Felix Le-Phat-Ho

family doctor

One of the themes chosen to kick off the celebrations can be summed up in the slogan: adult minorities. In fact, one of the speakers at the event, Franco-Quebec comedian and actor of Congolese origin Eddy King, invited school students to take their place. One cannot help but make a connection to the challenges experienced by the animator himself and those belonging to cultural minorities.

While it is commendable to inspire Francophone youth to strive for better things, the levers necessary for their development must remain at their disposal. Recently, several underreported events taking place among Canadian francophone minorities invite us to reflect on the unequal treatment of these communities outside of Quebec.

Consider the crisis surrounding the project to abolish French immersion in schools in New Brunswick, which has been criticized by both the SANB (Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick) and associations of English-speaking parents.¹ or the difficulties of the province’s Francophone Health Network (Réseau de santé Vitalité) in maintaining basic services. There were also all obstacles to the creation of Ontario’s first all-French university (Université de l’Ontario Français), which almost never opened its doors. And what about the allegations by the FFCB (Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique) regarding their right to access French language employment?²

When we see the short film Pretty French Produced by Rendez-vous de la Francophonie’s other speaker, Fransaskois singer-songwriter Alexis Normand, we recognize all the constraints facing Saskatchewan’s Francophone community, the identity crisis between two linguistic realities and the specter of assimilation³.

As fierce and even fratricidal debates rage on in Ottawa about reforming the Official Language Act, it is relevant to question the roots of the French fact in Canada and Quebec.

Historically, French Canadians in Lower Canada have long been disadvantaged in terms of access to education and positions of political and economic power compared to the minority of British descent. In short, they faced systemic discrimination.

Little is said about it, but there are several previous or contemporary examples of minorities dominating the power elite in a particular region. This obviously includes the aftermath of European colonization, but also the struggles and power relations in places like the UK (e.g. Northern Ireland), the Middle East (Sunnis in Iraq before the war) or the Asia-Pacific (Japan, then China). And for a minority to be able to influence an entire society, it usually helps to have the support of a big brother or an outside power, as exemplified in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Returning to the Francophones of Quebec, they find themselves in a unique context where they are a majority in their province but a minority in America. One could say that in the majority they were and are in the minority, in addition to being isolated without outside help. Surprisingly, in this regard, over the centuries, a large number of actions were triggered, which made it possible to make a profit and ensure the survival of an entire people.

From rebellions to quiet revolutions, a secret organization called the Order of Jacques Cartier, or “the Patent,” was even formed in the 1920s to counterbalance the Orangemen, the Mason brothers, and even the Ku Klux Klan , who advocated Anglo supremacy. Started in Ontario and Quebec and made up of well-known public figures such as Jean Drapeau and Bernard Landry, this secret society has even had an impact among French-speaking minorities in Canada, as in New Brunswick, where it is widely believed it led to Emergence of a series of socio-economic emancipation measures under the “Equal Opportunities for All” policy promoted by the province’s first Acadian elected Prime Minister, Louis J. Robichaud. Filmmaker Phil Comeau tells the whole story in a revealing documentary^{4 5}.

It is important to remember the historical advances and the audacity of many people in their struggles for their rights to truly take their place. Nowadays, Francophonie is full of great cultural diversity and it is important to bring to life that other international language, French, spoken by more than 300 million speakers in the world.

As Eddy King said in one of his interviews, let’s first instill the love of the French language. It is a fact that cultural minorities and Indigenous communities still face significant challenges, but who better than a majority of minorities who have experienced systemic discrimination to push the boundaries of intolerance and continue to build an original and unique enterprise in America.