Final Report: Research Meeting on French-Speaking Immigration in Canada’s Francophone Minority Communities (FMCs)

Luisa Veronis of the Department of Geography at the University of Ottawa and Suzanne Huot of the School of Occupational Therapy at Western University introduced themselves as co-facilitators of this research meeting. The meeting was organized by a Pathways to Prosperity (P2P) team — comprising the co-facilitators along with Victoria Esses (principal researcher and P2P co-chair) and Zenaida Ravanera (P2P project coordinator) — in collaboration with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), which funded the event.

Luisa then presented the objectives of the meeting, which aimed primarily to bring together academic researchers with an interest in French-speaking immigration (FSI) in Francophone minority communities (FMCs). The main objective of the meeting was to allow participants to discuss research carried out in this field (given the many studies conducted more recently), to identify emerging issues and new problems, as well as research priorities to be pursued in the coming years.

The meeting comprised a variety of presentations along with group and plenary discussions. Five sessions covering the following themes were planned for the day:
(1) Taking stock of recent research on FSI in FMCs;
(2) Issues and challenges relating to definitions;
(3) Gaps in research on FSI in FMCs;
(4) Issues relating to prejudice and discrimination;
(5) And ways of optimizing future research in the field, and next steps.