Keeping young francophones in the Yukon is a challenge. We find it difficult to keep young francophones in our high school. They leave the francophone system for the anglophone system. Not only that, because there are no French-language post-secondary institutions in the Yukon, students leave to study in Ottawa, in Montreal or in other places. Some come back four years later, but others settle elsewhere. It really is a challenge.
We are doing some things to remedy the situation. But really, we are not doing much because we do not know how to solve the problem. Nor is there any funding for it. We have an employment assistance program and we go into the school, which works with us. The Association franco-yukonnaise has a youth service, but it tends to be focused on cultural identity or leadership.
We work together with the school to reach those students so that we can encourage them to be proud to be francophone. But once they have left the Yukon, it is very difficult to follow them wherever they may go. We still have a lot of work to do to find solutions.