Comparing Ambiguities: Municipalities, Francophone Minority Communities and Immigration in Canada

This article analyzes the implication of municipal governments and civil society actors in immigration through multilevel and collaborative governance arrangements. It argues that studying the roles of ambiguities is critical to understanding the activism of political entities with ill-defined status and mandates, such as municipalities and francophone minority communities (FMCs). This research adds to the literature on the “local turn” by highlighting that ambiguities are both a condition—that is, a driver that makes collaborative and multilevel arrangements work—and an outcome of collaboration practices, characterized by ambiguities regarding the balance of power, the aims of collaboration in a competitive sector and conflicting forms of accountabilities. The article identifies three approaches that actors use to deal with these ambiguities in a context where resources are not equitably distributed and where the role of the federal government is critical. In this configuration, municipalities and FMCs develop adaptive, rather than transformative, approaches to ambiguities.

Occupation’s Role in Producing Inclusive Spaces: Immigrants’ Experiences in Linguistic Minority Communities

While the “situatedness” of occupation in the context of migration has been explored using various approaches, there remains a need for a holistic and dynamic understanding of the concept of space and the spatiality of occupation. Adopting Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space and taking a transactional approach to occupation, we examined the role of immigrants’ occupational engagement in the production of Francophone minority community spaces in Metro Vancouver, Canada. We completed a critical ethnography and focus on findings from participant observations and in-depth and go-along interviews with French-speaking immigrants. Findings shed light on the influence of immigrants’ occupational engagement on the production of minority spaces. To study the spatiality of occupation comprehensively, we need to move beyond an examination of the immediate environment to address other components of the production of space as well as the interrelation of spaces through occupation.

A self-assessment tool for healthcare and social service provision in French: What use for managers?

Language is an important determinant of health, and lack of access to quality, linguistically adapted healthcare and social services negatively impacts users. Besides the lack of bilingual resources, our previous research on Francophone minority community seniors’ trajectories through these services shed light on important and nonobvious challenges currently faced by organizations offering healthcare and social services to this population. Current service provision appeared limited due to organizations working in silos with suboptimally used resources for integrating active offer of French language services throughout the continuum of care. This situation led our team to create the Organizational and Community Resources Self-Assessment Tool for Active Offer and Continuity of French Language Healthcare and Social Services, which is intended to help managers and service providers promote and facilitate the integration of active offer throughout the continuum of service provision. This article describes the Tool’s creation, content validation, and pilot-testing.

INCREASING THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE CONTENT ON FRANCOPHONE MINORITY SCHOOL BOARDS’ WEBSITES IN CANADA: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY (2008-2016) IN SUPPORT OF NON-FRENCHSPEAKING PARENTS AND GUARDIANS

This paper focuses on the results of a longitudinal study examining the English-language content of Francophone minority school boards’ websites throughout Canada, mindful of the changing profile of the boards’ parental population. A document analysis research approach was used to analyse how the content destined for a non-French-speaking audience has evolved, enabling the audience to have access to new and pertinent information. It was observed that the majority of boards in Western Canada and Ontario have increased the presence of English on their websites. Atlantic Canada (with the exception of New Brunswick) has followed this trend. It is worth noting that other languages and content areas have shown up on the web sites, confirming the changing demographics of Francophone minority communities in Canada.

Community versus Commodity in Francophone Canada: A Multilevel Approach to the Neoliberalization of Immigration

Since the 1990s, Canada's francophone minority communities (FMCs) have become increasingly involved in francophone immigration governance, and this trend has coincided with the wider neoliberalization of immigration in Canada. This article analyzes the implications of the growing influence of a neoliberal immigration policy and the narrative of an ideal immigrant on Canada's FMCs by focussing on the francophone Acadian community in New Brunswick, Canada's only constitutionally bilingual province. Making use of three types of sources—semistructured interviews, debates in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, and official and archival documents—the article argues that francophone and Acadian organizations have adopted the federal, neoliberal perspective on immigration, placing greater emphasis on economic integration and the creation of a bilingual workforce. Changes in the type of immigrant selected and role of the community in the lives of francophone immigrants create new challenges for minority language communities that define and identify themselves through language use and belonging.