Canada is a federal state composed of 13 provinces and territories. Moreover, its population is diverse: first occupied by Aboriginals, its territory was colonized by France then by Great Britain. This historical process led to two main minority communities, English speakers in the province of Quebec, French speakers in other provinces and territories. To address language as well as community issues of these minorities, the Government of Canada adopted in 1969 the Official Languages Act, which was modified in 2005 to include a provision requiring from its departments to support their vitality. In that context, the issue put forward was what approach, capacity and means could be used by federal memory institutions such as archives, museums and historic sites to effectively implement this disposition. If it seems obvious that memory is a integral part of the life of a minority community, but it is not so clear which policies and means could be adopted by these institutions to be effective in that assistance. Some questions are to be answered first, such as how memory contributes to minority vitality? Under which circumstances? How could it be characterized? What were, and what would be policies that could support vitality of memory? In order to provide a sound basis for its policies and action, a research project was launched in 2017 at Library and Archives Canada. The results are interesting, both for memory institutions and OLMCs. First, departing from a demo-linguistic approach of their vitality, which was the initial basis of the policy, it is clear that vitality must include other factors, amongst which memory, e.g. how a community integrates its past in its present – its historicity. Second, it becomes evident that we need to grasp their memory as a complex ecosystem in which different components interacts, and that a characterization and a modelling of this memorial vitality environment were required. The analysis resulted in a model which is based on three major parts: the levels, the characteristics and the components. The approach and the model were afterwards validated, first by a panel of high-level researchers involved in related research fields, and second by applying the model to a specific OLMC, e.g. Maillardville in British Columbia.
In our paper, we will present main conclusions from this research, mainly the modelling of vitality of memory of minority communities, and its usefulness to define a coherent and systematic approach to support it. It will be complemented by some reflections on how it could impact policies and means to be developed by federal memory institutions to concretize their obligations related to OLMCs and their memory.
