Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to welcome all the members and the vice-chair to Yukon, to paradise.
In my presentation, I will outline the history of the francophone presence in Yukon and will then talk about the progress made and measures put in place.
A Francophone trader, François Xavier Mercier and his partner built the Fort Reliance trading post near the mouth of the Klondike in 1874. His efforts also resulted in the arrival of the first Oblate missionaries in the region. Francophone priests worked to develop education and health care services.
By the time of the 1898 Klondike gold rush, at the end of the 19th century, francophones were already well established in the area and newly arrived francophone professionals to Dawson and Mayo played an active role in the social and political life of these communities. However, outward migration at the end of the gold rush seriously reduced their numbers and the francophone presence in Yukon was greatly diminished until its gradual resurgence as young francophones from the rest of Canada strongly motivated to want to maintain their language worked tirelessly to win support from governments to develop services in French in Yukon.
Yukon's francophone community includes 1,245 persons who count French as their first official language. Although francophones can be found all over Yukon, by far the greatest percentage, 82%, live in Whitehorse. While francophones account for four percent of the population, over 11% of Yukoners can speak French, evidence of the growing linguistic duality in Yukon.
A strong and concerted effort on the part of the francophone community and the federal and territorial governments first led to the development, passage and gradual implementation of the Languages Act. Among other things, this act gave Yukon francophones the right to communicate with and receive services from the government in French at head or central offices. Our act in fact seems to presage the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality when it notes that the measures in this act are steps toward equality of status of English and French.
The Yukon accepts that English and French are the official languages of Canada and also accepts that measures set out in the act constitute important steps towards implementation of the equality of status of English and French in Yukon.
Now let’s talk about the development of services in French. Implementation involved extensive consultations with the francophone community and funding agreements with the federal government for the development of French language services. In 1988, the agreement between the federal and territorial governments included an agreement by the federal government to bear all costs incurred in the development, enhancement and implementation of French languages services. However, the first funding agreement did not include health services funding because certain health services were still a responsibility of the federal government and were devolved in 1993 well after the signing of the first funding agreement. Since that time, successive Yukon governments have contributed to the gradual development of health services in French despite the lack of federal funding.
However, it goes without saying that additional funding from the federal government to further develop these services would be welcomed by both the territorial government and the francophone community.
Relations between francophones and other Yukoners have been excellent. Governments, both federal and territorial, have worked with the community in various ways. To emphasize the importance of direct consultation with the francophone community, the Yukon government established the Advisory Committee on French Language Services to advise the Minister of the Executive Council Office on any matter related to the Languages Act and the implementation of government services in French.
To help guide employees in government in the implementation of French language services, several instruments have been developed: the French Language Policy, the Guidelines for Advertising, Publishing and Other Forms of Communications in French and the Guidelines for Staffing Bilingual Positions.
What is the touchstone that has been developed to measure French language services? A good service is one that is useful, that is one that meets the needs expressed by the community; is useable, that is to say is practical, accessible, consistently maintained and comparable in quality to English language services; and used by francophones free of charge. Where are the services? Well, they exist across government: court services, legislation and regulations, francophone school boards, driver's licences and counter service, bilingual social workers, advertising, forms, news releases, signs, websites, in fact everything involving communication with the public. That’s just a brief overview. I have made our activity report for 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 available to you. As you’ll see, we've done a lot in those two years.
Since 2006, the French Language Services Branch was raised to the status of a stand-alone department-like directorate reporting directly to a minister, another indication of the importance the government attaches to the delivery of French language services. Yukon has come a long way in the last 30 years in offering French-language services for the francophone community. That has meant focusing on several important areas that Canada's Roadmap identified and for which we have jurisdictional responsibility: investing in youth, improving access to services, capitalizing on economic benefits.
In terms of the support for youth, our government has supported the youth group, Espoir Jeunesse, and continues to support the Yukon francophone school board's delivery of education to francophone students. Yukon has also contributed to the economic development of the community, by investing in the francophone community centre, which opened in 1989, and in providing opportunities for francophone service deliverers to compete on services procurement.
Yukon today is more than just a land of awesome beauty and opportunity for all. It is also a place where francophones live and contribute to society by sharing their language and culture. It is also a place where they can live their life in French. We have journeyed together a great distance in the delivery of services in French. Allow me to quote from the report on Yukon francophones by the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada:
In Yukon, there are seven times more people who know French (alone or with English) than in 1951. Today, more than 3,545 people in the territory can speak French, representing an impressive 11.7 percent of the population. This is also an increase of 500 people over 2001. In 2006, 820 inhabitants of Yukon worked in French most often or at least regularly, representing 32.5 percent of the labour force with knowledge of French. In total, 4.3 percent of the labour force in Yukon uses French at least regularly at work.
While there is a distance to go, doing it with our federal and Franco-Yukonnais partners will make the voyage that much better.
Thank you for your attention.
