Our Values
RESPECT
mutual towards all members
of the community
INCLUSIVITY
people from all backgrounds and all walks of life to our activities
COMMITMENT
to contribute to the growth of Francophonie and the greater Summerside area
GENEROSITY
demonstrated in every action we take and towards all
OPENING
to others and to new ideas.
Who are we ?
La Belle-Alliance is a non-profit organization incorporated in 2001 to bring together Acadians, Acadians and Francophones from East Prince by providing them with a meeting place, organizing cultural activities in French and promoting the French language. , Acadian culture and French-language education.
THE MISSION
Bring together the Acadians and Francophones of the region by providing them with a meeting place, by organizing cultural activities in French and by promoting the French language, Acadian culture and French-language education.
OUR HISTORY
In 1995, Noëlla Arsenault-Cameron and Madeleine Costa-Petitpas, with the help of the PEI Parents' Federation and their lawyer, Me Robert McConnell, then filed an action under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
They won their case before Justice Armand DesRoches of the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island, later Chief Justice of the Provincial Court and now retired. This decision was overturned by the Prince Edward Island Court of Appeal. Subsequently, Mesdames Arsenault-Cameron and Costa-Petitpas appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
In the early 1990s, a group of Francophone parents asked the Prince Edward Island Department of Education to open a French-language elementary school in the Summerside-Miscouche area. At that time, young Francophones in the area should either be bused to École Évangéline in Abram-Village or go to an English-language school in the area offering a unilingual English program or a French immersion. The provincial government of the day refused the parents' request.
The highest court in the country heard the case in November 1999 and rendered its decision on January 13, 2000, confirming Judge DesRoches' ruling at first instance. On March 9, 2000, the Ministry of Education and the Francophone School Board unveiled plans to provide education in French, the mother tongue, to students in the greater Summerside area. These Francophone parents would have access to education in French for their children in their own community.
On Friday, October 13, 2000, the federal and provincial governments announced their financial commitment to the new Francophone school and community center in Summerside.
The students moved into the new school in February 2002 and the official opening of Center Belle-Alliance and École-sur-Mer took place in Summerside on May 10 of that same year. The community would like to express its gratitude to Noëlla Arsenault-Cameron and Madeleine Costa-Petitpas for making the vision of French-language education in Summerside a reality.
