Towards A Francophone Community

Using extensive archival research, Gendron rebuts the argument of Quebec nationalists and scholars that the Canadian government's neglect of French Africa forced Quebec to develop its own international identity. Towards a Francophone Community shows that there had been active federal interest in French African affairs since the late 1940s, within the context of developments in NATO and the Cold War, the vagaries of Canada's relations with France, and the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

Images of Canadianness offers backgrounds and explanations for a series of relevant--if relatively new--features of Canada, from political, cultural, and economic angles. Each of its four sections contains articles written by Canadian and European experts that offer original perspectives on a variety of issues: voting patterns in English-speaking Canada and Quebec; the vitality of French-language communities outside Quebec; the Belgian and Dutch immigration waves to Canada and the resulting Dutch-language immigrant press; major transitions taking place in Nunavut; the media as a tool for self-government for Canada's First Peoples; attempts by Canadian Indians to negotiate their position in society; the Canada-US relationship; Canada's trade with the EU; and Canada's cultural policy in the light of the information highway.

"Many of North America's francophones live and work in large anglophone cities, immersed in overwhelmingly English-speaking environments, yet they manage to keep their language and culture alive. In this study Robert A. Stebbins finds that francophone culture in Calgary flourishes primarily through leisure activities." "Stebbins was a participant and an observer in Calgary's French community between 1987 and 1992. In 1992 he conducted unstructured interviews in French with eighty-five adult respondents, focusing on their patterns of everyday personal and collective life. His book reveals that in large cities such as Calgary, francophone populations form communities through social and cultural organization rather than geographical association. In these circumstances, family, household, school, and leisure activities are key to maintaining French language and culture and promoting individual and community development." "This is the first ethnographic study of the francophone community of a major anglophone urban centre in Canada. Stebbins presents an objective but sympathetic analysis in a fluid and engaging style. His work provides a prototype for the analysis of francophone communities in anglophone cities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

150 years after Confederation, Canada is known around the world for its social diversity and its commitment to principles of multiculturalism. But the road to contemporary Canada is a winding one, a story of division and conflict as well as union and accommodation. In Canada’s Odyssey, renowned scholar Peter H. Russell provides an expansive, accessible account of Canadian history from the pre-Confederation period to the present day. By focusing on what he calls the "three pillars" of English Canada, French Canada, and Aboriginal Canada, Russell advances an important view of our country as one founded on and informed by "incomplete conquests". It is the very incompleteness of these conquests that have made Canada what it is today, not just a multicultural society but a multinational one. Featuring the scope and vivid characterizations of an epic novel, Canada’s Odyssey is a magisterial work by an astute observer of Canadian politics and history, a perfect book to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

"Language planning, that is, the creation of a more equitable situation as regards the status and use of two or more languages, is based in Canada on the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, proclaimed in 1982. Section 23 of the Charter spells out the minority language educational rights. Canadian citizens whose mother tongue is English or French and who reside in a linguistic minority community are entitled, thanks to the Charter, to have their children educated in the language of the minority. This study focuses on the specific school situation of minority Francophone communities. It describes the state of affairs that needs to be corrected, setting out objectives with regard to the target school population and proposing measures to attain these objectives"--Introduction, page 12.

This document explores the concepts of assimilation and community vitality in Francophone communities outside Quebec. The 1st chapter focusses on the theory and concepts of community vitality in Canada and internationally, while the 2nd gives a broad description of the policy context at the federal level. The 3rd chapter explores the use of the concepts of assimilation and vitality within the public debate in Canada. The 4th chapter focusses on the demographic data regarding the present health of the Francophone communities outside Quebec. The 5th chapter deals with issues of youth, education and economic attainment of Francophones from the point of view of the importance and consequences of access to education in one's first language.

By the late 1950s francophone and Acadian minority communities outside Quebec were in rapid decline. Demographic, economic, socio-cultural, institutional, and political factors that had sustained both the concept and the reality of French Canada for well over a century were being eliminated or transformed. Canada's Francophone Minority Communities shows how French-speaking minorities won the right to full and unfettered school governance with the backing of the Charter, the Supreme Court, and the Canadian government.Convinced that education was one of the essential keys to the renewal and growth of their communities, francophone organizations and leaders lobbied for constitutional entrenchment of official bilingualism and a mandated Charter right to education in their own language, including the right to governance over their own schools and school boards - a significant Canadian innovation. From those efforts a new, vigorous francophone pan-Canadian national community emerged, one capable of ensuring the survival of its constituents communities well into the twenty-first century.