Toronto’s new French-speaking city councilor, Dianne Saxe, has accepted Mayor John Tory’s offer to chair the city’s Francophone Affairs Advisory Committee. If city councilors approve the committee’s renewal for a four-year term in February, she will take the reins of a group whose approach will have to change according to former members.
Although the advisory committee only meets about twice a year, there have been many controversies surrounding it in recent years. In 2019, a former executive of the Ontario Economic Society tried to elect eight people he knew. In the same year, a document from the city manager of the City of Toronto reported that city councilors disagreed on the usefulness of the committee. Then last March, a meeting was canceled since no item had been proposed on the agenda.
The committee aims to provide recommendations to city council, but its success has been mixed. Since 2018, for example, it has been consulted during the pandemic — the Deputy Medical Officer of Health in Toronto presented members with data on the health of the French-speaking population, among others — and its members were able to interview officials from the Toronto Public Library. when the public body withdrew thousands of books in French.
According to Lise Marie Baudry, who was executive director of the Center francophone de Toronto and member of the committee, the latter too often becomes an arena for protests. “Participating in these committees by knocking on the table does not establish good relations with elected officials,” says the one who recommends a more diplomatic approach with members working in the field. “It should be a more community table, with people who aren’t there to grow their capital,” she says. Marcelle Lean, the director of the Cinéfranco festival and a member from 2019 to 2022, would also like a committee closer to the population.
Collège Boréal vice-president Lise Béland, who was a member of the committee at the same time as Marcelle Lean, believes that the idea of a more community-based team is not “bad”. She notes, however, that the group needs members who provide “cutting edge information” and who have the pulse of the people. According to Dominic Mailloux, a Quebec native who is also a member from 2019 to 2022 and vice-president of human resources at Garda, the committee has a “great role of influence” for the community.
A large community
Two recent Statistics Canada reports identify a large Franco-Toronto community. About 57,000 workers in Greater Toronto regularly use French at work, which is about 40% more than all workers in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary. Nearly 104,000 children are also eligible for minority language instruction, a higher number than in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. The number of residents of the City of Toronto whose first language spoken is French, however, decreased by approximately 5% from 2016 to 2021.
Dominic Mailloux, a former executive at Bombardier, believes that the growth of the Francophone population in the region demonstrates the importance of the committee as a liaison between the community and the municipality. “There is an increased institutional presence in Toronto: the creation of the Université de l’Ontario français, the new Collège Boréal campus, … there are more and more Quebec companies coming here, so the French fact won’t go away,” he continued. It’s a no brainer that the committee must come back”.
Marcelle Lean suggests, however, that several members of the community are not aware of the committee’s activities. “Perhaps the group’s nomination should be reconsidered,” she wonders, echoing Lise Marie Baudry’s comments.
Is the advisory board still relevant? The question is “very thorny”, according to Marcelle Lean. “In my time, I didn’t find the committee particularly substantial or that it had a lot of impact on the life of Francophone communities,” she says. She says, however, that the committee felt listened to by the former president, councilor Jennifer McKelvie.
Support from the councilors It is the 25 municipal councilors who will decide on February 7, 2023 on the renewal of the committee. Mayor John Tory will have the support of a few councilors, including Brad Bradford, James Pasternak, Mike Colle and Michael Thompson. The latter have all confirmed their support for the extension to the To have to.
“Toronto has benefited greatly from the committee’s work over the past four years,” Brad Bradford thinks. Ausma Malik, the representative of the municipal district where the University of French Ontario is located, affirms that she will support the renewal “if the Francophone community of Toronto deems it beneficial”.
“We believe we have the support of the city council to renew the committee and we hope that it will be approved in the new year,” said Taylor Deasley, press secretary for Mayor John Tory. The mayor, says his press secretary, selected Dianne Saxe because of her enthusiasm for the committee and her ability to speak French. In response to To have to on December 14, the principal concerned explained that she was still waiting for information about the committee.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.