Beyond the French Language Services Act (1990): Francophone service access and language ideology in Timiskaming District

Abstract

Given the historically significant yet comparatively understudied francophone presence in the region, the present research employs semi-structured interviews with francophone senior-aged residents of Temiskaming Shores and the surrounding district to examine French-language services across health, education, social, justice and transportation sectors. This research situates current policy within its historical context and explores the role of personal, communal and linguistic identity in participants' relationships to French-language services. Contributing to a broader body of literature on French-language minority service access in Canada and Ontario, this research extends existing work on urban and institutional contexts into a rural Northeastern Ontario setting