The Young Communist League supports the struggle of Franco-Ontarian youth mobilized for the defense of their language rights and calls on its members as well as progressives, unions, student associations, community groups, etc. to affirm their solidarity with the demands of Franco-Ontarians.

On November 15, Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford announced that, for budgetary reasons, the position of Office of the French Language Services Commissioner would be abolished. In the meantime, he also announced that Ontario’s french-language university would not open its doors. Immediately, the Franco-Ontarians organized, leaving the door open to all possibilities, including the organization of a day of action on December 1st, during which more than 40 gatherings are organized across the province at 1 pm. Faced with this outcry, Doug Ford felt compelled to grant some concessions. Too few say the Franco-Ontarians for whom Ford’s concessions do not change anything. Indeed, the Francophone university project is still abandoned and the position of French Language Services Commissioner, still abolished. As for the creation of a Ministry for Francophone Affairs, it does not represent anything until its budget is known.

These attacks, justified through a question of governance and management, are in fact an attack on the democratic rights of Franco-Ontarians, which, despite having already been harmed by successive governments, remain guaranteed by the Constitution. Balancing the budget is just a pretext (like every time it comes with cutting social programs): if the Ford government wanted to ensure a balanced budget, it would start by raising corporate taxes to the level they were 20 years ago, which would allow the province to receive $18 billion annually.

This snub to Francophones in Ontario is actually a barely masked act of francophobia by the current Ontario government. Ford’s announcement represents a real danger for all the French-speaking minorities in the country, already in a precarious situation. Indeed, it sets a dangerous precedent for all governments that would be tempted to follow suit and ignore the rights of linguistic minorities. This danger is particularly acute in New Brunswick, where the current Conservative government owes its place to the support of the People’s Alliance Party, an openly francophobic and anti-Acadian party.

By scrapping the French-language university, the message from the Conservatives is clear: “speak white and assimilate”! With this measure, it directly attacks Franco-Ontarian youth summoned either to study in English, to move to Ottawa or Sudbury if their desired curriculum is available in French, or to move to Quebec, Moncton or leave the country, options available only to those who can afford it. The blow is all the harder to cash out as many young Francophones currently in high school were counting on the opening of the University of Ontario in 2020 to complete their education. Besides, francophone students are not the only ones to be penalized: many artists and intellectuals saw in this university an opportunity to promote the dynamism of the French culture and language in Ontario.

With this announcement, the Ford government perpetuates the assimilationist policies of the Ontario Conservatives. From the Bill-17 which, favourably responding to the Orange Order, prohibited the teaching of French in the Province’s schools between 1912 and 1927, to Montfort Hospital’s attempted to closure in 1997 (under Mike Harris’s Conservative government) through the struggles needed to maintain Francophone public education in the Penetangueshene area between 1979 and 1989 at the time of the Davis government (Conservative too), the Conservatives have always tried to prevent more than a million Franco-Ontarians from living daily in their language. It should be noted that Montfort Hospital is the only French-language hospital in Ontario.

Ford’s measures are all the more shameful since there is a double standard for the treatment of linguistic minorities. Indeed, while in Quebec, the English-speaking minority can live daily, access healthcare, education and culture in their mother tongue, francophones outside Quebec must fight periodically to preserve these same rights.

For example, despite having an almost equal population, Franco-Ontarians and Anglo-Quebecers do not have access to the same services. In Quebec, there are three publicly funded Anglophone universities, while in Ontario there are none (Laurentian and Ottawa universities are bilingual). With regard to health care, the same is true: while there are 18 anglophone hospitals in Quebec (some of which are funded for hundreds of millions of dollars), there is only one in Ontario.

The YCL-LJC calls for action against these measures and urges all those who care about the democratic rights of national minorities, immigrants and other marginalized groups to take part in actions in solidarity with Franco-Ontarians. Indeed, the repercussions of this decision by the Ford government go beyond the rights of Francophones in Ontario and even Francophones in Canada or Québec. These attacks against Franco-Ontarians today could be repeated tomorrow against Indigenous peoples and nations, against immigrants, and even against students, because it is also an attack on the right to free, public and quality education.

It is therefore essential that we be able to show a seamless unity with the struggle of Ontario’s Francophone youth and show our solidarity with their struggle, because their struggle is one of unity for youth and solidarity, against the power of big capital for which the existence of national minorities and minority nations (including the nation of Quebec, Acadian, nations and indigenous peoples) are only obstacles to the bailing out of the pockets of shareholders.