Thank you very much.
First of all, I want to reiterate that it is important and necessary to have services by and for francophones and to match those services with our community's organizations and institutions. Our community has had to fight and fend for itself over the years due to a lack of government services in many sectors. As a result, it has established francophone organizations and institutions designed to meet its own needs.
It is important that the programs and services developed to meet the needs of francophone immigrants be offered by our community and that they be consistent with our community architecture, if we genuinely want to carry out our twofold mandate and ensure that francophone immigration genuinely helps enhance our vitality.
When the IRCC's decisions do not take into account our existing structures and services, that weakens our services and community. In many instances, we feel the processes and decisions made undermine the community by excluding certain sectors of the community from the discussions, in particular its representative organization. We are there to support and encourage the empowerment of our community organizations. If something has to be done, government representatives should be not an obstacle, but rather a factor in the empowerment of those organizations, as we are for them.
A flexible approach must also be taken to the criteria applied. Some immigrants, such as temporary foreign workers and international students, are not eligible for certain services. The problem is that those immigrants do not receive first-hand information and fall victim to biased information given to them by people who who have not necessarily gone through our community's services, which is very harmful.
Canada has recently taken in a large number of Syrian refugees. Our community would like to be able to play a role with francophone refugees who are currently being served by anglophone institutions.
We would like our francophone welcome centres in Alberta to be accredited to take in government-sponsored francophone refugees. This is being done in Manitoba, but that is not the case in Alberta.
We have made a conscious choice to build a diverse French-language community. The ACFA has for many years coordinated the RIF, a mechanism financed by the IRCC, whose purpose is to promote joint action and cooperation with various players operating in francophone immigration in our province. If the department funds that mechanism, its call for tenders should be consistent with it and help advance our community plan for francophone immigration and community life.
In summer 2015, a call for tenders that was issued caused a crisis in our community. We have to stop creating mechanisms that divide the community. Our present situation was established by the department. A clear division is occurring within the community, especially in the Calgary region, and that should not be happening.
We are in favour of empowerment, we are responsible for ourselves, and we develop strategies together. I consider it highly offensive that the policies administered by the department's regional representatives should interfere in this process and dictate how we conduct our activities.
Agreements negotiation should be a process that accommodates the community's desire to take charge of itself and set its own priorities. Priorities should not be imposed on us, particularly since we do not even know where they come from.
The reality of the communities varies from province to province. Consequently, we should stop applying catch-all solutions to all regions of the country. It is ridiculous for anyone to espouse that philosophy. We would like these agreements to respect the communities.