Bernard Lord Says Legacy Of Francophonie Summit Should Inspire Open Doors For Newcomers
MONCTON -Former New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord says the increase in the number of international students at the Université de Moncton is one of the legacies the Francophonie Summit that was hosted in Moncton 20 years ago this week.
Lord said it was during that 1999 summit, where 52 world leaders gathered in Moncton alongside thousands of press, youth and others from Francophone countries around the world, that the university realized “there’s a world of student that want to come here.”
He noted that international students now make up more than 20 per cent of the student body at the university, compared to 5 per cent two decades ago.
Lord was speaking alongside former Moncton Mayor and Member of Parliament Brian Murphy to around 100 people at a luncheon hosted by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Moncton (CCGM) at the Delta Hotel.
This was the first of multiple events celebrating the 20-year legacy of the summit that will take place through Friday.
CCGM CEO John Wishart says the chamber is celebrating the legacy because the summit has had a positive impact on the region’s economy.
A provincial government report in the year 2000 estimated that the economic spin-off from the event was worth $78-million. The summit was hosted by the governments of Canada, Quebec and New Brunswick, with a budget of $11.2-million.
“Moncton was a railway town and really it was only in the late ’80s when the railway left town. A decade later we were still kind of searching for an identity. This event really helped us get on our feet again and understand that, yeah, we can do some big things, we can be international in scope,” Wishart said.
In addition, the summit’s impact on the city also ties with one of CCGM’s priorities: immigration and population growth.
“Mr. Lord mentioned the impact it had on [the university] and international students. We have to continue that with the new immigration strategy,” he said. “Hopefully as the speakers mentioned, people will see the many positives that came from that event and in the two decades that have followed in terms of us opening up our city to newcomers.”
Lord had only been elected Premier less than three months before the summit, where he had to host other leaders from around the world. Plus, there were nearly 130,000 people in attendance, almost 40,000 of whom were from outside Atlantic Canada, he noted.
He said there were immediate impacts beyond the economic spin-off benefits and upgraded infrastructure.
“Instantly we changed how we all saw ourselves in this community,” he said. “I think the anglophone and francophones, we realized that our differences are really small compared to differences of other people around the world. We have so much more to gain by working together in accepting our differences as strengths, rather than barriers that prevent us from working together or growing together.”
He said sitting with world leaders whose countries sometimes were in conflict with each other or didn’t have democratic systems, made him think of how different the world can be outside and what New Brunswick’s place is.
“They didn’t only come here to see who we were. They came here and we saw who we were, and what was our place in the world,” he said.
Murphy says the summit made most of the local population realize the importance of bilingualism not just from a social, cultural and political point of view, but also an economic one.
“I remember the change in the advertising in the Greater Moncton Area. Things became more bilingual because it was good business. It was good overall,” Murphy said.
It came after years of tense French-English debate during the time of mayor Leonard Jones, who was in office from 1964 to 1973 and was widely seen as anti-French. Moncton declared itself an officially bilingual city in 2002.
Now, Lord says the city and province should take inspiration from the summit’s success to tackle challenges going forward.
“Frankly, when I think of all the international students coming from the summit and everything since in the last 20 years, we realize we can open our doors and we’re all better for that. We attract more immigrants now, more new Canadians in Moncton, in New Brunswick than before,” he said.
“Let’s open our doors as we have done to welcome people who want to tackle these challenges with us. And I think that’s one of the inspirations of this summit.”