Address to the 2025 Congress of Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario

2025 Congress of Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario
Richmond Hill, October 24, 2025
Carl Bouchard

Hello everyone,

I’d like to thank the AFO, Fabien, Peter and the whole team for inviting me to speak to you today.

This year’s Conference is especially important because it marks an essential stage in Ontario’s Francophone history: our Francophone community’s general assembly on the state of Ontario Francophonie, ses États généraux. This is a major event. It’s a chance to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going, and build strategies to ensure a stronger future for our Francophone community.

All of us here today – and everyone who will be taking part in this three-day assembly – are holding a part of our future in our hands, a key contribution to this great conversation.

How do we define ourselves? How do we unite? What are our shared values? How are we walking together, hand in hand, toward a shared future that looks like what we dream it could be?

Today, I want to share a few observations worth considering when reflecting on the state of Francophonie.

These observations stem from our unique, privileged position at Ombudsman Ontario as an agency that, for six years now, has been tasked with monitoring the government’s compliance with the French Language Services Act.

More specifically, these observations are based on thousands of interactions we’ve had with Ontario Francophones who have turned to us for help when they experienced difficulties accessing services in French.

Even more importantly, we responded directly to complaints, questions, inquiries and requests for information, and we provided a means of recourse that’s accessible to Francophones.

Using Ombudsman-specific methods that leverage our independence and rigour, we’ve been able to build solid relationships anchored in credibility and trust.

All this is to benefit Ontario Francophones.

To give you an idea of our work:

In the six years since May 1, 2019, we have dealt directly with thousands of Francophones.

We’ve published five Annual Reports, and I’ll actually be releasing our sixth Annual Report in a few weeks.

We’ve filed two investigation reports: One on post-secondary institutions and one on out-of-home government advertising in public spaces.

We launched a third investigation, which is still ongoing, on in person services at ServiceOntario locations. I encourage you to contact us to share your stories in that regard.

In our five Annual Reports and two investigation reports, we have made 43 recommendations to improve the offer of services in French in the province.

And I can tell you that we’re doing great things in Ontario, and that’s the result of not just our own work, but our work in combination with efforts from the government, the public service, government agencies subject to the Act and, of course, all the people who contact us to report an issue.

Here are just some examples of the results we’ve gotten:

As a result of our efforts, AMBER alerts are now broadcast simultaneously in French and English, and the Ontario Provincial Police has enhanced its delivery of French language services.
Thanks to our intervention after receiving a complaint, the government translated the Ontario Fire Code for the first time in Ontario’s history.
Based on a recommendation we made, the Treasury Board issued a directive to all agencies that report to it, requiring them to create an annual training plan on language rights and the obligations that arise from them for all frontline employees.
As a result of numerous efforts on our part, Tribunals Ontario reviewed all of its procedures for delivering French language services and proactively shared its actions and results with us.
Following our investigation, Laurentian University stepped up its governance regarding its regulatory obligations.
We processed many complaints from the public and rigorously followed up to monitor the efforts made by the Université de Sudbury, the ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security and the ministry of Francophone Affairs to meet their duties and obligations for the university to fully comply with the requirements of its designation and that, in a major transformation period.

These are huge steps forward for improving French language services in Ontario. And they’re the result of teamwork between us, the government, the public service, and you, French speakers who share your real-life stories about how problems with French language services are impacting your daily lives.

And the work isn’t over.

It is this work that fuels the observations I’m sharing with you today.

First, it’s important to remember that French does not have official language status in Ontario.

And I think that makes it all the more important to know your language rights and make sure they’re respected.

That’s why, last year, I recommended that the Ministry of Francophone Affairs develop a digital directory of government services that are subject to the French Language Services Act so Francophones can easily find them.

Clear communication in a minority setting is important for Francophones to be able to exercise their language rights.

Speaking of communication: another thing I’ve observed is issues with public communications.

Last year, we filed a report on out-of-home advertising. In it, we concluded that the government had systematically failed to comply with its obligations under the French Language Services Act when communicating with the public on billboards in public spaces across Ontario.

To rectify the situation, I recommended that the government produce bilingual content. My recommendation is currently under review.

In other areas, I’ve observed that there are some sectors where we continually see issues appear, year after year – areas like health, justice, post-secondary, services such as transportation, and front-line counter services.

These are important sectors for Ontario Francophones and which directly affect their day-to-day life, such as accessing medical care, receiving a fair trial, getting a driver’s licence or understanding road signage…

Some of the problems are recurring: Lack of knowledge or understanding of linguistic obligation, difficulties recruiting and retaining bilingual talents and training Anglophone and Francophone front-line staff on linguistic obligations.

And then there’s health care. A major sector, and a lot of the Francophones who contact us have concerns about it.

In Ontario, there are 23 designated hospitals; these have obligations under the French Language Services Act and are within my oversight.

These hospitals are found in 16 of Ontario’s 27 designated regions.

This means that in a little under half of the designated regions, Francophones do not have access to a hospital subject to the French Language Services Act, nor one that I can monitor.

Why is that?

There’s also the early childhood education sector. I’m thinking specifically of daycares designated under the French Language Services Act.

Recently, Toronto Francophones were facing the announced closure of a French-language daycare, which would have had a major impact on the Francophone families who depend on it.

Just think about how this would affect the ability of Francophone and bilingual parents to go to work.

Our work has highlighted gaps in the knowledge of designation-related obligations among child care providers and ministries.

I’ll leave you with three thoughts that I hope you’ll find food for thought too:

How can we communicate better, and how can we raise awareness of French language services? All agencies subject to the French Language Services Act need to understand that they have obligations under the Act, and know what they are and how to meet them.
After that, it’s important for agencies subject to the French Language Services Act to advertise their French language services, explain their language rights obligations to the public, and train their staff, Francophone, bilingual and Anglophone.
And how about you? What can you do to help raise awareness of these services?
My second thought is for all of us to ask ourselves: How can we motivate French-speaking Ontarians to exercise their language rights and seize every opportunity to speak French?
And finally, my third thought: How can we motivate people who are facing a lack of services to take an important step, and demonstrate their civic engagement by reporting those compliance failures, so we can take action, raise the issues with the government and the public service, and find solutions so they don’t happen again?

All right, so, why should we do all this?

To honour our shared history and those who fought for services in French and built the society we live in today. And. to continue to make sure we receive new services to meet changing circumstances, new faces and new needs.

This year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Franco-Ontarian flag. We celebrated the work of the people who wrote our history.

We are continuing to write our history together. We are creating, and we are coming together around shared issues. You and I are paving the way toward the future, so that those who will follow in our footsteps will celebrate our accomplishments alongside their own.

We are building our shared heritage.

“We are, we will be” – “Nous sommes, nous serons” – means asking the right questions, with humility and honesty, to remain modern, to ensure our relevance and our shared future.

All of us have the power to make a difference. All we have to do is speak French.
Thank you, and enjoy the Assembly!