At the request of the Commissioner of Official Languages and the Canadian Heritage Support Programs, the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities has agreed to conduct a large study of the Francophone communities are established in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

The objective of the study was two-fold. First, to determine the factors that either help or hinder the vitality of Francophone territories, and second, to propose courses of action that could guide territorial and federal agencies as well as community
organizations to support this vitality.

In fact, the study shows that the actors involved in the development of the Northern Francophone communities are numerous and particularly dynamic. The reality they face is not simple. Schematically, it can be said that these communities are small, very mobile and dispersed over a wide area, although concentrated in the few northern cities. They are protected by federal
language rights, but are faced with a situation of multilingualism because of the strong presence of Aboriginal people.

The research team, co-directed by Anne Robineau and Christophe Traisnel, conducted an independent study and remedied the lack of census data on these communities by multiplying the means of investigation: the study of statistical data, literature analysis, interviews, focus groups and direct observation. To this end, the team could count on support from community leaders, including the Fédération franco-ténoise, the Association franco-yukonnaise, the Association des francophones du Nunavut and, of course, the sponsors of the study.


From left to right: Éric Corneau, Association des francophones du Nunavut (AFN); Martin Thériault, AFN; Anne Robineau, CIRLM; Francis Lemieux, Fédération franco-ténoise (FFT); Régis Saint-Pierre, Association franco-yukonnaise (AFY); Christophe Traisnel, Université de Moncton and CIRLM; Christian Klein, AFY and Richard Létourneau, FFT.
 
Publications:

Summary: PDF Version

Report: PDF Version (available in French only)