Our two official languages are an integral part of our identity as Canadians. French is the first official language of nearly one quarter of the Canadian population, and the Government of Canada is committed to protecting and promoting this language, which is at the heart of our history and many communities across the country. To support official-language minority communities and maintain the vitality of the French language, it is essential that we invest in the French-language education system, particularly post-secondary institutions.
Today, the Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, announced nearly $1.9 million in funding for the University of Sudbury. The Minister was accompanied by Marc G. Serré, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Official Languages and Member of Parliament for Nickel Belt, and Viviane Lapointe, Member of Parliament for Sudbury.
The University of Sudbury wishes to return to its Francophone roots as an autonomous French-language university based on the principle of governance "by and for" the Francophone community. To do so, it will undertake a study of its institutional and organizational capacities in order to meet the training needs of students, the job market, and the Mid-North community.
The funding will allow the institution to prepare its application to the Ontario Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board (PEQAB) for an organizational assessment. This will allow the University of Sudbury to define its place within a network of French-language universities, as well as to train the next generation of Francophone leaders and to develop a business plan outlining the role the university could play in Ontario's network of French-language universities. This two-year investment will allow the university to take its first steps in fulfilling its mandate as an institution governed "by and for" the Francophone community in Northern Ontario.
The project is funded under the Canada-Ontario Agreement on Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction (2020-2021 to 2022-2023).
