This project fits into the broad movement of Francophone communities taking control of municipal, school, economic and social management. These communities are facing a number of problems such as the exodus of the young, a shortage of jobs, lack of training, and often distance from urban centres and therefore resources capable of helping them.

Provincial Bill 41 on French-language services, inspired by the Chartier Report, aims to shatter the isolation of Francophone groups by providing them with services in French within the community, and by creating special units to provide these services because the report clearly signals the imbalance of bilingual positions added at service centres in English-speaking communities. These conclusions were also largely supported by the Delotte and Touche report commissioned by the Economic Development Council of the municipalities, which points to the need to develop the economic thinking and business skills of community members. The Fontaine report submitted to the federal government reaches a similar conclusion on the necessity of customized services for these minority groups.

The SCI therefore fit perfectly into Manitoba where several groups backed by the provincial government were looking for means to carry out their project, namely provide government services where people lived with respect for their culture and language, and do all this proactively. Given the shortage of funds, the arrival of a new player in the form of the federal government was welcome. The players were now in place: first, the Manitoba government serving as project leader, then the federal government represented by the Federal Council, whose most active representative turned out to be Canadian Heritage, the municipalities involved including the City of Winnipeg and, lastly, the established community groups. The hiring of a project manager to implement the plan for the creation of community centres by Service Canada was the catalyst that got the initiative off the ground.

The concept of access centres was quickly developed — a sort of shopping mall for federal, provincial, municipal government and community services. There would be six of them serving the main Francophone centres in the province, including St-Boniface (now Winnipeg) and Notre-Dame de Lourdes. All the partners in a centre formed an alliance: they shared the same premises, some pooled reception services and costs in proportion to the space occupied. The objective, however, was not simply cost-sharing, but rather to build a critical mass of services to revitalize the community. For this, the policy adopted in dealing with citizens was to "go the extra mile", i.e., provide more information than was requested.

The cooperative process then ran into a few problems. At the federal level, while the Federal Council clearly had good intentions, decisionmaking at the operational level greatly dampened everyone’s enthusiasm. Differences between federal and provincial standards concerning access to the centres and building occupancy were hard to reconcile. Finally, a harmonization committee was formed to develop a structure for the centres as well as operating plans and policies. Meanwhile a coordinating committee focused on the building-related problems. Lastly, a board of directors was formed to manage the six planned centres with a management committee made up of representatives of the tenant organizations responsible for running each centre. The latter met regularly and held training and brainstorming sessions to map out common spheres of action.

As regards Service Canada, participants said they received good support but complained about the constant turnover in personnel that made cooperation, if not more difficult, at least longer to establish. Service Canada provided the centres with all kinds of information, but the team still lacked coordination mechanisms to learn the needs and expectations of the local management teams. Moreover, the SC implementation team had problems monitoring the projects which, once launched, soon reached cruising speed. This wait for policies that would enable them to proceed undoubtedly tried the patience of the Manitoban participants.

Community centre officials were all given the same training and formed ties as evidenced by frequent telephone conversations; they helped each other gain a better understanding of government services and meet special demands. Since the centres were in the start-up phase, they used downtime to learn more through the Government of Canada website. The information officers saw their role as proactive: they offered citizens help and promoted the service among community organizations. They also wrote a monthly column for the local newspaper, answered the phone and met with clients. If, for example, a student group announced a visit, they provided the group with information about education, scholarships and bursaries, summer jobs, drugs or anything else of interest to youth.

Everyone agrees on pointing to the experimental nature of the project, yet they all say they are enthralled by the concept. The people who so far have taken advantage of their services were first surprised to find someone from the government offering them help and delighted with it. Citizens went there to pay their taxes or a fine, or even to change their library book. They see the computer, the official, the posters and they come closer. That’s the starting-point...

Among the main problems encountered to date, the persons interviewed cited:

• The scant publicity given to the Service Canada concept;
• The project’s very short-term planning, which depends on renewals of SC’s mandate;
• The difficulty developing a common program for all the partners;
• The absence of a financing structure;
• The very identity of the community centres and, more specifically, the SC officials.

At the time when this study was done, two centres were already in operation and preparations were actively underway to open the others. Several federal departments that initially displayed no interest are now backtracking and asking for information about the project. The experiment looks promising. In other centres where a computer is installed with no support, nobody uses it. The concept of a community service centre is innovative: "We’re convinced that a collaborative approach is necessary and, in Manitoba, we have a cooperative culture!" says the project manager.