The federal government of Canada published its Action Plan for Official Languages 2023-2028 in Ottawa on April 26.
The new Action Plan includes $1.4 billion over five years in addition to the $2.7 billion in the previous Action Plan. This adds up to more than $4.1 billion over five years. It is the largest amount ever provided by a government to support official languages.
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The Action Plan includes four main priorities:
- Accelerate the restoration of the demographic weight of French-speakers through French-speaking immigration
- Promote lifelong learning opportunities for our two official languages.
- Support the vitality of official language minority communities
- Build on positive government action to support communities.
How will the new Action Plan support Francophone immigration?
Francophone immigration is key to building French-speaking communities in Canada, especially outside of Canada. Quebec. To that end, the Action Plan will see the investment of $13.4 million over five years in a new policy and operational framework for Francophone immigration that will review the overall governance and current commitments under the Francophone Immigration Strategy launched in 2019.
The government says the new operational framework policy will help boost French-speaking immigration and facilitate the settlement and integration of French-speaking or bilingual immigrants into French-speaking minority communities.
There will also be an investment of $18.5 million over five years to promote and develop recruitment support both in Canada and abroad, including in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.
In addition, $50 million over five years will be used to further consolidate the path of French-speaking integration. The path seeks to facilitate the settlement and integration of newcomers to Canada and improve the reception capacity of French-speaking minority communities.
The Action Plan says this will be achieved through existing initiatives, such as Welcoming Francophone Communities, and new measures, such as a strategy to better support French-speaking immigrant women.
With an emphasis on early learning, $16.3 million will be invested over five years to support a series of targeted and interconnected initiatives to boost overseas recruitment of elementary and secondary level French teachers and French-speaking teachers. The teachers will then settle in a French-speaking minority community in Canada.
Finally, the government will commit $3.5 million to improve French-speaking and bilingual immigration under existing programs.
French-speaking immigration to Canada
The Government of Canada is mandated to promote and protect the status of both official languages, English and French. According to the Official Languages Law, there are three objectives:
- ensure respect for English and French as the official languages of Canada and ensure equal status and equal rights and privileges in their use in all federal institutions;
- support the development of the English and French language minority communities and promote equal status and use of the English and French languages within Canadian society; and
- establish the powers, duties and functions of federal institutions with respect to the official languages of Canada.
fall on Canada Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC) to assume responsibility for attracting and retaining French-speaking immigrants to help build and support French-speaking communities outside of Quebec, Canada’s only French-speaking province (aside from New Brunswickwhich is officially bilingual).
In January this year, the immigration minister Sean Fraser announced that over the past year, more than 16,300 new immigrants have settled in French-speaking minority communities across Canada.
In 2006, the first year of the census, the number of admissions of French-speaking residents outside of Quebec was just over 2,800. The 2022 admissions represent a significant jump of 3.02% (from 1.38% to 4.4%).
Still, the proportion of French-speakers in Canada is declining. IRCC reported that the proportion of French-speaking Canadians represented dropped from 22.2% in 2016 to 21.4% in 2021.
reference: www.cicnews.com