Unlocking Canada’s Francophone Goldmine with Colin Fagnan

What if the biggest untapped market for your business was hiding in plain sight within Canada's Francophone community?

Today, I sit down with Colin Fagnan, executive director of the Fort Saskatchewan and Lamont County Regional Chamber of Commerce, to show you how embracing both French and English can unlock new customers, deepen trust and and unlock serious growth.

Stick with us.

You are not going to want to miss this episode.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more.

This is the Business Development Podcast, based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business.

Brought to you by Capital Business Development, CapitalBD CA.

Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 296 of the Business Development Podcast.

And today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you Colin Fegnan.

Colin is a dynamic entrepreneur and the founder of NYLOC Consulting, a company specializing in connecting Francophone and Anglophone businesses.

With professional experiences spanning two continents and five countries, Colin has developed a deep understanding of cultural and linguistic bridges in the business world.

Fluent in multiple languages, including French, English and Spanish, he is a skilled communicator and strategic thinker who thrives on empowering organizations to expand into new markets.

Collins expertise includes market analysis, cultural consulting and fostering business connections, making him a key ally for companies seeking to tap into the vast potential of Francophone markets in Canada and beyond.

A seasoned leader with a track record of managing multimillion dollar projects and expanding strategic networks, Colin is redefining how businesses approach bilingualism and cultural diversity.

His mission is clear.

To help companies unlock the untapped economic opportunities that lie in collaboration, communication and inclusivity.

Colin Fagnan doesn't just consult.

He transforms the way businesses think about growth one powerful connection at a time.

Colin, it's an honor to have you.

On the show today.

Wow.

Thank you, Kelly.

That's quite an introduction.

I'll do my best to live up to it.

Well, it's been like a full year in the making, man.

It better be good.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Absolutely.

Well, I guess we'll find find out, but I'm ready to just dive in and congrats on almost 300 episodes.

That's wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's.

Dude, we've been talking a long time.

We have.

And it's funny because there's just been some things that fell through, so it just didn't quite make sense the first time around.

But I've been wanting to have this conversation for a long time.

Right.

Canadian.

We have a huge francophone community in an entire francophone province, and yet it's something that just never seems to come up on this show.

Right.

300 episodes.

Yeah.

We haven't had one francophone conversation.

So honestly, I'm excited for it.

So are you saying we should be speaking in French here, Kelly, or do you want to continue in English?

Well, if you want me to actually, you know, conversate with you, probably not.

My.

My French is horrid.

It's all good.

It's all good.

Thankfully, I was born and raised in this wonderful province that we call home, so I'm more than happy to continue in English.

And if anything, you can just get some fancy AI tool to just kind of redub everything in French for my French listeners.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

No, it.

It's a challenge.

And, you know, let's talk about that.

Let's just go into it.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm based here in Alberta.

I think I took French until, like, grade five.

I want to say, like grade five or six.

We had French class.

But, dude, I swear, I like.

I like, learn nothing.

I think I retained how to count to 10.

Well, you know what, Kelly?

You and everybody else before the 80s and 90s, that's just how it was in Alberta.

French, as a second langu.

Will was just not well taught.

I'll just put it as simply as I can.

Right.

But 2025, it's a different generation.

It's a.

We have a different society now that approaches the French language a little bit differently.

And there's a lot of very positive statistics out there that's.

That's telling us that French is actually growing in Alberta.

Yeah.

And there's more and more bilingualism present here in Edmonton, here in Alberta, but even across the country.

And there are many reasons for that that we're going to dive into.

But that is essentially why I started my business.

Right.

Nylock Consulting is to kind of leverage this.

This new situation we're involved in because, you know, I don't want to date you or my.

Or me.

But, you know, back in our day, things were not quite what they are now when it comes to the teaching of the French language.

And the biggest difference really is the immersion School program.

There's are other factors, obviously, but French is.

It's not just something that we want to celebrate as Canadians.

You know, we're proud of our bilingualism.

We are.

But I approach it from a business perspective.

Right.

From a business angle, because this is maybe surprising to some people, but there's.

There's a lot of business opportunities when it comes to the French language.

And so I think that's kind of how I first contacted you.

Obviously, I reached out, what was it, a year and a half ago, maybe even two years about that.

Right.

And I remember you.

You telling me, colin, this is.

This is really cool stuff.

I had never really heard about this before.

And.

And it's basically what I find myself doing a whole lot, Kelly, is talking to business leaders about the reality of the French language in alberta's business ecosystem.

So it's very much the world that I'm involved in.

Yeah, absolutely.

And.

And frankly, you're the only person I know doing that work, which.

And I know a lot of people, Colin.

Like, I'm surprised I don't know more people like you, but I just don't.

It's not something that's come up.

And, you know, I've worked at some incredibly large organizations, Colin, and some of them have refused to do work in Quebec because they re like, they just can't.

They don't have that communication barrier.

They don't have enough people on their staff that can speak French and they don't want to essentially create two copies of everything, one in English and one in French because it makes.

It's a challenge.

Right.

So I am wondering, like, you know, there's got to be a lot of organizations that have no idea how to even approach, you know, working in a province such as Quebec.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And we definitely will be talking about Quebec, you know, which is.

Let's call it for what it is, the elephant in the room.

Right.

It is where most French Canadians are.

But facts are facts, and there are millions of French Canadians outside of Quebec, and the numbers don't lie.

Even in Alberta, we have the second largest french speaking community of all of western Canada, and it's very much concentrated around the Edmonton area where you and I are from.

Wow.

And I guess we're just really good at falling under the radar.

And it's.

It's honestly something that I scratch my.

My head at times and I don't even necessarily have an answer for.

It is the case that if you're born and raised here, like I am in a French canadian family, you do Grow up with French spoken at home.

And I went to French schools, right.

I even went to French university.

My life was very much in French, but I was raised here, so I did learn English, almost like the first language.

And so when I'm walking down the street, you know, you're not going to hear me talk and think, oh, that guy's French, right?

Yeah, I'm pretty good at hiding my accent.

Unless I, I don't know, maybe you put a few drinks in me and, you know, my.

My tongue loosens up a bit.

I might.

I might, you know, trip on a word here or there or sometimes I.

Funny enough, I will say something in English, not with really with an accent, but it'll sound a little strange, a little funny, because that.

That's the French brain, right?

Yeah.

I'll say an English sentence, but with a French structure.

So that's kind of how you can identify.

So that's how you can, you know, we can only hide so much, but every now and then, you spend enough time with me, you'll.

You'll hear some.

Something silly that I'll say.

You know what?

I love that I've spoken with, you know, a lot of people on this show now that are, you know, not just bilingual, but trilingual and even further than that.

And I'm never not blown away, man.

Like, dude, I know English, and I struggle with the English language a lot of the time.

Like, I can't tell you how many times I gotta edit this show because I can't.

I like mushmouth.

And I just say something like, oh, my gosh, like, what was I even thinking?

I couldn't imagine being able to say a word in more than one language.

And how challenging.

Like, you know, I mean, challenging or not, you know, tell me how that.

What that.

What is that like knowing how to say something in two different ways in two completely different languages.

Do you ever, like, does it ever start to get kind of jumbled up for you?

Oh, absolutely.

And in my case, it's even worse because I speak a multitude of languages.

Right.

Having lived and traveled abroad, as you mentioned in the introduction, I've had the.

The good fortune of.

Of working and studying in other countries where neither English or French were spoken.

And so I just had to kind of learn and adapt.

And then I came back home to Edmonton, which is where I live now after all these years being abroad.

And there are times.

It's a struggle, man.

It's a struggle.

I'm not gonna lie.

It's.

But it is a wonderful thing to grow up bilingual, and it is something that I definitely want to, I want to make sure your listeners are aware of, is that when you are a child growing up and you're developing your brain, there are incredible health benefits that are tied to having a multitude of languages at home or in school.

There's a tremendous amount of literature on this very topic where to the degree you, you speak multi, multiple languages, growing up, you actually increase your ability to learn new information.

Right.

Basically, growing up multilingual supports cognitive flexibility, critical thinking, which, let's be honest, is valuable skills in any industry.

Right.

So it's not like I can off the top of my head, list you all these different research, research papers that were written, but the information is out there and it makes sense if you think about it, because when you speak multitude, a multitude of languages and you're able to kind of crisscross between different languages fluently, the same goes for different concepts, right.

When you're talking about critical thinking skills, when you're able to look at something from one perspective and then kind of reassess it from a different one, if you speak multiple languages, that is just easier to do.

And although it's harder to learn a language when we're adults, it's.

It's not possible.

So, Kelly, there's still hope for you.

There's still hope for me.

There is still hope for you.

And, and look, I'll be honest, it was a, it was a big advantage for me to grow up with multiple languages.

But hey, I haven't stopped.

I'm still learning.

And I'm 38.

And it's actually a great exercise for your brain because we talk about going to the gym to take care of your body, right?

Yeah.

If you want to go to the gym for your brain, learn a language.

And even if you don't get to a point where you know you're going to write Shakespeare in that language, the very act of trying to learn a language is great for, like I said, boosting cognitive flexibility, critical thinking, and helps your memory because you got to learn a whole bunch of new words.

Right?

So it's a great exercise and it's also a reflection of the world we live in today, where we do put a big emphasis in Canada on, on diversity.

But even from a business perspective, we're in a globalized world that's not going to change anytime soon.

And so to the degree Canadians, and especially here in Alberta, to the degree that we can have an environment that's more welcoming to other languages, we'll be able to diversify our economy even more.

Yeah.

And this is definitely something I bring up in conversation when I talk to business leaders, which I do all the time.

And these are business leaders across the board, across all sectors.

I talk about this openness, especially to French, because, well, it's Canada.

It is our second most spoken language in the country.

It's still an official language here in Alberta.

And again, it goes beyond just celebrating bilingualism.

This is something that I'm talking to business leaders about and how it can maybe help boost their business.

Because a survey a few years back.

I'll have to send you the link after the podcast, but there was a survey I found where 75% of customers prefer to do business in their first language, given the option.

Sure.

And based on census data as well that's available online.

The.

The francophone population of Alberta grew about 40% from 2006 to 2021.

And businesses that serve a bilingual market in Canada often see a 15 to 20% increase in customer engagement.

So, again, the numbers don't lie.

And this is stuff I try to contextualize when I'm sitting down in front of a president or a CEO of some organization or company here in Alberta.

And when I talk through that lens, they're very receptive.

Sure.

Very receptive.

Like I said, it.

It's.

And.

And I hate to be like.

I hate to come across as a.

Bit of a dick on this one.

But I guess what I'm going to say is you just don't see it.

Being in Alberta, we might as well be blind to the francophone.

And I'm not saying that in a mean way.

I'm just saying that, as in, everybody who reaches out to me assumes I speak English and speaks to me in English.

And everybody that we do business with tends to do it in English.

And like you said, I think there's probably a lot of people just like you who speak immaculate English.

Like, dude, I would never be able to tell that English wasn't your first language.

Let me just start there.

Like, there's no question you speak English probably better than I do.

Well, we'll have to see.

We'll have to see.

But a little English off.

But you know what, Kelly, you're not wrong.

You're not wrong.

And this is actually an issue for us Francophones that are from Alberta.

Right.

We call ourselves Franco Albertans.

And mind you, there are Francophones in every province outside of Quebec.

Right?

Yeah.

So, you know, I mentioned earlier about the millions of Canadians that speak French outside of Quebec.

We're actually 20% of the country where we speak perfectly, we speak French and English perfectly.

Right.

There's about 20% of Canadians and 25% of Canadians.

As of the last official census from the federal government, 25% of Canadians speak French as a first language.

Wow.

And people tend to forget that.

And although it is the case that most of those French Canadians are in Quebec, there are plenty of Canadians like myself across the country.

And I'm going to do a shout out to the Ontario, Quebec border, where I kind of spent some time out there when I was much younger.

There are a lot of people like myself that are perfectly bilingual.

And it is a challenge out here in Alberta that we just don't see French.

We don't hear French.

This is true.

But there are signs for optimism.

Whether it's in business or in other areas of society, you do see signs where things are changing.

And one thing I can point to that is a sign of optimism is something that the Alberta government has actually done in recent years, where in 2017, they adopted for the very first time, an official French policy that your listeners can go and look up, or they can go to my website, nylockconsulting.com to, to find out more information about what this policy means.

And it's essentially the provincial government finally accepting the fact that French was an integral part of its history, because people may find, be surprised to find out that French was the first European language spoken in Alberta, because the French traders and missionaries were the first to kind of come out here from eastern Canada through our river system.

They established settlements.

And French was actually the dominant language here in Alberta before 1870.

Wow.

And after 1870, it started flipping.

And so you have, you have little pockets of French all over, across Alberta.

And some of your listeners are probably aware of those.

Right.

You know, Beaumont, Grand Prairie, Plamondon, even St. Albert, there's plenty of these little communities sprinkled all across the province that are the oldest communities of Alberta where you go there.

And that's where you will see some French.

You'll see French signs, you'll see French street names.

Right.

And so the Alberta government is aware of this fact, but they just put it into writing for the very first time.

And then I'll finish by saying that this policy, which was adopted a few years ago, was recently updated by the UCP government.

And just last year they announced this wonderful action plan, which I'm writing an article about that I'll be posting online soon.

I'll.

I'll be sure to send it your way.

But it's basically, okay, we're aware of this reality of French in our province and that it's growing and more and more Albertans are speaking French.

But we're also in a position now where we want to start actually having French services at the provincial level, because everyone in Canada knows the federal level French is official.

And when you go on, you know, an airplane in Air Canada, they're going to, they're going to say bonjour to you.

Yes, that's.

Well, we're going to start seeing that a little bit more on the provincial level.

And so don't be surprised if in the next few years, you're going to see a lot more services and programs rolled out by the provincial government in French, because this is what their action plan is stating.

Okay, so my business is kind of like there to assist companies to, to take advantage of that and to understand it and to actualize business in response to this action plan.

Wow.

Okay, so you're actually ahead of the curve then.

I try to be.

I mean, I wouldn't be a great entrepreneur in the French ecosystem if I wasn't aware of these things.

Right.

It was funny, actually.

It's funny that we're talking about, about the French language at the moment, because actually, you know, obviously Canada is a bit of a crazy house at the moment.

We're right in the middle of like, you know, a prime minister stepping down, maybe an election coming, whatever, a huge kerfuffle.

And we were talking because I was like, because Shelby's like, well, I wonder if potentially we would get an Albertan in, like, as a, as a leader.

And I just kind of mentioned, like, I don't know.

And the reason being is that I don't think you can win a federal election in Canada if you can't speak French.

Honestly, you.

You really won't?

No, you won't.

And so it definitely puts non French speaking Canadians at a massive disadvantage on a national level.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

And.

And if you look at Quebec, you gotta respect the fact that it is the second largest province in the country in terms of population and in terms of gdp.

And so don't discount for a moment the voting power of Quebec.

Right?

Yes.

And they love their French.

I mean, I love my French, right.

But I'm born and raised in Alberta and I grew up bilingual, and that's a big part of my identity.

But when you're from Quebec, you live in a completely French world.

And so you, you gotta ask yourself, am I willing to vote as a Quebecer for someone who doesn't speak my language, can he really represent me and my interests domestically and abroad?

Right.

That's a question that Quebecers would ask themselves.

And the fact is French, it's true that we don't see it or hear it, as we mentioned a few minutes ago here in Alberta, but things are changing, not just because of this action plan that I mentioned that the provincial government is putting forward.

That action plan is a response to the demographic reality on the ground, which is that there are half a million kids in emergent schools in Western Canada that are learning French to a degree where when they graduate, they're going to actually be able to speak it efficiently.

Now, they're not going to write Shakespeare, Right.

But they are able to work in that language.

They can understand it perfectly.

And I, I, I say this because I know it.

I, I, I talk to people all the time that went through the immersion school program, someone in the emergency school program, heck, maybe even your kids are an emergent school program.

And so what we're going to see here in the next 10, 20 years is that the percentage of Alberta's bilingual population is going to increase quite exponentially.

So we could talk about migration within the country, people coming from Quebec to Alberta for better opportunities.

We could talk about international immigration, for example, from French speaking Africa.

Right.

We've had a massive wave for the last 20 years from French speaking Africa.

But we have hundreds of thousands of these kids that are graduating here in Western Canada who can speak French.

And so if there's a bilingual job that's available, they'll be able to apply for it.

And so whereas it's, it's maybe a different story for you or other people your age or older.

Because French as a second language wasn't, you know, the greatest program out there.

No, I'm still happy it was there.

But this is an immersion school program, which is a real massive success story for the country because it's, half the classes are in French.

And so that's why it's called immersion.

The kids are immersed into it, so they're actually using it when they're learning mathematics or science.

And we want to have a bilingual society for our business prospects.

Because I lived in Europe, I have lived in multiple countries.

And what's the one thing you notice when you're like, walking down the street in Europe?

Europeans speak two, three, maybe even four languages.

Right?

Wow.

But I also lived in the U.S. and you know, not to knock on my American friends who, who might listen to this, sorry, guys, but unless you're an immigrant, you usually don't speak another language.

Right.

The US has this melting pot kind of society.

In Canada, things are a bit different, but we could always do more in terms of bilingualism.

I. I don't see why we can't have a more bilingual society, which is going to help business opportunities.

And it's.

It's really what we want, because French is the fifth most spoken language in the world.

And if I'm not mistaken, there's a.

There's about 321 million speakers worldwide that speak French.

And there's a lot of GDP held up in that language.

And so if we want to bring in investments from France, from Belgium, from Switzerland, you know, we don't want them to just all go to Quebec.

We want them to come out here to Western Canada.

It's a bilingual country.

There's French out here.

So I'm trying to help business leaders understand the need for more visibility, which is, again, a problem we've raised a couple times that you mentioned you didn't see.

So I do my part with NALA Consulting, which is a new venture.

Right.

I only founded it last fall.

Before that, I was at the Francophone Chamber of Commerce, which is the CDEA Conseil de Diploma Economic de l'.

Alberta.

Right.

So I was a manager there.

And we had sent a team to France to talk to the French government to try to get them to have more interest and investment in Western Canada.

Because it is a problem, Kelly, that we.

We do think that.

We tend to think that French is only found in Quebec when we fail to realize it's actually something that can be found outside of Quebec and even here in Alberta.

But it's something we should be encouraging.

What was.

I'm really interested.

What.

What did they say when you guys were pushing, obviously, for hopefully more business in Western Canada?

What was the feedback from the French government?

Well, I personally wasn't part of the team that went there.

I was new at the time at the cdea when I had just gotten hired, we had a few of my colleagues go out there.

But I can tell you that some of what was discussed was tourism.

So some Albertans will be surprised to find out that not only do we have a lot of French here, but tourism is also one of our strongest sectors in the province.

So everybody knows about oil and gas.

But what a lot of people don't realize is that 10% of jobs in Alberta are directly affected by tourism.

And as of 2023, it had reached, I think, about 10 billion or just under 10 billion.

Dollars in GDP for Alberta, you know, that's not nothing.

No.

Right.

And it's difficult to really measure properly because you could argue it's our second largest industry by certain metrics because it has a certain multiplier effect.

Right.

It's an integrated industry.

And so the Alberta government does know this.

They want to invest more in tourism.

And so one of the things that I think was brought up in those meetings in France is, look, France is a, is a large country.

It's a rich country.

Obviously they speak French like we do.

Granted, different accent, different words, different expressions.

But it's, we can agree it's the same language.

And they have an alpine culture.

Right.

In the Swiss Alps.

The French Alps.

So why don't we try to get more of a tourist pipeline coming out here to Alberta where we have the most beautiful mountains in the world.

Yes.

Right now we have such pipelines with Germany and with Japan, which is why you see a lot of tourists from those countries and a lot of money and flights from those countries.

Well, why can't we do the same for France?

Because it's also a French speaking territory.

Let's get more tourist, more, more French and tourism in Alberta because it is one of our largest sectors.

And in tourism you want to.

More languages present.

Right.

Because when you go abroad in.

Kelly, I'm sure you, you love going abroad as well.

You, if, if you're, if you're Canadian, you're traveling anywhere in the world and you go to a very touristy site, you'll usually find French and English.

Sure.

All the more reason we should have that here in a bilingual country where those are the two official languages.

It just kind of makes sense to me.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So are you saying.

And I'm just going to try to like dumb it down for the rest of us.

So what you're saying is we don't get enough French tourism because we don't have the infrastructure to support them when they get here.

It's, it's one way to look at it.

Right.

It's, it's one of many moving parts when it comes to tourism.

And what I mean, it's.

It.

What I mean by infrastructure is that their tourism is, is our second largest industry by certain metrics.

Right.

But it's definitely one of our better performing ones.

And if you think about it, the Rocky Mountains are a big part of that.

Right.

In Jasper, we're incredibly lucky to have those wonderful parks.

But think of the stampede in Calgary, the largest open air show on earth.

Think of West Edmonton mall here in Edmonton and all the crazy festivals we have every week here during the summertime, right.

We want to invest in tourism.

And so what we want is more French.

And by more French, I mean more bilingualism, more people who speak those languages.

So higher.

If you're a company involved in tourism, you would do well to try to hire bilingual people for those roles that you're filling out.

Have your website in French, right.

Have your marketing materials in French and if you need help tapping into the French speaking market, it's a challenge because maybe you don't speak French, maybe your staff doesn't, but that's what my business is kind of for.

So I'm going to kind of throw my, my, my business name out there.

Once again, that, that is something that I'm trying to help with.

And it's because I see the benefits of having something like that encouraged not only by the government, but I want to see it also on the private side, right.

I want to see in the private sector.

So that's why over the last year, Kelly, leading up to founding my business, but also after having created it, I want to talk to all the chambers of commerce.

I spoke to the leadership across the board.

I spoke to, you know, Alberta council, invest, Alberta invest in Canada, Prairie sky strategy, Edmonton Global, Alberta, women entrepreneurs, you name it.

I go see all the organizations and these are some of the things I bring up, right?

And so these are business leaders.

And I try to say, look, when you talk to your clients, when you talk to all these organizations that are in your sector, raise this issue and you can bring it up at point them my way if you have to.

But there's other organizations that are kind of doing what I'm doing.

Like I'm no longer with the francophone chamber of commerce, the cdea.

It's now parallel Alberta, a wonderful organization that's spreading its wings right now.

Located centrally here in Edmonton.

They do have an office in Calgary and they are trying to do this very thing, right?

They're trying to talk to businesses small, medium or large and to put this on their radar, but especially in tourism because they do have their hand in tourism.

And I'll give you one last example because I mentioned they went to France.

Well, one of the things they did when I was working there is we, we tried to have more signs on the highways around the parks, translated bilingually right, to have it in French and English.

We try to do the same with museums because this will only bring benefits to our province when we have an environment that's more Inclusive, linguistically.

It just makes sense from business perspective.

Okay, okay.

And I want you to, like, I do want to do an exercise with you as we get further on into the show, but I would love to, like, essentially do a hypothetical where we have a company that is only doing business in English.

Everything is only set up in English.

And maybe you can run us through what integrating French into a company could look like.

I love that idea.

So before we do, man, like, we kind of skipped over it a little bit.

I want to get into your background.

Like, you are incredibly passionate about what you're doing here, about this integration.

And I just want to know, like, obviously, you know, you talked about it really briefly in the beginning.

You grew up in a.

In a French as a first language household.

Yeah, but take me back.

Take me.

How did you end up on this journey?

Like, how.

Yeah, yeah.

How do you end up the man you are today?

Well, it's.

It's true what you say.

French is something that's very important to me.

It's something I've been involved in for a very long time.

But there, there are periods of my life where I didn't even really speak it because I was abroad.

Right.

But did start in French, because I was born here in Edmonton to a French speaking household.

Because my French, my grandparents are from Quebec, and one of my grandmothers was from Pei.

Right, Prince Edward Island.

She was Acadian.

So also French culture.

And so I grew up in Edmonton going to school in French.

My whole life was in French.

Hockey team was French.

All the clubs that I joined were French.

And so it just was a part of my life that I thought was normal.

Right.

But as I grew up, I realized, okay, well, I'm obviously living in a world in a society where English is the dominant language.

And it wasn't always easy.

I'm not gonna lie.

It wasn't always easy because when I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, you had the climate of the referendums, right.

And you, you remember those, right?

It wasn't always the easiest thing to be a Francophone in western Canada because we were always placed in the boat with Quebec.

And although we have cultural ties and historical ties to Quebec, we are very much our own thing.

Right.

Quebec is very far away, and we don't have the same accent, we don't have the same words or expressions.

And although we're not as old as Quebec with our Frankfurt communities out here, we've developed our own kind of traditions.

And so it was difficult for us to kind of be labeled Quebecers back in the day.

And let's just be honest, in Alberta, there was a bit of antagonism and animosity towards the French language due to the referendums where Quebec was.

Maybe for your international audience who's listening, they may not realize that Quebec almost separated a number of times from Canada.

Right.

Declaring independence.

Now, thankfully, that didn't happen.

And I can, I can say that as a French Canadian, we're very glad that Quebec stayed within the fold.

But it meant that growing up French in Alberta meant you had to deal with some discrimination, whether it was, you know, kids coming to our school to throw paint on our windows, put graffiti, you know, French, go back to Quebec, you know, even there was sometimes even physical violence I can attest to.

So it wasn't easy.

And then because you grew up in an English speaking province, you get to a point where, you know, you associate French with what your parents want you to do, with what your teachers want you to do.

And I'm sorry, but as a teen you want to rebel and you're like, ah, this is not important.

I'm just going to speak English.

Right.

And so I remember in the hallways and schools our teachers would like scream at us, no, speak French.

And.

And it's not something you really appreciate or value until you're older.

Yeah.

Which is kind of what I'm going through now where I realize, oh, okay, this is really important that I kept my French not just because it's given me opportunities when it comes to my professional life.

You know, I've worked in government because I spoke French.

I worked in banking because I spoke French.

Now I don't want to get ahead of myself because, you know, let's go back to where I was a kid growing up in Edmonton.

French was a very important part of my upbringing and thankfully it is still, this might surprise people.

It's still an official language in Alberta.

So we did have those schools.

Right.

We did have a French university.

So very grateful for that and grateful that my parents taught me French and spoke French with me.

And this is again for your listeners that maybe have another language that they speak at home.

And it's something I come across a lot.

If you are a parent who has a child that is going to an English school, a public school maybe, and they don't really want to learn your language from, let's say, your country of origin, I would say do your very best to continue speaking that language because as you can tell, I grew up in a very French household.

I went to a French school and my English turned out okay.

And that is the case across the board.

So for all those parents out there who are listening, don't assume that if you only speak your mother tongue to your children that it'll somehow negatively impact their English.

It won't.

Trust me on this.

Yeah.

So I spoke basically French at home with English thrown in there.

Let's be honest.

It was, it was a bit of Franglish at times in my household.

But at 18, I did leave Edmonton, you know, Alberta born and raised.

Love my Edmonton Oilers.

But I did go out east.

I spent time in Ontario, a little bit in Quebec.

A mixture of studies, right?

Yep.

And from 18 to about 30, I really spent most of my time studying.

So I have three degrees.

Right.

Wow.

Which are.

Yeah, I, I, I sometimes think I, I spend way too much time in university, but I love to learn, Kelly.

I just love to learn.

That has not stopped.

So one thing led to another.

And I'm going to try to, you know, be as succinct as I can about this journey.

But I, I have an undergrad.

My first one is in classical humanities and then my second is analytical philosophy.

So with these studies, I found myself in Ontario, then Quebec, but then I also went down to the States.

So I did spend time in Connecticut, and I absolutely loved it out there.

Beautiful, beautiful state.

And then I also went to New York City for my analytical philosophy degree.

Loved my time in the States, but again, that's where I maybe spoke a little bit less French, but I started learning Spanish.

So I'm very grateful that I had French because that actually helped learn Spanish.

And this is also something I kind of want to throw out there, Kelly, is that it is difficult to jump from one language to two.

Absolutely.

It is.

Right.

But again, you do yourself a disservice for not at least trying, because it's a great exercise for your brain.

But it does get easier when you learn more languages, because it's like a muscle, your brain.

And if you train it to learn a language and you keep it in shape, you can actually learn a lot more languages faster.

Because people are floored when I tell them how many languages I speak.

But I say, look, I might have a bit of a natural knack for it.

I have a good ear.

But it helped that I already spoke, too.

And then when I learned Spanish, it helped me to learn German, and then when I learned German to help me to learn Polish and so on and so forth.

So it does get easier when you have a brain trained for it.

So you Know, I, I know it's a tough jump from number one to two, but Kelly, again, I'm not going to give up on you.

Dude, you just listed five.

You're making me feel very bad about myself right now.

Well, hopefully we're not going to end the podcast here because I have a lot more to say.

But.

Wow.

But hey, look, I had my, my moment where I was like, oh, my God.

Learning a language is a chore.

It's difficult.

When I left New York for Poland.

So again, I'm skipping a lot of details just in the interest of time here, but at 25, I went to Poland, Krakow, which is an incredible city, and I went to do some social work out there.

And obviously when you live in Poland, you gotta speak the language of the polls, which is, you know, Polish, which is not the easiest language to learn.

And here I arrived thinking, okay, I've got, you know, I've got French, I've got English, Spanish, German.

I'm, I'm good.

But yeah, I hit a brick wall in Poland.

But the, the amazing thing is that you were immersed in it, right?

So if you want to get food or if you want to find out what the bathroom is, you gotta, you gotta, you know, do as the Romans do when in Rome.

Yeah.

So.

And this is why the immersion school program out here in Western Canada is a huge success story for Canadian society, which is becoming more bilingual, because these kids are immersed in the language.

It's, it's honestly the best way to, to learn a language.

I know it's not always accessible to people to, to do that, but I was incredibly grateful that I did spend about a year in Krakow where I did learn some of the language.

I still have a base.

It's, it's, it's rough.

It's rough.

I'm not gonna lie.

Because it is an issue when you learn all these languages.

Yeah.

And that's the thing, right?

You gotta practice.

And so this is why I think it's great if you have, if you're a business person and you wrench, try to incorporate in your business, it's, it's going to do wonders for you and your, your engagement with your clients.

Because, you know, a little parenthesis in my, in my story here.

So I, I used to work in banking.

I was in investments at National Bank Financial here in Edmonton.

I worked for a French speaking wealth advisor.

Right.

Or a investment advisor.

And his name was Bruno Mercier.

Shout out to Bruno, who's now retired, but he spoke French like I did.

He's a French boy from Edmonton.

Now, a lot of our clients were French speaking, right?

Just like myself.

Maybe they were Frank Lo Burton, maybe they came from Quebec or France or from French speaking Africa.

Now, although we had a lot of these French clients that were with us because we spoke French, it's not like we necessarily offered our services completely in French.

What I mean by that is you have a meeting with, you know, so and so comes to see you about their investments and, you know, you might start off the conversation speaking French.

You say, hello, how's it going?

How's your family?

You know, how's little Johnny doing?

And, and, and you're doing this all in French and you just create this bond and this level of trust that's hard to replicate in other ways.

And then when it got to the nitty gritty, I'm not saying this was always the case, but when I got to the nitty gritty about the actual finance, they actually switched to English.

Interesting.

I, I, I've kind of done this myself in my life and honestly, that's okay if you can do it all in French, wonderful.

But if you're someone who went to the immersion school program, you're an entrepreneur and you have a product or service and you're able to kind of bridge that cultural and linguistic gap with someone and create that level of trust.

Yes.

It doesn't mean you have to offer all your services in that language, which is a challenge because you might not have all the vocabulary, but then, you know, you'll have your, your service offering in English and you might land again on French.

And honestly, that can make all the difference for some people, choosing your business over another.

It's a very interesting idea.

But you know what?

I think you're completely right.

It's like, if you think about it, you are far more likely to establish trust at a faster rate with somebody speaking your language than you are even with somebody who is speaking your language as a second language.

Like, when broken, like there's something about that, like, connection where it's like, oh, this person, they get me.

You can skip it at a certain level if you can bridge that language gap.

Absolutely.

And Kelly, you know, there are a lot of competitors out there right now.

We were talking about finance, but it's the same across the board.

Who do you end up going to when you want a service?

It's not always the person that's objectively the best in the business.

Maybe they are, but it's often the case that you go to see someone you trust.

And I'm Sorry.

But it is much easier to build trust with someone who speaks your language, because language, for those who grew up with other languages, understand that it.

It can.

It's also, there's a cultural component there that's hard to underestimate.

Yes.

So I just wanted to look kind of throw that little parenthesis out there because I do come across people who are worried about putting French on their website because they're like, oh, no.

Well, then so and so is going to come see me and expect an entire conversation in French.

And honestly, I still feel it's better to have French on your website and let them know, look, I can have a conversation with you, but we'll, you know, in French, but we'll.

We'll probably switch to English.

When it comes to the nitty gritty, the meat of the service.

Right.

That honestly, is still, in my opinion, because I've seen it.

It can be enough to land a sale with someone, to really keep a customer intrigued.

Again, it all boils down to just be wanting to help businesses, right.

To leverage these opportunities that maybe they didn't realize they had before.

And I know it's not easy because, hey, look, I was in Poland, and let me tell you, Polish is not an easy language.

But I'm happy and proud to say I still have a bit of a base in it.

But I was only there a year because next thing you knew, I found myself in Rome.

So after Poland, I was in Rome, and I was only there for a little bit of a brief stint, kind of trying to figure out life.

And again, I'm skipping over so many details, but I eventually opted to come back to Edmonton after having spent, what was it, like, seven, eight years abroad.

Wow.

I did come back home to Edmonton, and I came back for personal reasons, right?

And when I came back, I had my two undergrads, right?

Classical humanities and analytical philosophy.

I decided that.

Okay, two arts degrees.

That's nice.

But what am I going to be, a philosopher or historian?

I don't think so.

So I decided to start a master's program in political sciences.

Canadian studies, to be precise.

But when I say Canadian studies, nobody really knows what that means.

So there.

There are these Canadian studies programs out there where you can specialize.

I opted to do it in political sciences, but I opted to do it in French.

Okay.

Which is because we here in Edmonton, we have the U of A, which is one of the biggest and the best universities of western Canada.

But people might be surprised to know there is a camp.

It's called Campus St. Jean or it used to be called Faculty St. Jean, just in the French Quarter here in Edmonton where you can actually get post secondary level education completely in the French language.

And their big programs are nursing and education.

And I mention education because this goes back to the importance and explosion of interest in the immersion school program.

They are desperate for French speaking teachers.

So if you're thinking of getting into education, do yourself a favor, learn French.

You will get a job right out the gates as a teacher.

Oh, yeah.

There is a massive hunger for French in the education system and in healthcare.

Okay.

Okay.

My gosh, man.

Like, that's a.

That's an incredible journey.

Well, I'm not done yet.

Wow.

Yeah.

Because I went back to Europe, Kelly.

My master's program was here at the Compass St Jean, but I had learned some German before I left Canada.

And so my director of my thesis in my program also spoke German and he had studied in Austria and he said, hey, Colin, how would you like to go back to Europe?

And it was just honestly an opportunity I couldn't say no to.

So I actually did part of my masters in Austria.

Wow.

So I went back to Europe in a town called Innsbruck where they had the Winter Olympics.

And this is like in the, in the west western part of the country in the US like near the Swiss Alps.

Yeah.

And one of the most beautiful places of Europe.

Honestly one of the best kept secrets as well.

And I don't know if you've ever been in that.

That area, Kelly, but beautiful architecture, friendly people, everybody speaks English.

But I. I had a wonderful half year there working on my master's thesis.

Wow.

So if you haven't been, Kelly, I highly recommend go ski.

And the.

And the Alps in Austria.

That sounds incredible.

Yeah.

We have, we have four boys.

So getting to do anything at this point is.

It'll have to be in my retirement, but I'm definitely gonna look into it.

Well, those who are listening who've been Austria, know what I'm talking about.

But again, shout out to my friends in Austria.

Absolutely loved it out there.

And so after I finished my, my exchange program, I did come back to Edmonton and I've been here ever since.

And I graduated from my master's program in political sciences about eight years ago.

Yeah.

And in that time I've done a whole slew of things.

And so if you visit my LinkedIn or my website, you'll notice a few, few interesting things.

I've been involved in a lot of different industries, but that's kind of who I am as a person.

I just I love to learn and everything interests me.

Yeah, right.

And so I have been involved in business for a number of years, but I did find myself in government at one point, federal government, working for Canadian heritage.

I got the job because I spoke French.

I was also working briefly for the acfa, which for those who may not know, is, I'll say it in French, Association Canadiens de la Berta.

And the ACFA is located here in Edmonton, but they have a provincial mandate and they are the organization that is essentially the spokesperson's organization for Francophones of Alberta.

And every province outside of Quebec and New Brunswick has something like it.

Right.

And so they do lobbying.

They, they try to make sure that on the socio cultural political front, we have some representation.

They really do a lot of work to make sure that we have something like the French policy enacted by the provincial government and then the action plan to follow through on that.

So they're doing fantastic work.

I know the, the executive director very well and so I spent some time there.

And again, this is me really getting involved in the French community once more.

Like a lot of my family have been involved and it did mean a lot to me.

But that was very much, you know, a sociocultural type of work and it was nonprofit.

But it wasn't soon after that that I found myself falling into banking.

And so again, I got that job because I spoke French.

So this is what, three jobs now that were wonderful, where I learned a lot I got because I spoke French.

And again, for the listeners out there who speak French, you'd be surprised how valued that is in government and in the private sector.

And obviously I'm working to boost that.

But if you are a French speaker, make sure that's on your resume.

There are a ton of government jobs as well that are bilingual, even here at the provincial level in Alberta.

And so it's definitely something I encourage people to do because it opens up all these opportunities for you.

And I mentioned already nursing and education, but heck, even in the tech scene, that's a whole other conversation we could have.

And I don't know how we're doing for time, but in the AI sphere, you'd be surprised how French has a.

Has a place.

But so I was working for National Bank Financial for a number of years, which is a bank that is, I think the fourth largest in the country.

It's less prominent out here in Alberta.

It's more so found in eastern Canada.

It's from Montreal, so Quebec company.

All the leaders of the bank are French speaking.

Head office is in Montreal and So I was here working for investors that, that spoke French, trying to just make sure that our clients who spoke that language felt like they could come see us.

But after banking I found myself at the CDEA which is the last job I had before I, I launched my business.

So.

So the CDEA does not exist anymore.

You can't really find it online anymore.

And I know I mentioned it earlier, but again, I'll repeat the name.

So it's Conseil de Devilame Economic de l', Alberta which is translated essentially the Business Development Council of Alberta.

And it was kind of the de facto francophone Chamber of commerce of Alberta.

And yeah, that does surprise people.

When I say that there is a francophone chamber of commerce.

I think that's actually the conversation you're.

Like, oh, we need to meet.

Yeah.

And it's a conversation I've had many times over.

And I remember talking to the Business Council of Alberta, one of Alberta's most prominent think tanks in Calgary.

And I was talking to the leadership there and you know, here I am talking about all this kind of stuff that we, we've, we've touched on and he's like wow, I had no idea.

I had no idea.

And to be fair for, for him and, and the Business Council of Alberta there are less francophones in the Calgary area.

So just demographically speaking it is, it is an area of the province where we have a, a smaller percentage now.

They're still there.

Shout out to my, my Franco operations in the Calgary area and I family out there.

But most of the Frankfun Frank funds of Alberta are concentrated heavily in the middle of the province in the Edmonton area.

But that's just an aside.

So I got hired on by the CDEA to be the member services manager which is basically a new role that was created in order to build more bridges, relationships and partnerships with the rest of Alberta's ecosystem.

Just to kind of let people know we're here.

We want to work with you.

And for all the reasons aforementioned.

Right.

And all the opportunities that exist out there because of the French language, like we were the go to organization for this kind of work.

And it's an organization that like I said, acts kind of like a chamber of commerce.

So it did have a membership structure.

We had hundreds of members.

And so my obligation and responsibility was to take care of them first and foremost to make sure that if you are in Alberta and you're a French speaking entrepreneur, business person that we can help you in your language with resources, tools, et cetera, et cetera.

Right.

So we wanted to make sure that if you're from Quebec or if you're from, you know, Africa and you come here and you want to create a product or service and you might struggle going to see other service providers, well, you can come see us and, you know, we would help you.

So that's one of the most important jobs I had there.

But the other reason I was hired was because I was fully bilingual.

And so as you can tell from having lived in all these countries, having learned all these languages, having had a very varied background, when it comes to my education and my work experience, I can connect to a lot of different people in a lot of different ways.

So I can establish rapport quite easily with a large number of people because the French speaking community is everybody.

And what I mean by that, it's all.

There's French in all sectors.

Yeah.

And the French tapestry of Alberta is, is quite a mosaic.

And so I had to be able to talk to someone who's little Mary on the street selling, I don't know, donuts or something, or talk to a business exec who's the president of a, you know, a multinational in Alberta who, who happens to be French Canadian.

So I, I was tasked with those.

The dual responsibility of helping our network, French speaking business people, and then trying to create bridges with the Anglophone side of things to address that issue that you raised at the beginning of the podcast.

It's like, well, we don't.

We just don't see French.

Yeah.

And so it's something that I worked hard at.

And that's, I think, one of the reasons why I approached you, Kelly.

When I first heard about your organization, I was like, well, let's, let's see what this is all about and see if he's maybe heard of us.

Yeah, yeah, I love that.

And actually I want to spend time here.

And the reason I want to spend time here and bridging the gap, because nobody's talking about bridging the gap except me.

Except you.

There's a massive disconnect.

I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna sugarcoat this.

There's a massive disconnect between Western Canada and Quebec.

Let's just call it Quebec.

And it's just the French.

We, I feel like out here we're like, they speak French.

We don't get it.

I think, and I hate to say that, but that's.

I think that's kind of how it is, is we just feel like we're not.

We're not like them or we're different.

There's a, there's a, like a line that's been drawn that just says we are different from French Canada.

And Quebec feels the same way.

I'm sure they do.

I'm sure they feel that same level of alienation.

Right.

You spent time here in Alberta, so you get it.

And you've spent time in Quebec.

Yeah.

Show me the bridge.

We're more, Are we more alike than we think?

Oh, absolutely.

I, I, and I don't want to discount the fact that there are differences because, heck, there's differences between Edmonton and Calgary and they're in our neck of the woods.

Right, true.

But there's more that ties us together than does it.

And I just want to really emphasize that point.

Quebecers love their province, but they also, let's not forget that a lot of Quebecers do love their country.

I don't want this, this myth to kind of keep getting fluctuated out there, that Quebecers just hate the rest of Canada.

They don't.

And they love a lot of the same things that we do.

And there's a lot of bilingualism in Quebec as well.

Because let's not forget that French and English are official languages across Canada, which means that, yes, French is official here, but English is also official in Quebec.

Gotcha.

So there is a thriving English speaking business community of Montreal that is very strong, very affluent, and if I can just say this on your podcast and shed light on this, because it doesn't get talked about enough, but they're one of the most disserviced communities, linguistically speaking, of the entire country.

Right.

There a.

There is a tremendous amount of Anglophones living in Montreal that have a lot of difficulties and challenges, challenges that they have to deal with because of all the language laws in Quebec, which are a lot more aggressive than like what we might have out here.

It's very unique to them and understand the reasons why they have those laws.

And there is a Quebec mentality that is prevailing, unfortunately, where, you know, they, they do tend to put up walls.

Right.

But we can't have that out here.

I'm sorry, but we can't.

That is not a recipe for success for Alberta's Francophones because especially when it comes to business, we do have to have a certain level of openness because, I'm sorry, in the business world, English is king.

And this is something you find everywhere in the world, every country.

Right.

So if you are a French speaker, whether it's your first or second or third language, and you're in Alberta and you want to start a business, there are opportunities for you and it is important to maintain your French to the degree that you can, whether it's on a personal level or professional level.

But just understand that you will most likely have the majority of your clients being English speakers.

And, you know, take the French Quarter here in Edmonton, for example.

So people might not know that in Edmonton there's a strong dynamic French community in the middle of the city in the Bonny Doon area that the city has renamed the French Quarter.

Right on just 91st Street, White Ave. Area.

And that's where you'll see French signs.

And that's where there's the Compass St. Jean.

That's where there's the Cit Francophone, which is like a French cultural hub.

Now, the poster child of the French Quarter, the poster child business is the.

The Cafe Bicyclet.

I don't know if you've heard of it.

I haven't been there yet, no.

Okay, but you've heard of it.

You have heard of it?

I've heard of it.

Okay.

So it's, it's like I said, it's the poster child business of the Franklin community.

But 80 to 90% of the people that go there are anglophones.

My boss at the bank when I was working for National Boy Financial spoke French.

And we really pushed to have francophone clients, but most of our clients were anglophone.

That is something that I also noticed when I was the manager at the CDEA is most of our businesses that were members had mostly anglophones for clients.

And so you can't really have a truly successful business that's going to grow in scale at to.

To a point where you're going to become like Alberta's too anglophone at the moment for you to really have a company that's going to reach a very large size.

You're mostly going to stay small, medium.

If you just stick to French.

Right.

That doesn't mean you.

You can't have French on your website or as part of your service offering.

But just understand that you're going to have to be part of this ecosystem, which is still mostly anglophone.

And that's why it was so important for my position when I was at the CD to make sure that I built bridges with the chambers of commerce, with other service providers like futurepreneurs, Alberta, Women Entrepreneurs, Black Ventures, association of Alberta.

So I went to talk to these people and I said, look, what is it that you're doing and how can we work together?

Because most likely you have francophones in your network that could benefit from our help and vice versa.

We might have people in our network that we can help in French, but there are certain things that we can't do that your organization does.

So why don't we work together?

And so rather than putting up walls, let's do community building.

Yeah.

And I remember having a wonderful conversation with my good friend Amin Samji, who I know has been on your podcast.

Right?

Incredible person.

Yeah, absolutely incredible.

Really a trailblazer in Edmonton and he was my counterpart with the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce.

And we had coffee together and we talked about the importance of community building and just this idea that especially in the nonprofit space, there's no reason why more of these organizations can't work together.

It's because at the end of the day, we really want the same thing.

We want to boost our economy, we want to diversify our economy.

And so for my part, I'm doing the little that I can with Nyla Consulting to just, first of all, make people understand that this reality exists of the benefits of having exposure to the French language, but also that it's something that can help them on the personal level, but it's something that can help their business thrive.

And you know, we haven't even touched on clean energy.

Right.

I talked a bit about education and a little bit about healthcare.

I touched on AI.

When it comes to clean energy, there's also opportunities because the largest clean energy of supplier of North America is Quebec.

Right.

And while it's true that it is mostly hydro, they're incredible innovators out there when it comes to wind as well.

They're also involved in hydrogen.

And when you go across the Atlantic, the largest clean energy supplier of Europe is France, another French speaking territory.

And here we are in Alberta, an energy powerhouse, Right.

That we want to diversify as much as we want, as much.

As much as we can.

And so why not try to attract that investment and that interest from these French speaking territories to Alberta, bring over that expertise.

We have a wonderful, beautiful province that's a lot more livable than those areas and we have much more favorable business laws, if I might add.

And so if they realize that, okay, Alberta has a favorable environment that's not antagonistic to French, but there's actually French exposure out there.

It makes that decision much easier to move out here.

And that's another thing that I'm trying to do.

And if I may, Kelly, just one more thing I want to add.

I'm also a volunteer with the European Canadian center for Innovation and Research.

So I'm, I'm one of their strategic advisors and stakeholder engagement specialists.

And this is something that we're trying to do as well as bridge the connections between Europe and Canada.

And we're going to need that.

We.

We do.

We do.

Because everybody agrees we need to diversify in Alberta.

And I'm sure you've spoken to a lot of really smart people on this podcast who understand how important that is.

Yes.

And so I'm not saying I'm the first to be out there in the business ecosystem, Alberta, talking to leadership across the board to make sure that people are aware so that they can take advantage.

But I might be the most vocal about it on the Anglophone side of things.

So I attend all the networking events I can in the city.

People know me as that French business guy in Edmonton, which I don't mind, you know, as a ring to it if it makes me more memorable.

You.

Pretty memorable, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't discount it.

That's right.

But it's, it's something I'm trying to do with my business and it's.

The reason I created this business was because I'm responding to a need that I found in the market.

It's a niche that not a lot of people, Organizations are doing.

And so I can't thank you enough for giving me this platform to talk about it because I know how interested you are personally.

But every time I have a meeting like this with a CEO or president in Edmonton or somewhere else in Alberta or even online, there's a lot of interest in this kind of openness that we need to leverage.

And I'm just happy to see the government is also following suit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, here's the thing.

We're talking to a ton of leaders right now who are finding this conversation, if they've gotten this far, very interesting.

And they're probably gotten this far because they want to know more about how they could do this with their own company.

And so, you know, in the beginning I said, you know, give me a hypothetical situation.

Right.

Let's speak to those leaders right now who have maybe medium to large size Anglophone businesses in Canada, United States, who knows, wherever.

Yeah.

And they want to diversify.

They want to potentially reach those bilingual markets.

Where do you, you know, walk me through a hyper.

How do you work with these companies?

Just walk me through it.

Yeah.

The, the first thing that's brought up usually is their website.

It's one of the first things that I look for.

I go to the website, I Say, okay, I noticed that you have a wonderful website that has a lot of interesting links on it, but I don't notice a French translation, which, again, is not necessary.

But you're at a disadvantage if you don't have some kind of French on the website.

And some people tell me, well, what if we don't offer a service in French?

I say, look, it doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter because they might be a French speaker who finds their website because it's French, but they'll speak English, and they can.

They can continue doing business in English with you.

But it goes back to that.

The fact that even if you start a conversation in French, it can bridge the gap for certain people, increase a certain level of trust.

If, as a French speaker, they see that your website's in French, they don't necessarily expect the service to be in French, but they're more likely to contact you and want to do business with you.

I have never known an instance where a company had French on their website that did not offer French service that regretted having French on their website.

Because, remember, there are hundreds of millions of people that speak French in the world, and we live in a globalized world now where our economy is tied to markets across the oceans, and people can search for your website when they want to do business here.

They'll find it in French.

Excuse me.

They'll find it in French first.

Yeah.

So I'll usually have that conversation where it's like, okay, if you want to translate your website in French, it's actually quite easy to do.

And I won't personally do the translation, Kelly.

Like, I. I have done translation before, orally and verbally.

Sorry.

Verbally and written.

But I. I'm in touch with some of the best translators that we have in Alberta, many of whom have different specializations, whether it's, like, government forms or, you know, LGBTQ issues when it comes to language.

Right.

So I know a lot of these translators that I refer these businesses to, and that's usually the thing that people ask me the most about.

And it's kind of the.

It's the entry.

It's the.

It's the entry door to having a potential business partnership start.

So the second thing would be workers for your.

At your company that.

That speak the language.

So I often ask, well, look, you have this position that you're opening that you want to create.

Wonderful.

It wouldn't take much to actually just put one requirement on there.

It's like, make it a bilingual, especially when it comes to, like, marketing, especially when it comes to stakeholder engagement or member services management, which is what I did.

You could always make these, these roles bilingual.

And I think it's especially important in tourism.

Hire French speaking staff in your restaurant.

You're a tour guide.

Company hire French speaking staff.

Right.

Quebecers, for example, love the mountains.

There are a lot of Quebec tourists because it's just built into their culture that they love the outdoors.

They would, there's a lot of students that would love to come out to the Rocky Mountains during the summer and there are already a lot that are doing this, but there could be a lot more.

They could, they would love to come out and work jobs during the summer where they can use their French.

But people forget that you don't always have to go to Quebec for that.

There are at this point in time, Kelly, There are over 260,000 Albertans who speak French.

That's a quarter, that's more than a quarter of a million.

And it's only growing.

And like I said, almost a hundred thousand of them speak French as a first language.

And so these people would love nothing more than to utilize their French when it comes to business.

So I, I let them know, look, just hire bilingual stats.

That's just how it is in Europe.

In Europe, if you speak two or three languages, you are much more likely to get hired for a company that is a multinational than not.

Right.

And then the third thing I bring up in these conversations is if you need help to tap into the French speaking market, whether it's domestically here in Edmonton or you want to bring your product or your service to Quebec, I can assist with that.

Because there is a linguistic gap.

There's also a cultural one.

There's also a law.

There are laws that are different out in Quebec.

Right.

There's an organization here in Alberta that is a service provider, one of the top service providers in our province.

And they wanted to roll out certain programs in French for entrepreneurs.

And I had a wonderful conversation with the CEO and I said, look, these are wonderful programs, but you need to adapt them differently if you want to do it in French because you have certain requirements.

There are conditions that are preset for people to participate in.

Well, it just doesn't reflect the reality of the Francophones that are, that are in the province that are maybe doing some of the same work because the numbers are just different.

And so I just consult and I assist with information statistics to make sure that their programs can align better to meet the needs of the target market that they're going for.

So if they want to do that here in Alberta or in Quebec, that's something I can assist with.

But the reverse is true.

If there's a company out in Quebec that wants to bring their product or their service here to Alberta and they want to tap into the anglophone market, I can also assist with that.

So these are just some of the things that I, I can help with when I talk to business leaders and the French language.

And of course there's other things that I offer with my business, but that is probably 85, 90% of what I find is the, the requested service when I have meetings.

Amazing.

Okay.

And one of the other questions that I have for you is that we have an international community on this show we're listening to in 145 countries around the world.

If there are, you know, French speaking countries who may want to do business here, can you help them as well?

Oh, absolutely.

And honestly, come to Alberta.

We're, like I said, we're one of the most beautiful provinces in the entire world.

Just Google beautiful Canada and you're going to see images of our wonderful Rocky Mountains.

Edmonton is also the most affordable major city in Canada at the moment with excellent business friendly environments when it comes to, to laws.

And we're growing, we have a wonderful economy that is, it's boosting Canada's economy.

And I think last year alone a hundred thousand new jobs were created in our province alone, which is well ahead of our other provinces in the country.

And we're also an incredible hub for innovation and for research, which is also something that people may not realize about Alberta because obviously the oil and gas sector is our bread and butter out here and it will continue to be the case for a while longer.

But we also have incredible developments in the AI space that are honestly revolutionary.

And we have some of the top AI people in the world that are working out of Alberta.

And so there are, there are many reasons why you would want to come to Alberta.

But don't feel that if you're a French speaker you gotta land in Quebec.

Right.

Because there is French out here.

It might not be as visible as Quebec, but we're working on it.

We're working on it.

And the other thing I want to mention is that Alberta is, there are French communities all over the place and there are service providers that can be there to help you as well.

I'm not the only one.

I'm thankful to be on the podcast.

But again, I want to shout out to Parallel Alberta, which is the rebranded new organization that took the place of the CDE Where I worked at, they're gonna, they're gonna do amazing things in this province.

And they just started out in the spring, they just kind of created this new organization.

And so there, there are also wonderful consultants that I know that also speak French, that if I can't help you with your business, I probably know someone who can because I'm a networker through and through.

And the strength that I have with my business is that I know a lot of people and because I can connect with a lot of different languages and cultures.

But that is the, the reason I was asked to be the MC when I was at the CDEA for an international bilingual summit that we had on immigration from French speaking territories.

So in November, not last year, but the year before, we had a live summit that was streamed across three continents, so North America, Europe and Africa, where we had Immigration Canada.

There we had a bunch of business leaders, we had the Alberta government present, we had some of our consulates and teams surrounding our ambassadors abroad where we spoke about this pipeline of immigration where we want some of the top labor from these countries to feel like they can come make a home here in Alberta if they speak French, rather than just landing in Quebec first.

Because what we've noticed is that there are thousands of highly skilled immigrants that go to Quebec because they feel that's the only place where there is French in Canada, only to find out that a year or two later they really want to move here to Quebec.

Sure.

And so we were trying to like essentially bypass Quebec to say, hey, look, if you're in France or Switzerland or even Lebanon or Africa and you want to come to Canada, come to Alberta.

Because the action plan of the provincial government is, has already started and there's going to be a lot more provincial services that are going to be offered in French because the federal one's already French.

Right.

You can already get your federal services and by and large, it's pretty good here in Alberta.

It could be a little bit better, I'll be honest.

But, but there are a lot of supports for you if you want to make Alberta your home and you're a native speaker, but you will eventually have to learn English.

I mean, that's just.

I'm not going to mince words on that.

Like I said before, if you are a French speaker and you create a business here, you can absolutely thrive in French.

But doesn't matter what you do for your business, whether it's a product or service.

And you're going to have to have mostly Anglophones that are going to Boost your business forward.

I just want to make sure that's kind of clear.

Yeah, it is.

We just don't have the, the French speaking population that Quebec does to have companies that really scale at the same level that you could in, in a French speaking province.

Absolutely.

And you know, you made the comment in the beginning that, you know, 10 million people or 25% of Canada speak French, but that means that the remaining 75% or 30 million people speak English.

So we need to make sure, like I would say for sure, like you don't want to alienate those people if you're in business.

Exactly.

Because I know this because I, I had people in my network, right.

That said, oh, well, look, I have this, I have this service and I want to do it all in French.

I said, okay, great, wonderful.

There are French people that would love the service, but they're not enough.

Because there are cases where you have someone who's fully bilingual that just might feel a little bit more comfortable getting a service in English, even if they, they love their French and they speak it at home.

Just like some of the clients we had at National Bank Financial.

There are people that just feel like I'd rather have this conversation or this service or get this product in English even though I speak French.

But again, I've said this time and time again and I'm beating a dead horse here.

But to the degree you at least have exposure to that language, whether it's on your website or whether it's a great greeting at the door, it is enough to land a sale because we've.

Seen it options that somebody, that another company that doesn't do it simply doesn't have.

That's it.

Right.

It's an advantage either way because it's one more thing than the other guy has.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Colin, this has been an absolutely incredible conversation and we're, we're at the end of it.

But my gosh, like, thank you for the insights into the francophone community in Alberta and across Canada and frankly for having this conversation.

Because you are the first essentially French speaking Canadian that maybe one, maybe one that is, has admitted to it anyway that has come on my show and really had this conversation.

It is not one that we have had in 300 episodes.

And let me just take a moment here and say all of my listeners from Quebec, if you want to have a conversation, please do reach out.

Please don't like alienate a conversation with me because I'm anglophone.

I would love to have the conversation and better understand a large part of my country.

Well, Kelly, thank you for that and honestly, it's been a real pleasure.

I know this has been a long time coming and I'm glad we finally got to sit down together.

But kudos to you and your wonderful podcast that is growing and I'm rooting for you.

I love listening in to the people you bring on, and if there's anything I could have done to put this on the radar for people out there, you know, it's what I'm happy to do.

I'm thrilled to do it.

I created the business because obviously French is meaningful to me, but I just feel like for too long people are not taking advantage of these wonderful opportunities that are not just present here in Alberta.

This is something that you can find across Canada, right?

Because it is a bilingual country.

It's more the case than ever before and it's only trending in that direction.

And so if anybody wants more information about this reality of the French language and Canada's business ecosystem, please hit me up.

Colinylockconsulting.com Colin with 1L or visit my website nylockconsulting.com I'd be more than happy to continue this conversation with some of your listeners.

And again, I just can't thank you enough for offering me this amazing platform.

It was really a pleasure.

The pleasure was mine.

Colin and I will make sure that the links for everything we post and all your website is on all the posts for this.

So if you're listening to this, you love Colin, you want to get in touch with them, it'll be in the show notes.

His website will be there in his email and, you know, reach out.

He's a good guy.

Thank you so much, Kelly.

Until next time, you've been listening to the Business Development Podcast and we will.

Catch you on the flip side.

This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

see you next time on the Business Development Development Podcast.