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Born and raised in Montreal, Kevin Dobie has been working with the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) since the autumn of 2007. He has worked with the provincial and federal governments on a variety of issues since 2003 and has had the opportunity to visit several English-speaking communities across Quebec.
WHEN IT COMES TO OFFICIAL LANGUAGE MINORITIES, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS MEANT BY THE NOTION OF COMMUNITY VITALITY?
Community vitality is a complex notion that can be thought of as having two contributing factors. First, there are the tangible, quantifiable indicators, and second, the more qualitative factors, such as perception and a sense of community belonging and attachment. From a research perspective, community vitality is about a distinct linguistic group's ability to flourish within a multhingual environment. A group with high vitality will survive collectively whereas a group with low vitality could be expected to decline.
Most importantly for official language minority communities, community vitality is about our collective strength, and our ability to continue to become stronger as distinctive communities. From a quantifiable point of view this involves having strong institutional support such as schools, healthcare institutions, cultural centres, and strong representation before decision makers. More challenging to describe are a sense of attachment to one's community and a sense that the community is important to its individual members. Ultimately, individual members will also look for ways to improve their collective community vitality once the strengths and weaknesses are easily identified.
Obviously, the two factors are closely related and equally important to each other. Simply put, it is important to have the necessary institutional infrastructure, but even more important to have community members who feel an attachment to the institutions and...