Chapter 3 – Outlook
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Canada competes for highly skilled immigrants with other countries around the world. But even once immigrants decide to move to Canada, the competition does not stop. Canada's regions compete with each other for the arrival of the best and the brightest Canadian immigrants. And the minority and majority language communities compete with each other for the immigrant's civic commitment in terms of his or her choice of schooling and community involvement.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada is currently considering ways to regionalize the flow of immigration, which would oblige immigrants to settle and remain in regions outside Canada's major centres for a period of time in the hope that initial settlement will turn into long-term attachment. This is to help rural communities obtain a fair share of immigrants. Official language minority communities are in a similar position: here, too, mechanisms must be devised to orient immigrants towards these communities. These mechanisms must then be backed up by favourable settlement conditions which will turn newly arriving immigrants into fully contributing members of the minority community.
The challenge for minority communities is to offer immigrant guidance and support at a level that not only equals what is available from the majority community but exceeds it. It is not necessarily the number of services that counts, but their quality. An immigrant, for example, who arrives late at night with his or her family at the airport, is greeted by a representative of the community, taken to a motel, told that his or her children will be picked up by the school bus the next morning and the next day receives a brief introduction to all the important first steps to get settled in his new home is likely to want to become a committed participant in that province's linguistic minority community. All too often, though, as immigrants move from settlement to adaptation and on to the contribution phase, the challenges become more complex, the minority community's assistance less targeted and, as a result, the immigrant's link with the community begins to weaken. Continued assistance and contact with immigrants throughout their initial years is crucial if the community is to eventually benefit from the presence of immigrants when they have reached the contribution phase.
CIFODE: Spicy Sauces and Effective Job Training in a Cooperative Environment
Few people will have heard of Belldajia. Belldajia is a Somali expression, means community sharing in the mother tongue and... is a sauce. Once a week, immigrant women from Francophone parts of Africa gather in an Ottawa community centre and produce a tasty, spicy sauce made from a variety of vegetables. It can be used to enhance anything from pasta to hamburgers and is sold through a network of small corner stores. The sauce is prepared by the women. For food distribution and marketing, "les mamans" rely on their French- and English-speaking children who have grown up in Ottawa, know the city well and speak both official languages.
Like a prism, this small, cooperative community venture provides an insight into some of the creative solutions Francophone immigrants in Ottawa have devised to overcome the challenges of settling in a new country. Some immigrant women actually bring considerable commercial experience to the Belldajia project as they were successful small business owners in their countries of origin. The most successful among them earned the title "Mamans Benz," since they were able to afford cars. Upon arrival in Canada, few of them could apply their commercial skills, being left to care for the children as their husbands are the first to go out and look for work. Belldajia is a small but important arena where these women can apply their skills and experience. Another aspect of the Belldajia project is its cooperative structure. The experience which these women have had in communal activities in their home countries is being applied in Canada and has helped them to establish a small, self-sustained business enterprise.
Belldajia is, in fact, only one of many projects being supervised by CIFODE, a small non-profit organization in Ottawa. Founded in 1996, the Centre d'intégration et de formation en développement économique has provided professional training and created employment opportunities for immigrant Francophone women. Maryan Bile, director of CIFODE, explains.
"As far as training is concerned, we are focusing on two programs. One is called Cashier and Customer Service Training. Twelve weeks of classes are followed by four weeks of practical training at companies like The Bay or Your Independent Grocer. This program has been running since 1999. Out of 30 participants 20 are currently employed in the service industry. The second program is called Bilingual Training for Office Assistants and helps immigrants find an administrative position in the public or private sector. This training program is offered in partnership with the Social Planning Council of Ottawa-Carleton. The program starts with 12 weeks of teaching covering topics like word processing, formal letter writing skills as well as English and French language training. Afterwards, the participants complete a twelve-week internship program in the public sector."
One cornerstone of CIFODE's activities is the conviction that "integration is only possible through employment and financial independence." CIFODE recognizes that there can be many obstacles for immigrants on the road to becoming fully integrated into Canadian society, but removing these obstacles is a long-term process. What immigrants need is immediate assistance. Once they gain a foothold in the labour market, the more pernicious hurdles, such as the non-recognition of educational experiences gained outside Canada or systemic discrimination, can be tackled from a position of moderate success.
CIFODE has been able to act as a catalyst for success with few resources. On a recent program, they asked an unemployed computer technician to teach participants in the administrative training program some basic computing and word processing skills. The participants received professional instruction while the technician completed a traineeship with CIFODE and was able to put this down as valuable work experience in Canada. In the end, he was able to find a job because CIFODE was able to provide him with a reference for future employers.
Maryan Bile is proud of the partnership CIFODE has been able to establish with federal and municipal partners: "Without the commitment and cooperation of the Public Service Commission of Canada and the City of Ottawa, the Bilingual Training Program for Office Assistants would never have seen the light of day. We were very pleasantly surprised to work with civil servants who were respectful of diversity, open, professional and had a keen sense of ethics and values."
In June 2002, CIFODE held its largest ever diploma awarding ceremony. As close to 50 graduates walked onto the stage in a Vanier community centre to receive their diplomas, many had moving and encouraging messages to relate about their Bilingual Training Program for Office Assistants. For many the course was the long-awaited light at the end of a tunnel. "When you are on welfare, you have no dignity," is how one person described his experience before the course. Fortunately for him and about 70% of the other graduates, he has now found employment and feels that he is finally able to contribute and participate fully as a French-speaking Canadian in Ontario.
Beyond integration services, communities need to become mobilized and committed to making immigration a success, and enlist federal and provincial government support to help them do so. Progress depends on comprehensive strategies but also on the many small initiatives that individuals or small groups can take. Progress also means greater communication between official language minority communities on immigrant integration across the country. The establishment of a Clearinghouse for Minority Official Language Immigration would allow local initiatives across the country to explore and build upon existing approaches in other communities, instead of each one working in isolation at the risk of "reinventing the wheel." A clearinghouse would act as a platform where information on minority official language approaches to immigration is stored and then made available to communities across the country. The clearinghouse would also host regular encounters for those work- ing with immigrants in each community.
As more expressing communities is that they need to embrace common language, many other identities and more Canadians are the unique combinations of their backgrounds and see themselves as carriers of multiple identities, the role of communities is changing. They are increasingly becoming vehicles for the expression and promotion of interests and identities (such as language) that one has chosen freely (Quell 2000). The consequence for official language minority multifaceted identities. Under the roof of a can coexist.
The first steps towards a more concerted approach have already been taken: In February 2001, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA) published the report of its Dialogue Task Force, encouraging communities to reach out and become more inclusive. In March 2002, a Steering Committee was created which brings together representatives from Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Francophone minority communities. In order to help the Committee draw up an action plan to promote the settlement and integration of more francophone immigrants outside Quebec, a study was commissioned to investigate the capacities of six cities across Canada to offer settlement services to Francophone newcomers. These are encouraging signs that a definite momentum is building to ensure that the needs of Francophone communities for more immigrants and better integration are being taken seriously.
Above all, though, official language minority communities should understand that immigration offers them an opportunity to build on core Canadian values. Canada has set itself firmly on a course of building a united country out of its diverse linguistic and cultural origins. Through the vitality of its two official languages, Canadians support an understanding of diversity that goes beyond the celebration of one's heritage. It means giving daily and vocal expression to one's linguistic and cultural identity. Canada's youth is not only fortunate to grow up in a country that values its linguistic duality and ethnic pluralism but, as a consequence, is also eager to explore other communities and cultures. While English-speaking Canadians have enjoyed the enrichment that follows from the integration of immigrants, it is now Canada's Francophones who need to be given the tools to benefit from such pluralism. As Canada reaches out and seeks to attract immigrants who will contribute to the vitality of English and French spoken in a minority context, it must be prepared to offer these precious newcomers as smooth a path towards successful integration as possible. Francophone minority communities, in particular, can ill afford for immigrants to have settlement experiences which will cause them to "passer du côté anglais," as one interviewee put it. "Passer du côté anglais" means that Francophone immigrants are giving up on the capacity of Francophone communities to assist and guide them on the way towards successful integration. It means that immigrants are taking their children out of Francophone schools because integration in Anglophone schools is seen as easier. In the final analysis, it means that immigrants are giving up on the prospect of an inclusive, multicultural Francophone community. Canada owes it to its history and values that this does not happen.
In 2004 Canada will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival and first explorations of Samuel de Champlain and the establish- ment of the first French settlements. Looking back, these celebrations will be an occasion for all Canadians to reflect on the historic roots of Francophones in Canada. Looking forward, they should provide Canadians with an opportunity to understand the continuity, diversity and resulting vibrancy within our country's official language minority communities.
