AMBM President Ivan Normandeau issued the following statement on the launch of the 2021 Census:

Manitobans, Canadians, this is one of the key moments of our democracy: the launch of the five-year census conducted by Statistics Canada‘s five-year census.

The AMBM joins the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) and the Société de la francophonie manitobaine (SFM) in encouraging you to read the language questions carefully and to answer them according to your reality.

We sincerely thank the FCFA and its allies for their hard work in adding new questions to the census to better measure the French fact across Canada. In particular, these questions will allow us to count the children and youth who have the right to receive their education in French in schools at the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine (DSFM) and other French-language schools across the country. The addition of these questions is a turning point for the sustainability of Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs), and provides our bilingual municipalities with evidence to better support them.

But beware: Statistics Canada does not define who is Francophone. It only presents figures on the number of people who can speak French, alone or with English.

The language data collected in the census has an impact on our daily lives. By answering the language questions accurately, you are contributing to the full recognition and standardization of the French fact in Manitoba and Canada and allowing:

• all three orders of government and Francophone organizations use it to plan where and how to deliver a variety of services – including schools;
• all three orders of government use it to better plan their infrastructure that affects the development and vitality of Francophone minorities; and
• an accurate picture of the situation of French in the country is obtained and decision-makers can identify the main issues to be prioritized accordingly.

The AMBM considers Canada’s official bilingualism to be a fundamental value. Thank you for helping us give voice to this asset that helps us stand out in the North American context. Thank you also for helping us provide Statistics Canada with an accurate and reliable picture of the state of the French language in Canada. Take the time to understand language issues. Take the time to discuss them with your family.

The AMBM and its members are working every day to strengthen the OLMCs-municipalities partnership. An accurate reflection of the French fact in Manitoba and Canada will allow us to target our actions in order to multiply the direct impact on the vitality of OLMCs and build even stronger, more inclusive and resilient communities together.

Information: Justin Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, 204-289-4077, [email protected].