This article examines the multilateral practices found in the context of Canadian policy vis-à-vis la Francophonie in order to challenge the normative claims located in narratives of multilateral state practices. La Francophonie presents a particularly interesting and complex theoretical challenge, largely because of its postcolonial context and the idealist discourses that embellish its activities. It expresses practices of multilateralism that are different from, yet not necessarily or always incompatible with, the practices of multilateralism found in Canadian foreign policy. The analysis of multilateral practices underlines competing philosophies of multilateralism that, in turn, suggest the location of increasingly important sites of international politics where different strategies aim at establishing and enabling particular understandings of political authority and activity. This article argues that multilateralism is deployed in scholarly and policy locations, both as a category of analysis and as a category of practice, with significant ontological effects. The use of multilateralism as a category of analysis is called into question because of the normative effects it has on ideologically driven narratives of multilateralism. The salience of multilateral practices does not necessarily require the use of multilateralism as a category of analysis. In fact, this article suggests that the value of multilateralism is very limited as an analytical tool. The location where multilateralism is enacted speaks directly to the legitimacy of the sites and modes of political activity that are judged to be necessary and possible, thus setting authoritative limits to the political possibilities of multilateralism .