A collective of dedicated members
Our office staff
Ajà Besler
Executive Director
Ajà Besler has been the Executive Director of the Dialogue Network since 2021, following a career path in the Canadian Francophonie in the areas of youth, performing arts and language rights advocacy. A queer and disabled artist and activist, Ajà has a passion for social justice and the Francophonie. Originally from Edmonton, Ottawa is now home.
Catherine Carle
Manager – Rendez-vous de la Francophonie
Working at the Dialogue Network since 2013, Catherine is a graduate in Public Relations from La Cité College in Ottawa. Passionate about the performing arts and francophone culture, she brings her knowledge of the performing arts and the world of communications to the Dialogue Foundation and its projects.
Patrick Pharand
Cultural and Community Development Coordinator
For many years, Patrick has been working in Canada’s Francophonie in a variety of sectors. Whether it’s event management, grants, logistics or artistic tours, he has accumulated a great deal of on-the-ground experience of the realities of Francophones in different regions. He hopes to create a greater public space for francophones, in an inclusive and equitable way.
Juliet Foo
Project officer
A recent graduate with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Religious Studies from the University of Ottawa, Juliet is a proud Franco-Albertan and Acadian from Edmonton. Passionate about equity and the French language, she is thrilled to join such a wonderful team! This is her second term as a Project Officer, following her position at the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française. When she’s not in the office, she enjoys volunteering with animals and exploring new restaurants.
Laura Mollen
Graphic Designer
Laura is an Innu graphic designer and a graduate of Collège La Cité. She is passionate about arts and culture. Family life is a very important part of her life, and she loves cooking and discovering new recipes. As a French-speaking Indigenous person, she aims to highlight her unique linguistic and cultural realities. Through graphic design, she hopes to contribute to the preservation of Innu-Aimun, her mother tongue.
Lelia Farhat
Social Media Coordinator
A bilingual student at the University of Ottawa, Lelia is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, specializing in Marketing with a minor in Psychology. Driven by a passion for the arts and Canadian Francophonie, she aims to apply her intercultural skills and creative spirit to enhance the communication and marketing initiatives of the Fondation dialogue.
Our Board of Directors
Chedly Belkhodja
Chair, Quebec / New Brunswick
Chedly Belkhodja is professor and was director of the Concordia University School of Public and Community Affairs. From 1992 to 2014, he was a professor in the Department of Political Science at the Université de Moncton.
As a Franco-Tunisian, he grew up in New Brunswick.
He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Bordeaux-Montesquieu (1996) and a master’s degree in Political Science from the Université de Montreal (1991). His research focuses on immigration issues in mid-sized cities and low-immigration areas and on discourses and representations of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity. He also studies the phenomenon of populism and right-wing ideologies.
He was involved in the creation of the Atlantic Metropolis Centre as Director of Research where he later became Director of the Centre from 2006 to 2012. In the meantime, he directed two films produced by the National Film Board of Canada, such as Tableaux d’un voyage imaginaire in 2001 with filmmaker Jean Chabot and Au bout du fil in 2006.
Marie-Claude Rioux
Vice-Chair, Nova Scotia
Marie-Claude Rioux is an accomplished businesswoman with over 25 years of experience in the non-profit sector. She has led several organizations, including the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse, the Association des juristes d’expression française, and the Fédération des parents, where she coordinated the Doucet-Boudreau case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. She is currently the Executive Director of COPA National, an organization dedicated to preventing abuse, bullying, and violence against children.
Highly active in her community, Marie-Claude Rioux has served on numerous boards of directors and the Board of Governors of Université Sainte-Anne. She was also part of the expert panel on language rights for the Court Challenges Program. Additionally, she is a recognized speaker and has published numerous works on language rights and the Acadian community.
Suzanne Jacob
Treasurer, British Columbia
Very involved in the Francophone community of British-Columbia, she has been president of Réseau Femmes and the Société de Développement Économique la Colombie-Britannique. Since 2018, she sits on the Board of Directors of the Fédération des Francophones de la Colombie-Britannique as the Greater Vancouver representative. She is now Head Mentor of the Business Mentoring Program of the Société Économique de Développement de la CB.
She had a career in management and is now working as a financial advisor.
Françoise Sigur-Cloutier
Secretary, Alberta
Françoise Sigur-Cloutier was born in Toulouse, France. She immigrated to Canada and settled in Calgary in 1969. She devoted a large part of her career to community development. For 18 years, she served as Regional Communications Manager in Saskatchewan for Radio-Canada.
As a volunteer-activist, she works in several provincial and national Francophone organizations, particularly in publishing and feminist groups. Elected as president of the Assemblée Communautaire Fransaskoise (ACF), Françoise Sigur-Cloutier carries her mandate on political representation, immigration and the development of post-secondary issues.
Relocated to Calgary since May 2019, she is once again very involved in the Francophone community at the local, provincial and national levels.
Françoise is married, mother of three children, grandmother of four grandsons and great-grandmother of little Arthur.
Liane Roy
President of the FCFA, New Brunswick
Originally from New Brunswick, Liane Roy has devoted her work to the Francophonie at the provincial, regional, national, and international levels. She has served as Assistant Deputy Minister in the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour and the Department of Intergovernmental Affairs of New Brunswick.
As the first CEO of the New Brunswick Community College (NBCC), she led this post-secondary institution to become self-sufficient by overseeing the entire transition process towards a new structure. She worked as a youth technical advisor for the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) in Paris during the preparation for the Francophone Summit in Moncton (1999) and as technical advisor for the Partnership for Non-Formal Education in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso).
She has also led the promotion of Acadia throughout various organizations, such as La Société Nationale de l’Acadie (SNA) and La Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick. In 2019, she completed a second Master of Education and a Doctorate (EdD) in Educational Leadership – managing Cultural and Linguistic Diversity at Simon Fraser University. She also holds a Master’s degree in Education with a major in Counselling from the University of Moncton and a Bachelors’s degree in Social Work from the same institution.
Liane Roy is currently a member of the Board of Governors of Université Sainte-Anne and the Board of Directors of the Marichette Foundation. She has also served as Chair of the Board of Directors of Colleges and Institutes Canada, the Consortium national de développement de ressources pédagogiques en français au collégial and Atlantic College Atlantique.
President of the FCFA since 2021, Liane Roy carries the voice of a strong, open, and diversified Francophonie at the international level that engages with reconciliation of Indigenous Peoples. The federal government’s adoption of a modern and respected Official Languages Act is also one of her priorities.
Jenny Matingu
Director, Ontario
Jenny Matingu graduated from Clendon College of York University in International studies with a major in South Asian Studies. During her university studies, Jenny developed an interest in issues related to multicultural aspects in Canadian society and in plurality within the Francophonie. Jenny is currently a Liaison Officer at the Ontario Legislative Assembly where she works in Parliamentary Protocol. In this role, she provides non-partisan assistance to MPs and arranges special events including the Participation of the Speaker of the House and diplomats. Jenny remains involved in projects related to the Francophonie by supporting her colleagues in matters related to the Secretariat of the Ontario Section at the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF).
Allister Surette
Director, Nova Scotia
Mr. Surette has been President and Vice-Chancellor of Université Sainte-Anne since July 1st, 2011.
Mr. Surette was elected to the Nova Scotia Legislature from the constituency of Argyle in 1993. He held several political positions until 1998, including Special Advisor on Acadian and Francophone Governance within the provincial public school system, Minister of Human Resources and Minister of Acadian Affairs.
In addition, he remains actively involved in various committees. He is currently Chair of the Canadian Foundation for Cross-Cultural Dialogue, the Nova Scotia Economic Development Council and the organizing committee of the next Acadian World Congress that will be held in the southwestern Nova Scotia in 2024.
In October 2004, Mr. Surette received the Père-Léger-Comeau certificate from the Fédération Acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse. In October 2008, he was enthroned Commander of the Ordre de la Pléade. In October 2019, he received the Ordre des Francophones d’Amérique for his outstanding contribution to the development of the French language in America and in January 2019, the French Republic named him Knight of l’Ordre des Palmes académiques.
Paula Popescu
Director, Quebec
Paula Popescu is a social worker by training and currently works for Canadian Heritage in the Official Languages sector. A former participant in the Young Canada Works program and project officer for the same program at Collège Éducacentre in Victoria, British Columbia, Paula decided to pursue her career in the service of official language minority communities. Well aware of the challenges associated with having a multi-faceted identity, Paula is sensitive to the relationships between different cultures and to the plural character of Francophone communities across Canada.
Paula is of Romanian origin and grew up in Quebec City, where she obtained her first degree in International Relations and Modern Languages from Université Laval. She then went on to study social work in Ottawa, at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. Paula has always been involved in her community, whether with underprivileged populations or in the cultural and leisure sector.
Yvon Godin
Director, New Brunswick
As a former miner at the Brunswick mine, Yvon Godin devoted 18 years of his career to politics as Member of Parliament for Acadie-Bathurst in New Brunswick from 1997 to 2015.
Over the years, he has served as the whip and spokesperson for the New Democratic Party on natural resources, employment insurance, labour and Official Languages.
He is the author of Bill C-232, the first bill introduced in the Parliament of Canada to ensure that judges appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada have language skills in both official languages. He received the rank of Knight of the Order of La Pleiade for his contribution to Canadian Francophonie.
Before being sworn in as a Member of Parliament, Yvon was president of the Syndicat des Métallos Local 5385 from 1982 to 1988, and union representative from 1988 to 1997. He negotiated more than 30 collective agreements during his career and was president of the Local Service District (LSD) of Allardville, New Brunswick.
Always active on the political scene, Yvon is a guest panelist on the television show Le club des ex on RDI, as well as a radio station guest on L’heure juste at Ici Radio-Canada Première.
Yvon is from St-Sauveur, New Brunswick and is the father of three children and grandfather of four grandchildren.
Geneviève Pelletier
Director, Manitoba
Geneviève Pelletier is a Métis creator and director from Winnipeg, located on Treaty #1 territory. Since 2012, she has been proudly leading the artistic direction of Théâtre Cercle Molière. She is interested in the intersections of cultures and the numerous possibilities emerging in this increasingly smaller world, creating fertile and complex spaces for artistic creation.
Angélique Bernard
Director, Yukon
Angélique is a bilingual translator and editor with a Bachelor’s degree in Translation from Concordia University in Montreal. She served as the Commissioner of Yukon from 2018 to 2023, becoming the first Francophone in the territory’s history to hold this position.
In addition, she manages Angélique Bernard Communications in Whitehorse, providing translation and project coordination services. She was also the first employee of the Yukon Francophone women’s group, Les Essentielles, from 1996 to 2001.
Angélique has held various volunteer and leadership roles within the Yukon Francophone community, including President of the Association franco-yukonnaise, radio host of the show Rencontres, volunteer with the Yukon Francophone History Society, and theatre director and actress. Additionally, she volunteers for the Special Olympics Yukon and serves as President of the Whitehorse Women’s Soccer League.
She represents Yukon within the National Network for Women’s Education and Action, the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Women of Canada, the Canadian Women’s Health Network, and the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities.
She has authored books on Yukon and the Yukon Francophonie.
Angélique has lived in Yukon since 1995.
Ania Kolodziej
Director, British Columbia
Ania is a lawyer in Vancouver. She practices law in English, French and Polish, through which she focuses on civil litigation, constitutional law and language rights. Ania has worked on one of the largest and most protracted education and language rights court challenges in Canadian history. She also provides strategic advice to numerous public institutions, which include French-language school boards across Canada.
Having learned French through immersion, Ania completed her first degree in Political Science and French literature at Simon Fraser University in the French Cohort Program, a multidisciplinary program offered primarily in French by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. It was at the University of Ottawa that Ania obtained her Common Law and Civil Law degrees in 2011. In 2018, she completed her master’s degree in Education and Sustainable Development at the University of British Columbia.
Pierre Jury
Director, Ontario
Pierre Jury’s career at Le Droit spans nearly 35 years, the last 18 of which he spent as chief editorialist defending the French-speaking world and the principles of social justice, democracy and sound administration as chief editorialist.
Having covered all areas of journalism, from economics and politics to sports, and having kept a column on gastronomy and restaurants for over 25 years, he distinguished himself as the first French-speaking journalist to cover the creation of a National Hockey League team, the Ottawa Senators.
Furthermore, Mr. Jury has also been a judge in numerous culinary competitions and panels, and was one of 30 Canadians to receive the prestigious Order of Agricultural Merit, awarded by the French Republic.
Mr. Jury has also judged numerous culinary competitions and panels, and was one of 30 Canadians to receive the prestigious Order of Agricultural Merit, awarded by the French Republic.
Son of a Ukrainian father and a French-Canadian mother, Pierre Jury is an alumnus of the International Olympic Academy and holds a BA in German and Russian history from McGill University in Montreal.
He also studied at the University of Montreal and Laval, and was a scholarship student at the Rotman School of Business in Toronto.