend.
“We are working on several files to reverse the demographic curve of Ontario,” retorted Ms. Mulroney, counting among other things on immigration. “We are using all the levers at our disposal. Ontario, for example, has consistently exceeded its target in its Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program. »
The Minister took the opportunity to relaunch the federal government in its support for the province, calling on it to delegate to Ontario more control over its process of attracting Francophone economic immigrants. The province is currently negotiating with the Department of Immigration for leeway in the selection of qualified foreign workers. The minister in charge of the dossier recently assured ONFR+ that French-speaking immigrants were among its concerns, in response to the labor shortage.
Ms. Mulroney also urged the federal government to create an immigration corridor to attract teachers and health workers, two sectors in serious human resource crisis. This is not the first time that the idea of an immigration corridor has been raised by Minister Mulroney. In a report – the first of its kind – made public last April, she already mentioned this track which, according to her, would make it possible to better target candidates according to the key needs of the province.
“Now is not the time to play politics”, says the minister
The member for the North listed several setbacks in the House since the elimination of the French Language Services Commissioner: “the lack of communication in French from public health during the pandemic, the lack of services in French at the Ministry of Transport concerning medical assessments in designated regions or the impossibility of filing a complaint in French with the agency Ontario One Call, a security alert from the provincial police in my riding only in English. »
The minister then accused him of “playing politics with this situation”.
“Now is not the time for politics, but for working together to implement solutions that will help reverse this demographic decline,” she said. She defended part of her record, highlighting the modernization of the French Language Services Act, as well as the creation and opening of the Université de l’Ontario français, while recalling that the data showing the decline of French language does not only affect Ontario but the whole country.
The data revealed this summer by Statistics Canada cast a chill across the country. The document indicates that 3.4% of Ontarians have French as their first official language, compared to 3.8% in 2016. For more than twenty years, this proportion has been in constant decline.
The absolute number of Franco-Ontarians is also at its lowest since 1996. 484,425 Ontarians say they use French as their first official language spoken and 98,270 say they are bilingual.
The federal government, which controls most of the country’s immigration, has refused to admit responsibility for this trend.
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Decline of French: Minister Mulroney taken to task – ONfr+
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