Undervalued
…is a key word, I think.
The anglophone community tends to think that the francophone community is asking for handouts. Knowing that the francophonie and bilingualism are economic advantages is already a big step toward a solution. In New Brunswick, we have commissioned studies from consultants to determine the economic contribution of the francophone community in certain regions that are mainly anglophone, but that have a large francophone population, such as Miramichi, Fredericton and Saint John.
We published the results of the study, which showed that more anglophone entrepreneurs in the Miramichi region had started providing services in French because they recognized that a large part of their business was coming from the francophone community. Therefore it is important to know that in order to create positive effects and change the communities' perception or one another.