THUNDER BAY - Members of the local Francophone community say recent cuts to French language programs by the Ford government are threatening to not only French speaking people, but also other cultures.
“What it means is other cultures can be taken away,” said Donald Pelletier, president of Francophone Association of Northwestern Ontario. “It’s fearful that we are not respected. It is a lack of respect that is going on and we need to fight for what is ours. It is a right we have. It is something that belongs to us and we need to get it back.”
Rallies were held across Ontario on Saturday to protest the Ford government’s decision to shut down the Office of the French Language Commissioner and halt plans for a French language university.
Several rallies were held in Northwestern Ontario, including two in Thunder Bay outside Thunder Bay-Superior North MPP Michael Gravelle’s constituency office and the office of Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Judith Monteith-Farrell.
“I think Doug Ford doesn’t know what he has done,” Monteith-Farrell said during the rally outside her George Street office. “These people have rights and they are constitutional rights and they need to be respected.”
According to Pelletier, there are thousands of Francophone people living in Northwestern Ontario. In Thunder Bay, there are more than 450 students enrolled in two French language schools, plus many more in French immersion programs. The cuts by the provincial government impact these students, Pelletier said.
“Once they graduate from the high school there is no French post-secondary institution in Thunder Bay or Ontario,” he continued. “Having one in Ontario, hopefully it would have satellite campuses in Northwestern Ontario so my kids could complete their education in French.”
Pelletier is hopeful demonstrations like the ones held on Saturday will help garner support from MPPs to speak on their behalf at Queen’s Park.
“These are rights that we have,” he said. “We fought for them. It makes no sense at all to take them back and take them away from us.”
Monteith-Farrell said the NPD have already spoken out against the changes, with a motion put forward at Queen’s Park by NDP leader Andrea Horvath to reinstate an independent French language commissioner. The majority Progressive Conservative government defeated the motion.
“If they are interested in Northern Ontario then they know they should be protecting French language rights,” Monteith-Farrell said. “French people are the founding people. They worked hard to build this country and they deserve the rights, as we recognized in law. The money that is being saved in this move is miniscule. It’s not a significant amount of money.”
