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That would be news to me. There was no French even as a second language option in the Steinbach and Niverville schools. I can't even think why there would be French offered since they were Mennonite towns, and very Mennonite in the decades you describe. There wouldn't have been enough French people in those towns to make up a class. All those towns you mention were dominated by their ethnic groups to a point where outsiders were very brave to live there. German was taught as a second language in the Niverville and Steinbach during those decades. French was offered much later - late '80s I think.
About Ste Anne, Beasejour and Lorette, St Pierre, etc, that's quite possible.
But if you have links or something to the contrary about Niverville and Steinbach, I'd like to see them.
I wasn't alive then, just going on what my mom who lived in the area told me. Apparently there was a French school on the outskirts on Steinbach that they were bussed to, all the kids from rural farming communities since I guess it was central, rather than having small schools in all the little communities. She said they used to go into Steinbach all the time for groceries, butcher, etc. and that my aunt (Canadian born) moved to Steinbach in 1972 and never experienced any sort of issues like what you describe. But hey, I wasn't alive, so I can't attest to this.
According to the Franco-Manitoban Society's website, French schools were banned in Manitoba until 1955, when it was permitted to teach French in grades 4, 5 and 6.
In 1967 they were allowed half-days in French for all grades. The other half of the day was English.
In 1970 a law was passed making French public schools (all day, in the public system) legal again in Manitoba. Of course, this doesn't mean that French schools sprouted up from the ground the following day. It took some time for schools to get planned and built - a decade or two in some regions.
And Manitoba was the western province where French schools were restored and expanded the most quickly in the second half of the 20th century. In Saskatchewan and Alberta things moved even more slowly.
OK well my mother was born in 1953 so you can do the math as to when she was in school. She attended elementary through grade 9 in a French Catholic one-room school in Ste Anne, Manitoba where she was taught by nuns. She just said ALL her studies were in French from the time she began school, there was no half-day English or full-day English. I'm not sure why she would lie about that, but you can keep digging up information if you'd like?? I'm not sure how else she would be fluent in French, and why all her siblings that attended the same school are fluent in French. Her family isn't French, as I mentioned, my grandparents were Ukrainian and the family spoke English at home. I don't really think this is up for debate, this IS how she was schooled in Manitoba between 1959 and 1971...
The government here masquerades as progressive but is downright unresponsive to what the people want, at least that has been my experience.
Where I live in the greater toronto area west of toronto, the city has started tearing down a bunch of picturesque older buildings by Lake Ontario and is building several high density condominiums. There is a wooded area with wildlife and a creek running to the lake by my condo complex. They are somehow going to move that creek underground and build condos on that narrow sliver of land. This is in an area that is already incredibly congested, where traffic on two lanes of Lakeshore Rd is stop -and -go for about three hours every rush hour. When it snows the traffic is backed up from about 5 pm to 10 pm with commuters coming from Toronto.
They held a community forum to discuss these plans a couple of years ago. Not one citizen spoke up in support of the plan---everyone was vehemently against it. Nevertheless the local government okayed the plans and now the view of the lake will be blocked, and it will be an unpleasant area of concrete canyons. Even though the waterfront is presumably public property--- or maybe it's not, I don't know the rules in Canada----access will be blocked by the condo properties. They are destroying the waterfront for greedy condo developers and to raise local taxes.
Oh, and another thing, the grocery stores are incredibly dirty compared to stores in the U.S.
Have you ever lived anywhere besides Toronto? I don't like Vancouver, doesn't mean I hate Canada... just means other areas are better suited for me to live...
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