Immigration Announcement
Canada’s New Action Plan to Welcome More Francophone Immigrants from Countries
On April 26, the federal government of Canada introduced its Action Plan for Official Languages 2023–2028 in Ottawa. Additionally, to the previous plan’s $2.7 billion, the new Action Plan is estimated to include $1.4 billion over five years. This amounts to about $4.1 billion, the largest amount of funding ever provided by the Canadian government.
The Action Plan has four key objectives, including;
- The increasing demographic weight of the Francophone population;
- Encourage opportunities for lifelong acquisition of two official languages;
- Support the existence of language minority communities, and;
- Build on effective government programs to assist francophone communities.
What is the New Action Plan’s Role in Supporting Francophone Immigration?
It is important to note that Immigration from francophone nations is crucial to creating French-speaking populations in Canada, especially outside of Quebec. Here’s the list of reasons:
- Under the Action Plan, $13.4 million will be allocated over five years for a new immigration policy and operational framework. This will examine overall governance and ongoing responsibilities under the Francophone Immigration Strategy 2019.
- The new operational framework strategy would encourage Francophone immigration. With the help of such initiative, immigrants who speak French or are bilingual will find it simpler to fit in and become established in Francophone minority groups.
- In addition, over the time of five years, $18.5 million will be invested to develop recruitment support on a national and worldwide level. The countries will include Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.
- The Francophone Integration Pathway will also get $50 million over the course of five years. The pathway intends to make it easier for newcomers to integrate and settle in Canada and improving minority Francophone communities’ capacity to do well.
- The Action Plan states that ongoing activities like Welcoming Francophone Communities and new projects would also be used to achieve the goals.
- The investment of $16.3 million for over 5 years will support a range of targeted, integrated efforts to boost the number of foreign-recruited French instructors and teachers at the primary and secondary levels, with an emphasis on early learning. The educators will then move to a Canadian community with a Francophone population.
- Last but not least, the government would invest $3.5 million to improve bilingual and Francophone immigration.