French-speaking newcomers to Yellowknife will benefit from $305,670 in federal funding, NWT MP Michael McLeod announced on Friday.
The money, initially set aside in the federal 2018 budget, will be provided over three years to “create programs and activities to help French-speaking newcomers feel welcomed and integrated.”
Fourteen Canadian communities, including Whitehorse and Iqaluit, are receiving similar funding.
The Fédération Franco-Ténoise will help to create a community advisory committee, the members of which will devise an action plan to spend the money for the benefit of francophone newcomers.
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“I think there is a lot of room to make the community a lot more welcoming to immigrants, and especially French-speaking immigrants,” said Liberal MP McLeod.
Asked how the program will be evaluated, McLeod said: “We don’t have targets.
“Judging from work we do in our office, we’re running at full capacity – we would need more people to process the number of applications and deal with the different issues that come forward.”
