Canada/Clarence-Rockland hosts AFMO annual conference

The Association française des municipalités de l'Ontario (AFMO) gathers this year in Clarence-Rockland for its annual 2024 convention. An opportunity for member communities to come together to "highlight topics essential to the development and well-being" of their communities over three days.

This time, the tone was set on Thursday at the Hammond Golf Club for the Mayor's Tournament. Funds raised by this initiative will be donated to youth bursaries in the province.

A number of conferences will be held on topics affecting the French-speaking community in Ontario, including parity, diversity and inclusion in municipal politics, mental health, safety and cybersecurity. A visit to the Bourget Regional Fire Training Centre is also on the agenda, before the final nail in the coffin with the Annual General Meeting scheduled for Saturday at the Clarence-Rockland Fire Hall.

Promoting French in Ontario

For Clarence-Rockland mayor Mario Zanth, it's an honor for his municipality to host an event that promotes French.

We're a predominantly French-speaking municipality, so we're very happy to do what we can to help [AFMO]," he says.

Mr. Zanth maintains that this meeting is above all an opportunity to showcase Francophones in Ontario's predominantly English-speaking political landscape.

It promotes the Francophonie. It shows Canada, in Ontario, that Francophones stand together, and we're passionate about doing everything we can to support the Francophonie in our region," he explains.

In recent years, several municipalities have left the AFMO for a variety of reasons. With more than 80 member municipalities in 2019, the association now has only about 40.

Revitalizing AFMO's image

Since then, AFMO has been working for the past five years to restore its image by supporting all Ontario municipalities in their offer of French-language services, according to outgoing president and former Moonbeam mayor Nicole Fortier Levesque.

People didn't quite understand what AFMO did. Financially, I have to admit that things weren't going so well. We managed to re-establish AFMO's funding and then we worked very hard, but we succeeded. That's why we're much more visible today," she maintains.

The outgoing president of AFMO takes the opportunity to salute the federal government's designation of Cornwall, London and the District of Cochrane in the north of the province as new welcoming francophone communities, in addition to Hamilton, Hawkesbury and Sudbury.

We'd like to have them in Northern Ontario as well, in every region of the province. We need to do some work in this area, because we need Francophone immigration given the labour shortage. If we want to continue offering services in French, we have no choice. So at some point, we're going to have to focus on this option," she suggests.

This year, 90 political figures, organizations and business people will attend the AFMO 2024 annual conference.

Source: ici.radio-canada.ca/