Canada will support Francophone Immigration according to the latest Action Plan for the official languages. This new Action Plan for 2023- 2028 took effect on April 26 in Ottawa.
The recent Action Plan will offer an investment of $1.4 billion in the upcoming five years, while it has a prior investment from the former Action Plan of $2.7 billion. Interestingly, this totals up to more than 4.1 billion over the next five years.
This happens to be the first time in the history of official languages that the federal government has offered such a huge investment figure.
Moreover, the Action Plan consists of four chief priorities:
- Elevate the number of Francophone immigrants to restore the demographic impact.
- Encourage learning opportunities concerning the two official Canadian languages in the longer run.
- To assist the significance of official language minority communities.
- Develop positive actions for the government to assist communities.
Canada will support Francophone Immigration through its new Action Plan for official languages
Francophone immigration plays a crucial role in creating an increased number of French-speaking communities in Canada, specifically outside the province of Quebec.
Overall, the Action Plan will bear $13.4 million in the following five years under Francophone immigration’s new policy and operational framework. Moreover, this plan will review the existing commitments and overall administration through the Francophone Immigration Strategy. This came into effect in 2019.
According to the government, the new policy will target increased Francophone immigration. Besides this, it will also integrate French-speaking immigrants within the Francophone minority communities.
Additionally, there is also going to be an investment of $18.5 million for the following five years to encourage and create recruitment opportunities in Canada and other countries. These include the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.
Besides this, they must invest $50 million over the next five years to strengthen the Francophone Immigration pathway. Further, this pathway will make things more convenient for Canadian newcomers and enhance the intake of Francophone minority communities.
According to the new Action Plan, it will be possible to accomplish the above goals through ongoing measures. These include the following:
- Receiving more Francophone communities.
- Introduction of a new initiative- a strategy targeting more intake of Francophone women immigrants.
Additionally, they’ll be investing $16.3 million over the following five years to enable a number of targeted and integrated initiatives. This way, they can enhance the international recruitment of French educators at the primary and secondary levels.
These educators will be relocating to Francophone minority communities in Canada. Lastly, the government will be investing an additional $3.5 million to enhance Francophone immigration through the available programs.
Canada’s Francophone Immigration
The Canadian government follows a mandate to encourage and preserve the status of the two official languages. The Official Languages Act consists of three objectives:
- To make sure that French and English languages acquire recognition as the official languages. Also, ensuring equal status, rights, and privileges per the federal institutions.
- Encourage the development of minority communities pertaining to English and French, status equality, and usage of French and English language within the societies.
- Set straight the responsibilities, authority, and operations of federal institutions concerning the Canadian official languages.
However, it is IRCC that is majorly responsible for welcoming and sustaining Francophone immigrants to develop more French-speaking communities other than Quebec. Apart from New Brunswick, the Quebec province is the only one that is bilingual.
This year, in January, Sean Fraser declared that in the previous year, more than 16,300 new immigrants chose to remain in French-speaking minority communities.
As observed, in 2006, the number of Francophone intakes outside Quebec turned out to be nearly 2,800. However, the 2022 intakes reflect a massive increase from 1,38 percent to 4.4 percent, which is by 3.02 percent.
Overall, there is a decline in the number of Francophone immigrants in Canada. Reportedly, IRCC’s percentage of Francophone Canadians reduced from 22 percent to 21.4 percent between 2016 and 2021, respectively.
