Canadian French-speaking associations “strongly disappointed” with the new targets 

Sean Kilpatrick The Canadian Press Federal Minister Marc Miller before holding a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship announced Wednesday afternoon increasing his target for French-speaking immigration outside Quebec to 6% in 2024, then to 7% in 2025 and 8% in 2026.

Ottawa has “missed” the opportunity “to reverse the decline of the Francophonie” in Canada, estimates the Fédération des Communautés Francophones et Acadian (FCFA), saying it is “strongly disappointed with the new targets” for Francophone immigration.

< p>Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced Wednesday afternoon to increase his target for French-speaking immigration outside Quebec to 6% in 2024, then to 7% in 2025 and 8% in 2026.

He says he was “ambitious with these new targets” given that Ottawa reached for the first time in 2022, “with difficulty”, its immigration target, set at 4.4% in 2003.< /p>

“Did we do our joblike the world over the last two decades? No,” admitted the minister, saying he wanted to “give [his] ministry a boost, force them to move beyond their way of thinking, then ensure that they put in place mechanisms to welcome people who are d 'French-speaking expression.'

“It's not simply a question of putting a figure to please everyone, but, for me, a figure that is achievable. »

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The FCFA and the country's French-speaking organizations do not agree. For more than a year, they have been calling for a progressive target starting at 12% in 2024 and going up to 20% in 2036, which would ultimately allow the demographic weight of the Francophonie to be restored to 4.4%.

Since the modernization of the Official Languages ​​Act in June, the federal government has committed to restoring the demographic weight of French-speaking minority communities to what it was in 1971, i.e. 6.1%.

“A target of 6% keeps us in decline. At 8%, we are more or less in stability, but certainly not in growth,” declared the president of the FCFA, Liane Roy, in a press release.

The Commissioner of Official Languages, Raymond Théberge was more lenient, believing that the new targets are “a step in the right direction to curb the demographic decline of Francophones in minority situations.” He adds, however, that “the increase in the demographic weight of Francophones outside Quebec and its restoration to 6.1% […] will greatly depend on respecting these new targets and the adoption of even more ambitious targets at the same time. future.”

This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.