WELCOMING COMMUNITY

A welcome adapted to the needs of French-speaking newcomers

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An initiative of the Government of Canada

Calgary was selected to be a Welcoming Francophone community in Alberta.  IRCC’s Welcoming Francophone Communities initiative is a three-year community-based pilot project, in response to the request of Francophone minority communities (FMCs) expressed during the 2015 and 2017 consultations on Francophone immigration. It aims to support the consolidation of the Francophone Integration Pathway.

Roles of welcoming communities

Welcoming Francophone communities will support partnerships and community initiatives, in particular to generate:

  1. Awareness and an environment in which newcomers will feel welcome, 

  2. Links between newcomers and the Francophone community,

  3. A response tailored to the needs of French-speaking newcomers (women, youth, visible minorities, etc.),

  4. The integration (geographically and linguistically) of immigrants into Francophone communities, and their desire to stay there.

This pilot project adopts an innovative approach where members of Francophone communities, under the leadership of the Réseaux en immigration francophone (RIF), were tasked with identifying the communities that participate in the pilot based on their community decision-making process.

The selected community must meet the following criteria:

  • Presence of French-speaking immigrants,

  • Availability of services in French,

  • The community demonstrates a need to attract and retain French-speaking newcomers,

  • The community is ready to get involved in the project,

  • The community has a limited geographical scale / is human-sized.

Prioritized axes for the pilot project

A welcoming Francophone community is an inclusive community where French-speaking newcomers to Canada feel (1) that their identity is valued, and (2) that they can integrate into the host community.

To achieve this goal, the community in Calgary has established a Community Advisory Council whose role will be to develop an activity/community plan that will be submitted to IRCC for consideration and funding.

The preparation of the Welcoming Francophone Communities Initiative fostered a high degree of participation and collaboration from a wide range of stakeholders. Its implementation will be carried out "by and for" the French-speaking communities.

Through community partnerships, the Calgary community will be able to implement customized projects that will allow it – and IRCC – to find innovative solutions to meet the needs of French-speaking communities and newcomers.