An Instagrammer Parodied The Different Francophones You Get At Service Canada & It's So True
Shoutout to the Anglo who tries very hard. 🙏
Content creator CiCi Moya parodies Canadian francophone call centre agents.
Federal government agency call centres are a slice of Canadiana. Anyone who has ever had to frequently call Service Canada or IRCC is familiar with the diversity of accents and manners among the agencies' (mostly) helpful customer service reps. The experience offers almost endearing insight into the makeup of the Canadian public service.
That diversity of background is perhaps even more audible on the French-language phone lines — a delightful cross-section of the domestic francophonie. It's the French-speaking call centre characters that local content creator CiCi Moya (@cicimoya) lovingly parodies in a pair of videos posted to Instagram. At the time of writing, the first video, fearing enthusiastic québécois, anglophone Canadian and Haitian Canadian customer service reps, has amassed over 300,000 views.
The Québécoise character is clearly the most helpful of the three, deploying charm and folk expressions to ease the caller. The Anglo and Haitian Canadian are equally motivated but far less patient, reprimanding their callers for the speed and quality of their French.
A subsequent video depicts a bubbly but unhelpful Franco-Ontarian and eager, God-loving Congolese-Canadian.
The call centre skits derive from Moya's Haitian character Marie-Simone (@madamemariesimone), the inspiration for whom comes from Moya's own grandmother, the content creator told MTL Blog. Online, she describes Marie-Simone as her "alter ego."
She said the other characters in the call centre agent videos are inspired by people she has actually encountered across Canada.
Two more customer service characters are forthcoming.
