Comment 56 – comments and feedback

Edgar Gagné

Through this letter, as a Franco-Ontarian from West Nipissing, I come to express my concerns about the redistribution and elimination of a federal riding in Northern Ontario. This redistribution jeopardizes the long-term survival of the French language and culture in our part of the province.

This change to the electoral map will further fragment the declining Francophone population in Northern Ontario. Our population, already a minority, will be more fragmented when attached to new enlarged ridings with strong English-speaking majorities. When a Francophone population like ours finds itself in a riding with a strong Anglophone character, it becomes inevitable that the assimilation of ours will be accelerated and that the future of our linguistic heritage will be jeopardized.

The history of our struggles to defend our rights in areas such as education, health, institutional bilingualism and others shows that when we are close and geographically grouped, it is easier for us to enforce our presence and our rights in any environment. The proposed redistribution of federal electoral districts in Northern Ontario will put us in a political situation based on the old adage of the ""divide and conquer"" approach; an approach that we have always struggled with in Ontario. In addition, the redistribution will certainly deprive us of the possibility of having a French-speaking member of Parliament capable of defending our interests in Ottawa.

Francophones in northern Ontario want to continue to thrive in French, access quality French services and use our language skills and assets to contribute to Ontario's cultural diversity. These hopes and desires will become very difficult to fulfill if we find ourselves in a riding with a greater Anglophone majority, which, let us say, does not always drink from the fountain of friendship and good understanding with the Francophonie of a particular environment.

The redistribution of federal ridings in Northern Ontario does not create the conditions for the significant growth and lasting influence of the Francophonie in all socio-cultural and socio-economic areas of Ontario, as recommended in the 2022 report on Francophone Affairs.

I invite you to read the content of this report, which says it is listening to Ontario's Francophonie. If you go ahead with the redistribution of federal ridings in Northern Ontario, you will become complicit in the historical trend of gradually promoting the annihilation of the province's Francophone population. May you reverse this trend by refusing to reduce the number of federal ridings in the north of the province. In doing so, you will facilitate the development of an environment and circumstances more conducive to the development and vitality of the French language and culture in Ontario. That is what I wish for us francophones in the north of the province. Our long-term well-being is in your hands. Be kind to us.

Thank you for your attention to this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Edgar Gagné