ICYMI: French new wave: A cultural shift for Toronto as ‘invisible francophones’ settle in

Less under the radar:

Every year roughly 1,000 French-speaking immigrants settle in Toronto, with the occasional spike – after the 2011 earthquake in Haiti, for example. Many more speak some English and French in addition to their own dialects, such as many newcomers from Congo, said Réjean Sirois, director of the Toronto-area French Catholic board.

It wasn’t clear just how many of these polyglots – using the same logic as scores of Canadian-born parents – would want their children to get an edge through fluent bilingualism, he said.

“They come here and they have to learn both languages, but they recognize that if they go in a French school, they will learn French because outside … everything is in English and they will learn it [anyway],” he said.

Nearly 50,000 Quebec residents (both francophone and anglophone) moved to Ontario between 2006 and 2011, according to census data. On top of that are the native-born Franco-Ontarians, whose numbers are difficult to pinpoint precisely.

After moving to Toronto, francophones often expect to live in English, especially if they marry an English speaker, Mr. Sirois said. They may not realize how much things can change when they ask for education in French. In the town of Collingwood, Ont., northwest of Barrie, a group of parents presented trustees of the regional French Catholic board with lists of local francophone families.

“Parents came to the school board and said, ‘Hey, there’s a lot of francophones there,’” Mr. Sirois said. “When you look at the statistics, at Statscan, you didn’t find that there were a lot of French people there.”

Source: French new wave: A cultural shift for Toronto as ‘invisible francophones’ settle in – The Globe and Mail