School Boards and Municipalities in la Francophonie Canadienne: Underestimated Places of Power?

Often, a linguistic minority may not have a grip on institutions where decision-making takes place, mainly because it is not sufficiently territorially concentrated and has difficulties to elect its own representatives in elected assemblies. In the case of francophone minorities in Canada, they do not have a strong representation in the House of Commons or in the provincial legislative assemblies. But, there are two other institutions where they can participate and even exercise power: school boards and municipalities. By thinking in terms of the minority's agency at the local level, we want to know if school boards and municipalities are places of habilitation for the francophone minority communities. We will explore this question by collecting examples where francophone minority communities have managed to have the local linguistic regime answer their particular needs.