Francophone Minority Communities and Immigrant Integration in Canada: Rethinking the Normative Foundations.

This paper addresses one particular feature of Canada's accommodation of diversity -- the existence of French-language communities outside of Quebec and New Brunswick -- to show how there continues to be conceptual difficulties in reconciling Canada's many diversities. More specifically, we are conc...

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Published in:Canadian Ethnic Studies Vol. 45; no. 1/2; pp. 95 - 115
Main Authors: IACOVINO, RAFFAELE, LéGER, RéMI
Format: Article
Published: Canadian Ethnic Studies 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: Francophone Minority Communities and Immigrant Integration in Canada: Rethinking the Normative Foundations.
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          IACOVINO, RAFFAELE
          LéGER, RéMI
        affil:
          Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Carleton University
          Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University
      su:
        French-Canadians
        Communities
        Assimilation of immigrants
        Minorities
        Bilingualism
        Social conditions in Canada
        Sociolinguistics
        Social history
        Canadian history, 1945-
        Québec (Province)
        Canada
      sug:
        subj:
          Québec (Province)
          Canada
          French-Canadians
          Communities
          Assimilation of immigrants
          Minorities
          Bilingualism
          Social conditions in Canada
          Sociolinguistics
          Social history
          Canadian history, 1945-
      ab:
        This paper addresses one particular feature of Canada's accommodation of diversity -- the existence of French-language communities outside of Quebec and New Brunswick -- to show how there continues to be conceptual difficulties in reconciling Canada's many diversities. More specifically, we are concerned with conceptual ambiguities associated with the place of these minority communities in Canada's constitutive political sociology, and difficulties in promoting a coherent set of policies for their flourishing. Moreover, this paper will not simply rehash arguments about their forma and conceptual status. We are interested in illuminating a recent initiative that seeks to direct immigrants to these communities in the hope of maintaining their overall percentage of the Canadian population. This is a development that has received little attention to date from the perspective of the scholarship of multiculturalism and minority rights, and political theory more generally. We argue that the strategy to target Francophone minority communities as 'sites' of integration represents a false promise for both these communities and immigrants. This article will show that the federal framework of 'multiculturalism within a bilingual framework' obscures the realities confronting Francophone minority communities and thus their capacity to integrate newcomers, on both empirical and normative grounds.
        Cet article porte sur un cas particulier de l'accommodement canadien de la diversité - l'existence de communautés francophones en dehors du Québec et du Nouveau-Brunswick - pour montrer comment des difficultés conceptuelles à réconcilier les multiples aspects de cette diversité sont encore présentes. Plus précisément, ce qui nous concerne, ce sont les ambiguïtés de la sociologie politique constitutive du Canada envers la place donnée à ces communautés minoritaires et les difficultés promouvoir un ensemble cohérent de politiques en faveur de leur épanouissement. De plus, il ne s'agit pas ici de simplement répéter les arguments sur leur statut formel et conceptuel. Ce qui nous intéresse, c'est d'éclairer une initiative récente qui tente de diriger des immigrants vers elles dans l'espoir de maintenir leur pourcentage général de la population canadienne. Ce développement a reçu peu d'attention du point de vue de la recherche sur le multiculturalisme et es droits des minorités, ainsi que sur la théorie politique en général. Nous soutenons que la stratégie de viser les minorités francophones comme «lieux» d'intégration représente une fausse promesse, aussi bien pour ces communautés que pour les immigrants. Nous montrons dans cet article que les modalités fédérales du «multiculturalisme dans un cadre bilingue» cachent les réa- ités auxquelles elles sont confrontées et, donc, leur capacité à intégrer les nouveaux-venus, aussi bien pour des raisons empiriques que normatives.
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    language: English
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