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<p>A French-language policy is long overdue say local advocates.</p><p>Despite
counting one of the fastest growing francophone populations outside
Quebec, according to the 2011 census, Alberta remains one of two
provinces without legislative framework governing the provision of
French-language services.</p><p>But that is about to change. Last month
the provincial government began consultations on how to better meet the
needs of Alberta’s francophone communities.</p><p>Through Culture and
Tourism’s French Secretariat, the province is holding a series of
targeted sessions with more than 170 francophone leaders from across the
province covering areas like education, social services and health
care.</p><p>Léo Piquette, a French advocate and former NDP MLA for the riding of Athabasca-Redwater, says the move is long overdue.</p><p>“There is a lot of reparation to be done,” he said.</p><p>Piquette
was involved in a 1988 constitutional challenge, dubbed the Piquette
Affair, that argued French language rights were protected under Section
110 of the Northwest Territories Act – the act that governed Alberta
before it became a province in 1905.</p><p>While the Supreme Court ruled
that Section 110 was still in force, since it was never repealed, it
also held that the Alberta and Saskatchewan legislatures could modify
the provinces’ language rights.</p><p>This led to Bill 60, the Languages Act, which established Alberta as a unilingual province.</p><p>Another
case, Caron versus Alberta, wrapped up almost a year ago with the
Supreme Court ruling that the province had no obligation to pass laws in
both French and English.</p><p>It was with this decision in mind that
the NDP decided to engage in consultations with the francophone
community on how it can sustainably provide more French language
services.</p><p>Piquette says if the government truly wanted to make
reparations with the province’s francophone population it would renounce
Bill 60.</p><p>“I’m very happy the NDP government is approaching this
in terms of a consultation, but I’m just wondering why are we not
looking at Bill 60,” he said, pointing out that without a binding law,
the work undertaken by the NDP could be undone “frivolously” by any
future government.</p><p>St. Albert resident and treasurer for the
regional office of the Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta,
David Frechette says he is ecstatic that the consultations are happening
after years of advocacy, but acknowledges the province’s current budget
restraints.</p><p>“I’m not holding my breath for some of the more
costly services. We’ll just have to wait. As a community we’re willing
to accept that,” he said, adding that there are many services that could
be offered without any additional costs.</p><p>The areas he would like
to see addressed most are health care and education. He would like to
see the contributions of francophones better reflected in the curriculum
and more French-speaking health-care providers in long-term care
facilities in the region.</p><p>St. Albert, Legal and Morinville have a large francophone population.</p><p>St. Albert MLA Marie Renaud says the creation of a French-language policy is also important to the economy.</p><p>“It opens the doors to French-speakers to come to Alberta and invest in Alberta in education and in business,” said Renaud.</p><p>Alberta attracts the third largest number of French-speaking immigrants in the country.</p><p>An
online survey will be available to the greater public until Nov. 20. It
can be accessed through the French Secretariat’s website at:
<a href="http://culture.alberta.ca/francophone-secretariat">culture.alberta.ca/francophone-secretariat</a>.</p>
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<a href="http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/French-language-policy-overdue-advocates-20161109">http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/French-language-policy-overdue-advocates-20161109</a><br></article><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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