麻豆传媒AV

"The younger generation is possibly the hope for the survival of francophone culture in western Canada."

Retired principal Claude Desnoyers says being a francophone living outside of Quebec has its challenges, as does being a prairie-raised francophone living inside Quebec.

Desnoyers has been both at various times, allowing him to formulate a broad view of how French language and culture fits into the fabric of Canada.

He grew up on a farm near Bonnyville, Alta., the seventh of seven children.

"It was a very francophone community at the time I was growing up, predominantly," he says, although that's not the case anymore.

"Once the petroleum industry moved in in the 1970s the cultural composition changed dramatically."

But at the time he was a student, the public schools were Catholic and the separate schools were Protestant. For the first four years of his education, he studied in French, then was integrated into an English system. He had no trouble adjusting, he says, because English was the common language used among neighbours who spoke French, Polish, Ukrainian and English at home. He doesn't remember a time when he wasn't bilingual.

Although he spoke French at home, he continued studying French in school.

"Much of the content was the same as the Quebec curriculum," he says. "We also studied Canadian history through Quebec manuals and studied the same literature, the classics, so when we graduated we were bilingual and we could read and study and work in both languages. "

He planned originally to become a lawyer, but has never regretted changing his mind to become a teacher. He attended the University of Alberta. At the time, he says, the federal government was putting significant money into bilingual education so he was able to get bursaries to do off campus courses in Jonquiére, Quebec, where students could experience the culture and true immersion.

Desnoyers started his teaching career in a small French community in northern Alberta. There he married a bilingual anglophone and their first child, a son, was born.

From there, they moved to Quebec City where Desnoyers was in a masters program at Laval University studying French-Canadian literature.

"Some of the authors that we were studying actually came to the classes, so it was really interesting," he says.

It was also something of culture shock. It wasn't to do with the language; the issue was with acceptance.

"They generally had a hard time accepting me as francophone because I had grown up outside of Quebec," he says. "It was hard for them to understand I could speak French that well having been born and raised in Alberta."

Desnoyers says Quebecois probably identify more with France than with small communities out west, especially culturally. For many years they were mostly unaware of francophone communities further west than St. Boniface.

"Further west they really didn't know of us until economic pressures drew Quebecers out west to work in the oil industry and they discovered there were francophones here."

Some of the francophone communities in Saskatchewan were established by people who came directly from France or Belgium, and some came Quebec via the United States.

Desnoyers own family were Franco-Americans.

"We have a long history in Quebec, but in the 1800s economic reality in Quebec forced a lot of people to go work in the States. The cotton mills and other industries attracted a lot of Quebecois."

As a result there were many all-Quebecois communities in New England, but they had to learn English for work. Priests, fearing the loss of their language would also mean the loss of their faith, began recruiting them to settle in western Canada.

His grandparents had been recruited, not by priests, but by other family members who had were already in western Canada. His mother's family came from Quebec via New Hampshire and his father's family came via Massachussetts, and the connection to Quebec and its culture remained.

"I thoroughly appreciated being in Quebec City, for its history and its culture," he says,

Two daughters were added to the family during their time there.

When it came time to resume teaching, an overpopulation of teachers in Quebec caused Desnoyers to look west to the anglophone community of Langenburg, where he taught core French for 18 years.

Langenburg was a good community for raising a family, he says, and they had their third daughter there,

"But, culturally, for me there was nothing francophone," says Desnoyers - not even French TV or French radio.

"It was a long period of very little contact with the francophone community until I reintegrated when I accepted a teaching position with the francophone school board in Regina."

After 18 years in an anglophone environment, he found he had some catching up to do on vocabulary, especially to do with computers and other technology, and even today he continues to add to his vocabulary.

Francophones in western Canada grew up with English-speaking doctors, financial institutions and commerce, so the related vocabularies were learned in English, he points out. As new technology was adopted or created, those words were also learned in English.

"In western Canada, it's a temptation to use English vocabulary, so it is a real challenge to learn the correct French vocabulary because we had limited occasions to use it.

After a year teaching in Regina he was offered the principalship at École Père Mercure in North Battleford in 2003.

When he came back to western Canada, Desnoyers had realized just how much assimilation of francophones had taken place, mostly for economic reasons.

"The Battlefords … has been recognized as the area of the province that had suffered the greatest amount of assimilation," he says, adding, "I've spoken to people of my generation who do not let people know they are French-Canadian simply because, growing up, they were mocked and called pea soup, or frog, or whatever."

Those who grew up in the small French-speaking communities of the area - Delmas, Jackfish, Cochin, the Edam/Vawn/Meota area - did not find it easy to be French-Canadians in an anglophone environment. In addition to economic assimilation, with most businesses working in English, there was also assimilation through marriage, says Desnoyers. French-Canadians who grew up speaking the two languages often met, fell in love with and married English-speaking people.

"But it was never a question of the other person learning French because they already communicated in English," he points out.

"It wasn't a time when people would try to identify themselves culturally," he says.

Things are different now.

"It is changing in that we now have the 'lost generation' where the children of these marriages are now realizing they missed out on the French culture and they want to try to get it back," says Desnoyer.

He also says there is more openness on the part of anglophones to try to learn French and learn something about the francophone culture.

In the Battlefords, École Père Mercure, where Desnoyer was principal until retiring in 2008, has played a role in the new openness, but there's still a way to go.

Even though École Père Mercure plays a significant role in the francophone community and its student population has grown more significantly than English language schools in the city, Desnoyers says it's still not really well known.

The RCMP, whose members are more likely to be bilingual than in other workforces, are well aware of EPM, he says. However, other people moving into the community are often recruited by English companies, he says, so when they get here, if they mention French, they are told about École Monseigneur Blaise Morand because it is more well known.

"They call it the French school, but it's not the French school," he points out.

There's a difference between a French school and a French immersion school. That's where the Conseil des écoles fransaskoises, Saskatchewan's francophone school division, comes in..

It has always looked at the three aspects of francophone education - language, culture and identity, says Deynoyers. French immersion education can only accomplish the first. It teaches the French language so students can speak it, read it and function in it, but it's not about culture or identity; EPM is.

Often, children don't speak French when they enroll at EPM because when one of two parents is not French-speaking the home tends to live in English.

"That's why we made a lot of effort to develop the pre-school and the French daycare so kids who come from the English-speaking homes … already understand quite a bit of French from that environment once they get into Grade 1," says Desnoyers. "In Grade 1 they have to function totally in French for the subjects."

The Conseil des écoles fransaskoises has 14 schools throughout Saskatchewan. The size of the province is a challenge when it comes to holding the francophone community together.

"It has its challenges because of the distances," says Desnoyers. "The school board really believes that to create a francophone identity in the student it's necessary to bring them together from different communities so they see they are not the only ones in the world living this, and there are others around the province. Our grads have always recognized how important it was to them to feel they were fransaskois, that there were others throughout the province living the same types of challenges they were. They grew up making friendships with kids from all over the province."

A new challenge is a result of more people immigrating to Saskatchewan from French speaking countries. It's like creating a new culture, he says.

"French-Canadian culture in western Canada is changing, reflected by what has been happening in Quebec the last 25 to 30 years with immigration from all over the world."

The folkloric traditions of Quebec - such as maple sugar and lumberjacks -wasn't the reality in western Canada anyway. Now that immigration from Arabic, African and even European countries is increasing, Desnoyers says, "We can't limit the culture to that folkloric look."

He says, "The thing that unites us is the language, and then we have to start opening up and trying to accept each other's cultural backgrounds, because even amongst [ourselves] it is heterogeneous; people from Africa don't necessarily share the same culture from one country to the next, or with the northern African Arabic countries."

There has been conflict in Quebec, and some backlash, especially against Muslims.

"They came to Quebec because they were French-speaking and it was a line of opportunity for them, so there has been a lot more in Quebec than western Canada," he says.

Now, he says, "Saskatoon and Regina are getting more and more immigrants from Muslim countries and they are having an identity crisis because the cultural identity is being stretched; it's no longer as easy to fit in."

Desnoyers retired from teaching in 2008, and became the executive director of the community's French language cultural centre until this past year, except for one year spent helping establish a French school in Lloydminster.

In what little spare time he has he enjoys his favourite hobby of photography. He also likes woodworking, and enjoys writing, especially articles for French language newspapers and magazines.

He says he's retired from most provincial interests, including the provincial French history society.

Locally he sits on the board of Societe Saint André, Marchildon Manor and Villa Pascal and is a member of the francophone Knights of Columbus.

His youngest daughter is teaching in Langenburg and his other children are working in the oil industry in Alberta. His granddaughter is now seven years old and lives in North Battleford.

Of course, he continues to be involved in the francophone community of the Battlefords and he says its arms are open.

"If you are a person of francophone background, even if you haven't lived in French in many years, please feel free to join the activities in the community and enjoy yourself."