L’Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta from 1955 to the year 2000

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External affairs

One of the major effects of the Royal Commission of 1963 was to heighten interest in bilingualism across the country. As the official spokesman for the French community in Alberta, the ACFA was called upon to establish and maintain a growing number of relations with various associations and with governments.

From 1966 to 1969, the ACFA participated in Quebec’s famous États généraux. In 1960, l’ACFA helped create the Fédération canadienne-française de l’Ouest and the Fédération des francophones hors Québec (FFHQ) in 1975.

In 1982, the British Paliament acceded to the Constitutional Resolution of the Parliament of Canada and adopted the Constitutions Act 1982. This marked the beginning of intense constitutional debate in Canada. As the French community’s official spokesman the ACFA was involved in a large part of these discussions especially as they related to the place of Canada’s minority communities in both the Meech Lake and the Charlottetown Accords.

The Piquette Affair and the Mercure Case were important moments in the history of the Franco-Albertan community.In February 1988, the Supreme Court decision in the Mercure Case validated the French community’s constitutional rights entrenched in Section 110 of the North-West Territoires Act but declared that Alberta could abolish them unilaterally. The ACFA lobbied both the provincial and the federal government extensively but to no avail. Alberta became a unilingual English province following the adoption of the Languages Act in July 1988.

During this same period the ACFA also initiated the negotiations with the Federal Government which resulted in the first Canada-Community agreement several years later. The Official Languages Act of 1988 established that all federal institutions were committed to the enhancement of the vitality of Canada’s linguistic minority communities. This opened the door of every federal department for groups such as l’ACFA.

The establishment in 1999 of the provincial Secrétariat francophone became the major political success of the ACFA during the period between 1955 and the year 2000.

As the official spokesperson for the French Community, the ACFA’s main role has always been the establishment of the community’s objectives and the acquisition of the resources needed to realize these objectives. But to accomplish this task the ACFA has had to count on the generosity of its members. In a real sense then the ACFA belongs to the Francophones of Alberta