All posts by Siena Domaradzki-Kim

marie-france

Newly elected Liberal MP Marie-France Lalonde aims to unite the French and English communities in Orléans

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Orléans looks to a bilingual future, with the newest Liberal MP bringing plans to integrate the French and English people in the riding. Marie-France Lalonde, the MP elected for the Orléans riding, believes that being bilingual is imperative in this area. At a Starbucks in the newly constructed Trim Road area in Orléans, Lalonde appears to be in her element. After almost 20 years in Orléans after moving from Gatineau, she’s very focused on keeping in touch with her community and ensuring a blend of French and English cultures in her riding.

According to an analysis of Statistics Canada’s 2016 census, Orléans has the third highest Francophone population and the second highest English and French speakers in Ottawa. Lalonde points this towards the high number of government workers in the area who are required to be bilingual. The high level of bilingual officials, along with the high post-secondary graduation rate, makes Orléans one of the highest income ridings in Ottawa.

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As a newly elected official, taking over from the previous Liberal winner Andrew Leslie, Lalonde was surprised with the amount of support she received from the community. “I didn’t know I was going to win until after it was over,” she chuckles. She says her main excitement is getting more involved in a community she loves, which is visible from her bubbly conversation with the barista as she orders her coffee.

Lalonde was concerned a Conservative win in her area would result in cuts to education, primarily French education in the area. As former Minister of Francophone affairs, she had been very involved in Francophone rights and education, including supporting the creation of the Université de l’Ontario Français. “It’ll be the first of its kind, a governance for only Francophones.”

The university was proposed and started in 2017. Jason Luckerhoff, the vice-president of program and research development for the university, says that a full range of programs will become available in September of 2021, including law and political science courses. Luckerhoff says that the creation of a French-only university is not a new ask from the Ontario community. “People have been working on that project for the past 40 years. We want at least one governance to be in French, offering only programs in French.”

The federal Liberal government has promised to promote minority-language rights and bilingualism investing $60 million to build cultural centres and infrastructure that support minority-language communities. As part of this, the federal government has also promised to take over funding for a new campus for the sole Francophone university in Ontario. Lalonde states that it was the federal government that convinced the Ontario government to revisit the funding after they cut the university earlier this year. “The federal Liberal government came to the table and reached out to the Ford government, saying “Hey don’t make this harsh decision, let’s sit down and let’s talk.””

Interview with Marie-France Lalonde

In order to further integrate the English and French communities in Orléans, Lalonde is discussing rebuilding a French cultural centre to have a hub for the Francophones in her riding. “This will help the cultural Francophonie, the school boards that are offering French classes.” She also plans to work with the English community, especially seniors in her area, to ensure that they are receiving the same benefits as the Francophone population.

“We do have a friend as a government, and I’m so happy to join them in bringing that voice for Ontario and for Orléans.”

Gun violence is on the rise, but what are the parties prepared to do about it?

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According to an analysis of Statistics Canada incident-based crime statistics, firearm violence has increased in Ontario by almost 30 per cent over the past 5 years.

The two cities in Ontario that have felt the impact of gun violence the most have been Kingston and Peterborough, with a 475 per cent and 278 per cent increase, respectively. But Ottawa has also suffered, with a 75% increase since 2014. Inspector Carl Cartright from the Ottawa Police Services (OPS) believes that the cheaper and easier to access guns from the United States is largely to blame.

Gun violence has become an election issue.

David McGuinty, a Liberal MP for the Ottawa-South riding, agrees with this, stating that the Liberal government has been working hard to provide funding and policies to help combat street-level violence.

In August, the Canadian government announced they would be providing an additional $54 million over the next three years to combat gun and gang violence in Ontario. This is added to an initial $11 million over two years that was announced in March. There are strict background checks and testing that current firearm owners have to pass before they are allowed to own any type of firearm like Bill C-71. If re-elected, the Liberals are promising to strengthen gun control, including banning military-style assault rifles and giving municipalities the ability to negotiate handgun bans.

Michael Press, a firearms investigator for the RCMP, doesn’t believe a full ban will help. “I really don’t think it’s going to work.” A full ban would punish sport shooters and hunters, especially Indigenous hunters who hunt for food, and push more people to purchase on the black market. “It’s like when you go to school and one student does something and you’re going to punish everybody, that’s not the way to go.”

Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative candidate for the Carleton riding, agrees with Press. In an email interview, he stated, “Shooting people is already illegal. Only criminals do it.”

“Canada’s Conservatives will vigorously oppose a blanket firearms ban on law-abiding, highly-vetted Canadians.” Poilievre says that there will instead be a focus on the prosecution of violent criminals, including stiffer penalties for illegal possession and reinforcing border security.

McGuinty is concerned that the Conservatives’ measures aren’t good enough for community safety, “I don’t think that they understand that we have this serious problem in terms of community safety. You don’t want to exaggerate it, but you don’t want to underplay it either. You have to invest in people, kids, youth, community policing, and of course you got to address the guns issue head on.”

Press agrees that community policing is the best way to prevent any sort of street-level violence. “It’s what tools they (criminals) have available. It’s the level of violence that people are willing to go to in order to meet what they’re doing.”

The mayor of Toronto, John Tory, has asked for a municipal handgun ban multiple times in wake of the high gun violence in Toronto. The power for municipalities to ban handguns has been pushed by the leader of the NDP party Jagmeet Singh.

Parliament, empty
Voting for this upcoming federal election will end on October 21, 2019. [Photo Ⓒ Siena Domaradzki-Kim]
Cartright believes that this federal concern is something that Canadians will simply have to see played out, “It’s become a federal issue. Will something come out of it? That’s something we’re going to have to just wait and see. Just because something is mentioned during the election doesn’t mean it’ll come to life.”