Canada/Ottawa's French Language Services Advisory Committee relaunches its activities

The City of Ottawa's French Language Services Advisory Committee resumed its work on November 16 after more than a year of inactivity. A second meeting was held on February 8.

We've seen all the committee's rules [at these meetings], and now we're going to poll the people on the committee to find out what [issues of concern] they are. There's also last year's report [...]. We've got a lot of work to do, more administrative and logistical stuff, but we'll get there," confides Rideau-Vanier ward city councillor Stéphanie Plante, who also acts as liaison councillor for the City of Ottawa's French Language Services Advisory Committee.

Through this committee, she intends to take a serious look at the issue of French-language daycare. It's very important that children learn French from an early age, and that parents have options to put their children in bilingual daycare centers that have the $10/day price tag that the federal government is trying to push," says Stéphanie Plante.

Éric Barrette, President of the Association des communautés francophones d'Ottawa (ACFO Ottawa), is concerned about the slow pace of this committee's revival, and is calling for concrete action.

For the Committee, which still has an important role within the City, it's really a matter of analyzing all the [problems] in terms of French-language services. This is something we raised with the mayor about the slowness of relaunching this committee. So, concrete action is needed beyond the words spoken during the election campaign, that's for sure," he declared in an interview on Thursday's edition of Les matins d'ici.

Modernizing bilingualism regulations

Pressure continues to mount on the City of Ottawa to modernize its bilingualism by-law. A number of Ottawa's francophone stakeholders took advantage of the 17th annual Rendez-vous francophone du maire d'Ottawa on Thursday to reopen the debate.

In addition to the inactivity of the Comité consultatif sur les services en français over the past few months, the appointment of Wendy Stephanson, a unilingual anglophone, to the City's general management, a position that is nonetheless designated bilingual, continues to irritate players like Éric Barrette. He finds it disappointing that the bilingualism policy is not fully implemented.

It's one thing to have services in French - front-line services - but it's also important that the city's senior civil servants are also bilingual, and that the city has policies to that effect," he stresses.

He says he has raised the issue with Ottawa's mayor on several occasions to ensure that this type of situation does not recur, even though it does occur very often in the federal capital, which is reputed to be bilingual.

The President of ACFO Ottawa would like to see the City of Ottawa's bilingualism by-law, which dates back to 2001, adapted to today's demographic reality. We often talk about a specific percentage of services in French.

But if 100% of these services are provided in French in the Vanier sector, we can respect the percentage established by the by-law, but without offering services in French in new Francophone sectors of the City," he says.

For his part, City of Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, who recognizes the importance of the francophone community on his territory, says he is open to various proposals that would help improve bilingualism in Ottawa. It's always a priority to support the French language in Ottawa, so I'm willing to discuss the idea and hear more specifically what they [Francophones] think. I'm ready to have a discussion," he maintains.

Source: ici.radio-canada.ca/