The Government of Prince Edward Island and the Acadian and Francophone community of Prince Edward Island participated in a signing ceremony and celebration today to declare their commitment to move forward the administration of the French Language Services Act over the next number of years. "The French Language Services Act recognizes the valuable historical contributions of the Acadian and Francophone community to Island Society," said Pat Binns, Premier of Prince Edward Island. "This event marks the beginning of the proclamation process and we are committed to ensuring the process continues in a timely fashion."
The proclamation process of the French Language Services Act, adopted by the Government of Prince Edward Island in April 1999, will begin effective April 1, 2000 with the proclamation of 11 complete sections and six sub-sections. This proclamation confirms the current levels of services provided to Acadians and Francophones of the province and will add new provisions for traffic signage.
Starting this spring, the Department of Transportation and Public Works will make use of bilingual or pictographic signs when replacing traffic signage. This change, while designed to be supportive of the Acadian and Francophone community, will also have a significant impact on tourists to Prince Edward Island. It is expected that both International and French-speaking tourists will more easily understand the province's traffic signs, as they are replaced.
"I am pleased to be a participant in this historic event," said Minister Mitch Murphy, Minister responsible for Francophone Affairs. "The Acadian and Francophone community has worked diligently over a number of years with government to enable us to celebrate today. Their views were crucial to determine the implementation considerations for the Act."
According to Antoine Richard, President of the Société Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, the Government of Prince Edward Island is to be commended for the commencement of the proclamation of this historic legislation.
"We look forward to working with the province over the next number of years to attain full proclamation of this Act, as indicated when this legislation was initially tabled in Province House," added Richard.