I'm going to share the time allotted to me with Mr. Généreux.
Something I read in the Current Research Compendium on Francophone Immigration in Canada really spoke to me. It's the paragraph entitled “Immigration: A Population Perceived As Different Than “Us”. Here's what it says:
However, minority environments are inherently and by necessity self-protective, and they define themselves on the basis of linguistic and cultural boundaries. By the same token, this process tends to inadvertently push away the very population the communities are trying to attract (perceived as different/other than “us”). This is the identity-based argument. The question that needs to be addressed then is how, as a group, does this redefine and broaden the collective identity? The will to attract and retain new populations cannot be realized without a reflection on identity in the context of diversity. This tension between the demographic argument and the identity argument and the underlying diverging perspectives of a utilitarian logic or one of social exclusion is at the heart of the analysis undertaken by researchers and community stakeholders.
Does that mean that now, when we want to attract francophone immigrants, we need an inclusive “us” instead of an exclusive “us”? Is that in fact what that means? We often identify with the community, but we should also open up so that the “us” becomes inclusive instead of being exclusive.