From ACFO to AFO. The Multicultural Political Project and the Department of Canadian Heritage As Influencing Factors in the Reorganization of the Association canadienne-française de l’Ontario
This article provides an account of the institutional transformation of the Association canadienne-française de l’Ontario (ACFO) between the 1970s and the mid-2000s. The ACFO initially rejected multiculturalism as a competitor to the bicultural political project. However, its position gradually changed, up to the point where it saw Canadian bilingualism as complementary to the multicultural political project. The ACFO was then confronted with the question of its legitimacy as a representative organization of the Ontario Francophonie in the mid-1990s. The imperative to restructure the organization, issued by the Department of Canadian Heritage, led in 2006 to the merger of the funding structures of the Department and the former ACFO, which then became the Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (AFO). These transformations of the Franco-Ontarian associative world took place against the backdrop of the referendums for Quebec sovereignty and the patriation of the Canadian constitution in 1982.