Fredericton’s French Community is Growing

The number of francophones in the Fredericton region has nearly doubled over the past 40 years, according to Statistics Canada’s latest data.

“When I saw these numbers going up, it gave me hope that Fredericton will one day be bilingual,” says the president of the Young Francophone Federation Sue Duguay.

Among other things, bilingual jobs in the provincial government and jobs in the military attracted francophones.

Since the 1970s, they have built three schools and a community centre in  Fredericton, an area that was once called Pointe Sainte-Anne.

“Today’s community is better integrated, but it needs more services,” says the general manager of the centre Raphaël Moore. “That’s what the community centre now does.”

Moore says that many shops in the capital region now offer a service in French. The city and the public library are also organizing an increasing number of events in French.

“We could think that anglophones would see it negatively. Obviously, there are some who do on both sides, but overall it’s good for the relationship between the two communities,” says Moore.

The city is also welcoming many francophone events. In February, the community centre welcomed the semi-finals of Accros de la chanson, an annual Acadian song contest organized by the Young Francophone Federation.

“The federation wanted to have a contest like America’s Got Talent but in French,” says Duguay.

The contest drew nine solo artists, five bands, and more than a hundred teenagers from across the province.

Three artists and three bands will faceoff in the finals in Grand Falls in May.

Fredericton also welcomed the Jeux de l’Acadie this summer. Over five days, many teenagers from the Atlantic provinces competed in seven sports, as well as in artistic and cultural disciplines.

Today, francophones are nearly 4,000 in the capital region, but they are even more some weekends.