Ste. Anne Town Council is closer to adopting the Municipal Maturity Model for Bilingualism. 

“The bilingual municipalities of Manitoba just want to ensure that we're providing strong services in both languages,” says Mayor Yvan St. Vincent. “It's working with the provincial government to just ensure that we have the resources and the capabilities to continue to offer those services now and moving forward. So, it's just a strengthening of that commitment to bilingualism is what I'll call it.” 

Council still needs to approve third reading for adopting this model. 

St. Vincent says a recent study took place which focused on bilingual services provided by the town. 

“We’re still able to offer a lot of services and resources in both languages,” St. Vincent reports. “English is always the easier one to do, obviously, but we're still able to offer lots of things in French, which is important to our council and to our vision for our town.” 

The mayor notes Ste. Anne has traditionally had a strong French-speaking population and he points out that as the community grows, there are more English-speaking citizens, which makes it important to offer services in both official languages. 

 

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