History
Before confederation
International auxiliary languages
Linguistic diversity existed in northern North America long before the arrival of the French and the English. Due to the widespread trade that occurred between many linguistic communities, indigenous linguistic knowledge across northern North America appears to have consisted of bilingualism in the mother language and a pidgin as a standard. The known Pidgins included: *After confederation
The Canadian Indian residential school system
From 1876 to 1996, the Government of Canada operated the Canadian Indian residential school system. This system, combined with education, immigration, and other policies promoting English and French, contributed greatly to the promotion of English and French across Canada, but has been criticized for its treatment of students and forced assimilation, with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada calling it a "cultural genocide".Constitutional provisions on official languages
Constitution Act, 1867 (section 133)
English and French have had limited constitutional protection since 1867. Section 133 of the '' Constitution Act, 1867'' guarantees that both languages may be used in the Parliament of Canada, in its journals and records, and in court proceedings in any court established by the Parliament of Canada. The section also mandates that all Acts of the Parliament of Canada be printed and published in both languages. Guarantees for the equal status of the two official languages are provided in sections 16–23 of the ''Education Rights (section 23 of the Charter and section 59 of the ''Constitution Act, 1982'')
Section 23 provides a limited right to receive publicly funded primary and secondary-schooling in the two official languages when they are "in a minority situation"—in other words, to English-language schooling in Quebec, and to French-language schooling in the rest of the country.Asymmetrical application of education rights in Quebec versus elsewhere in Canada
The right applies asymmetrically because section 59 of the ''Constitution Act, 1982'', provides that not all of the language rights listed in section 23 will apply in Quebec. Specifically: *In Quebec, a child may receive free public education in English only if at least one parent or a sibling was educated in Canada in English. *In the rest of Canada, a child may receive free public education in French if at least one parent or a sibling was educated in Canada in French, or if at least one parent has French as his or her mother tongue (defined in section 23 as "first language learned and still understood"). None of these education language rights precludes parents from placing their children in a private school (which they pay for) in the language of their choice; it applies only to subsidized public education. One practical consequence of this asymmetry is that all migrants who arrive in Quebec from foreign countries only have access to French-language public schools for their children. This includes immigrants whose mother tongue is English and immigrants who received their schooling in English. On the other hand, Section 23 provides a nearly universal right to English-language schooling for the children of Canadian-born anglophones living in Quebec. Section 23 also provides, subject only to the "where numbers warrant" restriction, a right to French-language schooling for the children of all francophones living outside Quebec, including immigrants from French-speaking countries who settle outside Quebec, and who are Canadian citizens. However, admission to French-language schools outside Quebec remains restricted in some ways it is not in Quebec. In particular, rights-holding parents who choose to enroll their child in English school may thereby deprive that child's descendants of the right to attend French school. In Quebec, under article 76.1 of the ''Charter of the French Language'', rights holders do not deprive their descendants of the right to an English-language education by choosing to enroll their children in French school. (This applies if certain administrative steps are taken at each generation. Otherwise, the right may still be transmitted to grandchildren under article 76.) Another element of asymmetry between Quebec and most anglophone provinces is that while Quebec provides public English-language primary and secondary education throughout the province, most other provinces provide French-language education only "where numbers warrant".Additional restrictions on education rights
There are some further restrictions on minority-language education rights: #The rights attach to the parent, not the child, and non-citizens residing in Canada do not have access to this right (even if their children are born in Canada). #If the parents' English-language or French-language education took place outside Canada, this does not entitle the child to be educated in that language. #The right to receive public funding can only be exercised in localities where "...the number of children of citizens who have such a right is sufficient to warrant the provision to them out of public funds...."Ambiguous definition of entitlement to education rights
The phrase, "where numbers ... warrant" is not defined in Section 23. Education is under provincial jurisdiction, which means that it has not been possible for Parliament to enact a single nationwide definition of the term, as the 1988 ''Official Languages Act'' did for the constitutional obligation to provide federal services where “there is a sufficient demand.” As a result, disputes over the extent of the right to a publicly funded minority-language education have been the source of much litigation. The defining case was '' Mahe v. Alberta'' (1990), in which theLanguage of the official text of the Constitution
Many of the documents in Canada's Constitution do not have an official French-language version; for legal purposes only the English-language version is official and any French translations are unofficial. In particular, the '' Constitution Act, 1867'' (which created Canada as a legal entity and still contains the most important provisions of governmental powers) has no official French-language version because it was enacted by the United Kingdom Parliament, which functions in the English language exclusively. Similarly, all other parts of the Constitution that were enacted by the United Kingdom (with the important exception of the '' Canada Act 1982'') have no official French-language version. Sections 55–57 of the ''Constitution Act, 1982'' set out a framework for changing this situation. Section 55 calls for French versions of all parts of the Constitution that exist only in English to be prepared as quickly as possible. Section 56 provided that, following adoption of the French versions, both the English-language and French-language versions would be equally authoritative. To avoid the situation where an inaccurately translated French version would have a weight equal to the English original, Section 55 requires that the French-language versions be approved using the same process under which actual constitutional amendments are adopted. Pursuant to section 55, a French Constitutional Drafting Committee produced French-language versions of all the British North America Acts in the decade following 1982. However, these versions were never ratified under the Constitution’s amendment procedure, and therefore have never been officially adopted. Section 57 states that the “English and French versions of this Act .e. the ''Constitution Act, 1982''are equally authoritative.” The purpose of this provision is to clear up any ambiguity that might have existed about the equal status of the two versions as a result of the novel way in which this part of Canada's supreme law came into force. Had the ''Constitution Act, 1982'' been enacted as most preceding amendments to Canada's constitution had been, as a statute of the British parliament, it would, like any other British statute, have been an English-only document. Instead, the British parliament enacted a very concise law (the '' Canada Act 1982''), written in English only. The operative clauses of the ''Canada Act, 1982'' simply state that an appendix to the Act (the appendix is formally referred to as a "schedule") is to be integrated into the Canadian constitution. The schedule contains the complete text of the ''Constitution Act, 1982'', in both English and French.Federal legislation on official languages
Official Languages Act
Canada adopted its first ''Official Languages Act'' in 1969, in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. The current ''Official Languages Act'' was adopted in 1988 to improve the 1969 law's efforts to address two basic policy objectives: (1) to specify the powers, duties and functions of federal institutions relevant to official languages; (2) to support the development of linguistic minority communities. As well, following the adoption in 1982 of the ''Charter of Rights'', it was necessary to create a legislative framework within which the Government of Canada could respect its new constitutional obligations regarding the official languages. In addition to formalizing Charter provisions in Parts I through IV, the Act adopts several specific measures to achieve these objectives. For example, Part V specifies that the work environment in federal institutions in theUS influence on the status of English and French in Canada
Book I Chapter 1.C of the report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, published on 8 October 1967, acknowledges the international influence on Canadian language policy:Official bilingualism in the public service
The issue of proportional hiring and promotion of speakers of both official languages has been an issue in Canadian politics since before Confederation. Members of each linguistic group have complained of injustice when their group have been represented, in public service hiring and promotion, in numbers less than would be justified by their proportion of the national population. For the greater part of Canada’s history, French-speakers were underrepresented, and English-speakers were overrepresented in the ranks of the public service, and the disproportion became more pronounced in the more senior ranks of public servants. However, this trend has reversed itself in recent decades. The first high-profile complaint of preferential hiring took place in 1834. One of the Ninety-Two Resolutions of the Lower Canadian House of Assembly drew attention to the fact that French Canadians, who at the time were 88% of the colony's population, held only 30% of the posts in the 157-member colonial civil service. Moreover, the resolution stated, French Canadians were, "for the most part, appointed to the inferior and less lucrative offices, and most frequently only obtaining even them, by becoming the dependent of those ritish immigrantswho hold the higher and the more lucrative offices...." With the advent of responsible government in the 1840s, the power to make civil service appointments was transferred to elected politicians, who had a strong incentive to ensure that French Canadian voters did not feel that they were being frozen out of hiring and promotions. Although no formal reform of the hiring and promotion process was ever undertaken, the patronage-driven hiring process seems to have produced a more equitable representation of the two language groups. In the period between 1867 and the turn of the Twentieth Century, French-Canadians made up about one-third of the Canadian population, and seem also to have represented about one-third of civil service appointments at junior levels, although they had only about half that much representation at the most senior level.Language policies of Canada's provinces and territories
Canada's thirteen provinces and territories have adopted widely diverging policies with regard to minority-language services for their respective linguistic minorities. Given the wide range of services, such as policing, health care and education, that fall under provincial jurisdiction, these divergences have considerable importance.New Brunswick
Of Canada's ten provinces, only one (Manitoba
Manitoba is the only province that was officially bilingual at the time of its establishment. Following the Red River Rebellion led by the Francophone Métis Louis Riel, the Manitoba Act was passed, creating the province and mandating the equal status of English and French in all legislative bodies, legislative records, laws and court proceedings. At this time, Manitoba had a majority Francophone population, but within 20 years mass immigration from Ontario and non-Francophone countries had reduced the Francophone proportion of the population to less than 10%. In 1890, the provincial government ofQuebec
French has been the only official language in Quebec since 1974, when the Liberal government of Robert Bourassa enacted ''The Official Language Act'' (better-known as "Bill 22"). However, the province's language law does provide for limited services in English. As well, the province is obliged, under Section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, to allow the provincial legislature to operate in both French and English, and to allow all Quebec courts to operate in both languages. Section 23 of the Charter applies to Quebec, but to a more limited degree than in other provinces. Quebec is required to provide an education in English to all children whose Canadian citizen parents were educated in English in Canada, while all other provinces are required to provide an education in French to the children of Canadian citizen parents who either received their education in French in Canada or whose native tongue is French. In 1977, theTerritories
French and English are official languages in Canada's three federal territories: Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories. Nunavut and the Northwest Territories also accord official language status to several indigenous languages. Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun are official languages in Nunavut because of the territory'sElsewhere in Canada
Although no Canadian province has officially adopted English as its sole official language, English is the de facto language of government services and internal government operations in Canada's seven remaining provinces. Service levels in French vary greatly from one province to another (and sometimes within different parts of the same province). For example, under the terms of Ontario's 1986 '' French Language Services Act'', Francophones in 25 designated areas across the province—but not in other parts of the province—are guaranteed access to provincial government services in French. Similarly, since 2005, the City of Ottawa has been officially required under Ontario law, to set a municipal policy on English and French. In Alberta, the '' Alberta School Act'' protects the right of French-speaking people to receive school instruction in the French language in the province.Language rights in the legal system
There is considerable variation across Canada concerning the right to use English and French in legislatures and courts (federal, provincial and territorial). Rights under federal law are consistent throughout Canada, but different provinces and territories have different approaches to language rights. Three provinces (Manitoba, New Brunswick and Quebec) have constitutional guarantees for bilingualism and language rights. Three other provinces (Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan) have statutory provisions relating to bilingualism in the legal system, as do each of the three territories (Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon). Four provinces (British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island) are unilingual English. Language rights in the legal system are summarized in the following table:Personal bilingualism in Canada
Official bilingualism should not be confused with personal bilingualism, which is the capacity of a person to speak two languages. This distinction was articulated in the 1967 report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which stated: Nonetheless, the promotion of personal bilingualism in English and French is an important objective of official bilingualism in Canada. At least 35% ofSecond-language education
Canada’s thirteen provincial and territorial education systems place a high priority on boosting the number of bilingual high school graduates. For example, in 2008 New Brunswick's provincial government reconfirmed its goal of boosting the percentage of bilingualism among graduates from its current rate of 34% to 70% rate by 2012. In 2003, the federal government announced a ten-year plan of subsidies to provincial education ministries with the goal of boosting bilingualism among all Canadian graduates from its then-current level of 24% to 50% by 2013.French second-language education (FSL)
Three methods of providing French second-language education (known as "FSL") exist side by side in each of the provinces (including Quebec, where extensive French-language education opportunities are available for the province’s large population of non-Francophone children): *Core French *French Immersion *Extended French *Intensive FrenchCore French
Non-Francophone students learn French by taking courses on the French language as part of an education that is otherwise conducted in English. In Quebec and New Brunswick, French classes begin in Grade 1. In the other provinces, French classes typically start in Grade 4 or 5. Students normally receive about 600 hours of French-language classes by the time of graduation. The goal of “Core French” programs is not to produce fully bilingual graduates, but rather "to provide students with the ability to communicate adequately in the second language, and to provide students with linguistic tools to continue their second-language studies by building on a solid communicative base". There are no mandatory core French class in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and second-language courses are mandatory only in BC. One result of this is that comprehension levels are often lower than parents would prefer. A scholar who interviewed a former New Brunswick premier, as well as the province's deputy ministers of education and health and the chairman of its Board of Management and Official Languages Branch reports: " l expressed reservations about the effectiveness of the Core program in promoting individual bilingualism and believed the program must be improved if anglophone students are to obtain a level of proficiency in the French language."French immersion
Non-Francophone students with no previous French-language training learn French by being taught all subjects in the French language, rather than by taking courses on the French language as part of an education otherwise conducted in English. In ''early immersion'', students are placed in French-language classes starting in kindergarten or Grade 1. In ''late immersion'', children are placed in French-language classes in a later grade. Currently, 7% of eligible students outside of Quebec are enrolled in French immersion programs.Extended French program
Some schools in Ontario offer a third method of FSL education: the Extended French program. Students enter into this program as early as Grade 4—the starting grade is set by each region's school board—and may continue the program through to graduation. The program can also be entered when beginningIntensive French
Intensive French is a method of FSL education that originated in Newfoundland. In 2004, Intensive French began in some schools in British Columbia. Intensive French is a choice program (in offering schools) during the grade 6 year. For the first five months of the school year students spend 80% of their time learning French, with the other 20% being for math. The rest of the core curriculum (Social Studies, Science, and Language Arts in English) is condensed for the second half of the year, comprising 80% of the time, with one hour for French. In the grade 7 year students continue to have one hour of core French per day. This results in 600 hours of French instruction over the two years.English second-language education (ESL)
New Brunswick, being an officially bilingual province, has both anglophone and francophone school districts. * The francophone districts have Core English programs teaching ESL. Quebec's educations system provides ESL on a more restricted basis to the children of immigrants and to students who are members of the province's Francophone majority. * Core English: Most non-anglophone students are required to enrol in French-language schools. English is taught to all students, starting in Grade 1, in a program that is essentially identical to the "Core French" taught to English-speaking students in the other provinces. * Most high schools offer advanced-level ESL programs where students complete the K–11 program in Secondary 3 (Grade 9) and follow with first-language level in Grade 10 and 11 (literature class). * Programs of English immersion have existed for French-speaking students in Quebec but these programs are often in conflict with the official language policies of the Quebec government.Educational, linguistic, economic, and other challenges of official bilingualism
Success rates in second-language instruction
In ''Parlez-vous francais? The advantages of bilingualism in Canada'', published by the Canadian Council on Learning, page 6 states: ‘Although most Canadian school children are taught English or French as a second language in school, these lessons often fail to yield functional bilingualism. For example, New Brunswick’s French Second Language Commission recently reported that fewer than 1% of the students who enrolled in “core French” in 1994 had met the provincial minimum goal by 2007. And fewer than 10% of students who enrolled in early-French immersion in 1995 had attained the provincial goal by 2007.’ ''The state of French-Language Education Programs in Canada: Report of the Standing Committee on Official Languages'', published in 2014, presents the following quote from the Peel District School Board’s Committee from 2011-2012: ‘The review committee found that although principals were finding it very difficult to hire teachers who are qualified to teach French immersion, qualifications alone were not enough to ensure a quality program. ‘The review committee heard repeatedly from different stakeholders regarding instances where a teacher had the requisite paper qualifications but was not fluent in French. Furthermore, the review committee heard that qualified and fluent teachers sometimes chose to leave the French immersion program to teach in the English program. The review committee heard that although it is very difficult for principals to find French immersion teachers for permanent contract teaching assignments, it is even more problematic for them to find FI teachers for long-term occasional assignments.’ ''Section 4.6 of L’amélioration de l’enseignement de l’anglais, langue seconde, au primaire : un équilibre à trouver'', published by the Conseil supérieur de l’éducation (in Quebec) in 2014 reveals a struggle to recruit enough qualified second-language teachers for public schools in Quebec too. Federal party leaders often master the official languages poorly themselves and even Senate translators might fail to master their languages of work well enough to provide trustworthy translationsAdvisory Working Group on the Parliamentary Translation Services of the Senate Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, March 5, 2018.Dependence on translation in the Government of Canada
Jean Delisle stated in an article tilted ''Fifty Years of Parliamentary Interpretation'': ‘Interpretation is a good barometer of government activity. In the 1960s, a decade that interpreter Ronald Després called the “golden age of simultaneous interpretation,” it was not unusual for interpreters to put in 80-hour weeks. Marguerite Ouimet said that she spent more time in a booth than at home, as did many of her colleagues. From the mid-1970s onward, technician Jean-Pierre Dulude, whose outstanding skill was widely recognized in interpretation circles, supervised the installation of some 60 interpreters’ booths on Parliament Hill, and in federal departments and buildings across the country. He took great care to ensure that the booths met national standards.’ The article goes on to state: ‘The House cannot sit without interpreters and it has adjourned when the interpretation system experienced technical difficulties.’ A report of the Advisory Working Group on the Parliamentary Translation Services of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration revealed on 15 March 2018: ‘Many of the respondents cited inconsistency and quality control as major issues when it came to translation. The quality of the service varies greatly from one translator to another and there are often errors in the translations even when a request for a secondary review is made. Some respondents noted that the two language versions of committee reports often do not convey the same meaning and that, in some cases, the translation is simply erroneous. Much time is reportedly spent by senators and staff reviewing the documents in question and ensuring that the translation is accurate. Other respondents reported that longer documents that had been translated by more than one individual were disjointed and difficult to read because a common style had not been used. Recommendations ranged from the need to hire specialized translators to facilitate the translation of committee reports on technical matters, to ensuring proper revision of translations before their delivery, and to the need to provide for a feedback mechanism that could be used to alert the Translation Bureau when errors were detected. ‘Issues related to the quality of interpretation were also raised. Some senators reported hearing literal translations that did not convey the true meaning of what the speaker had said. Others noted that regional expressions were not properly interpreted. Many respondents asked if it would be possible to have the same interpreters covering the Chamber and specific committees as this would ensure continuity. The need to upgrade the Senate's technological equipment was raised as devices in some committee rooms did not work properly. Some committee clerks noted that a more modern way for clerks to provide material to the interpreters was needed. Such technological upgrades could make communication of information quicker and more efficient.’Direct monetary cost of official bilingualism
In Official Language Policies of the Canadian Provinces: Costs and Benefits in 2006, published by theDistribution of wealth between official and Deaf, indigenous, and other unofficial linguistic communities
In MAKING THE MOST OF THE ACTION PLAN FOR OFFICIAL LANGUAGES 2018-2023: INVESTING IN OUR FUTURE, the standing Committee on Official languages states: ‘CPF British Columbia and Yukon has already identified three strategies: recruiting from other provinces and territories and from abroad; supporting post-secondary institutions so they can train more teachers; and supporting teachers.’ The linguistic provisions of theThe perception of official bilingualism as an exclusively bi-ethnocentric policy
The mandate of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was to The same report clarifies the status of Canada’s indigenous peoples relative to "the two founding races" in its Book I, General Introduction, Paragraph 21: Chapter I, Paragraph 19 states: Book II, Chapter V.E.1, Paragraph 325 indicates that the government's policy with reference to indigenous Canadians was ‘to integrate these students as completely as possible into the existing provincial school systems.’ Commissioner J. B. Rudnyckyj wrote a separate statement challenging his colleagues’ proposals for an exclusively Anglo-French language policy. Esperanto Services, Ottawa; the Indian-Eskimo Association of Canada, Toronto; and other organizations representing different indigenous and other unofficial-language communities likewise presented briefs that presented alternative notions to that of 'two founding races.'Francophone and Indigenous linguistic relations
In an Article in the National Post of 10 November 2017, Member of Parliament Romeo Saganash stated in reference to requiring Supreme-Court judges to speak English and French: “All Indigenous people in Canada speak one official language or the other, English or French,” Saganash argued. “To exclude that part of the population from the possibility of sitting on the Supreme Court has always seemed unacceptable to me.” Senator Murray Sinclair has opposed requiring Supreme Court judges to know both official languages too. An issue has been raised about the amount the federal government spends on francophone education in Nunavut, compared to the amount it spends for Indigenous language education: "According to numbers from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the federal government spends 44 times more on French in Nunavut than it does Inuktut—roughly $8,200 per Francophone speaker, versus just $186 per Inuktut speaker." In response to the appointment of Mary Simon (who is bilingual in English and Inuktitut) to the position of Governor General in July 2021, political scientist Stéphanie Chouinard, an assistant professor at Canada's Royal Military College inConflict of Principles
Prior to and at the start of European settlement, indigenous peoples, probably owing to the multiplicity of their languages, had embraced the principle of an international auxiliary language and personal bilingualism. By the 1960's, indigenous Canadians had already started to apply this principle to English. John Curotte, Chairman of the Caughnawaga Defence Committee, in a brief presented by that Committee to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1965, states: 'As to two languages, it has long been accepted that Red Men are entitled to their own original ancient language which precedes that of the languages of the Western World by thousands of years. However the Red Man welcomes, for the purpose of survival in a world of competition, a second language, which has proven to be the English language despite some 320 years of association with the French language which was the first white man's language heard by the Iroquois in about 1645. It is clear that we are part of a two-language world.' (Caughnawaga Defence Committee, 1965, 3) Though some French Canadians have likewise embraced the principle of an international auxiliary language and personal bilingualism, some prefer to apply this principle to Esperanto. French Canadians in positions of political power or influence continue to reject the principle of an international auxiliary language (and especially of English playing that role) in favour of the right of the 'two founding peoples' to personal unilingualism and the obligation of the state to serve them in their mother languages.Proposed alternatives to official bilingualism based on the personality principle
Official bi-unilingualism based on the territoriality principle
In Lament for a Notion, Scott Reid proposes maintaining the present official languages but deregulating them, limiting them mostly to the official sphere, and applying the territoriality principle except where numbers warrant it. Former Quebec Premier Jean Charest had called on the Federal Government to apply the Charter of the French Language to all federally-regulated institutions operating in the province of Quebec. Up until its reaction to the Government of Ontario's decision to eliminate the Office of the Commissioner of Francophone services in October 2018, Quebec had tended to oppose calls on the part of French-speakers to broaden French-language rights outside of that province such as when it opposed the ''Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon''’s call to gain the ability to admit more students to its French-language schools at the Supreme Court of Canada fearing that a victory for the French-language school board in Yukon could have negatively affected the promotion of French in Quebec.Official indigenous multilingualism based on the personality principle
In an article written by Gloria Galloway and published in the Globe and Mail on 8 July 2015, Galloway writes about how the Assembly of First Nations wants to make all of Canada’s indigenous languages official. She writes: ‘The head of the Assembly of First Nations is calling for the nearly 60 indigenous languages spoken in Canada to be declared official along with English and French, an expensive proposition but one that he says is becoming more urgent as the mother tongues of aboriginal peoples disappear. ‘Perry Bellegarde, who was elected National Chief of the AFN last fall, agrees it would not be easy to require translations of all indigenous languages to be printed on the sides of cereal boxes and milk cartons. ‘"That would be the ultimate goal," Mr. Bellegarde said in an interview on Wednesday at the three-day annual general meeting of the AFN, Canada's largest indigenous organization. "But let's do small steps to get there."’ Romeo Saganash has expressed the belief that Members of Parliament have a constitutional right to speak any of Canada’s indigenous languages in Parliament.Official indigenous multi-unilingualism based on the territoriality principle
Given the logistic and economic challenges of official multilingualism based on the personality principle, some proponents of an equal right to the indigenous language have proposed a policy of official indigenous unilingualism based on the territoriality principle whereby a local or regional government would have an obligation to provide services only in the local indigenous languages but not in any other of Canada’s indigenous languages. Some First Nations already apply this principle on territory under their jurisdiction.Official multilingualism or multi-unilingualism including one or more official sign languages whether according to the personality or territoriality principle
Some have proposed that Canada adopt ‘sign language’ as one of its official languages.Official interlingualism through an international auxiliary language
Others have argued that parents should be entitled to public funding for education in the language of their choice for their children according to market supply and demand and Esperanto as a second language. It is argued that such a policy would conform to the ''Universal Declaration of Human Rights''.Support and opposition
Poll data
Polls show that Canadians consistently and strongly support two key aspects of Canadian official languages policy: *bilingual federal government services, *the right of official-language minorities to receive an education in their maternal language. However, among English-speaking Canadians there is only limited support for broadening the scope of official bilingualism, and reservations exist among Anglophones as to the intrusiveness and/or fairness of the policy. Among Francophones, polls have revealed no such reservations. Among Anglophones, support for providing federal French-language services to French-speakers living outside Quebec has remained consistently high over a quarter-century period—79% in 1977 and 76% in 2002. Over the same period, support among English-speakers for the "right to French language education outside Quebec where numbers make costs reasonable" has ranged from 79% to 91%. Among French-speaking Canadians, support for these policies was even higher. The national consensus has, at times, broken down when other aspects of official bilingualism are examined. However, a significant shift in anglophone opinion has occurred since the mid-2000s, in favour of bilingualism. According to a review of three decades' worth of poll results published in 2004 by Andre Turcotte and Andrew Parkin, "Francophones in Quebec are almost unanimous in their support of the official languages policy" but "there is a much wider variation in opinion among Anglophones ..." This variation can be seen, for example, in responses to the question, "Are you, personally, in favour of bilingualism for all of Canada?" Between 1988 and 2003, support for this statement among Francophones ranged between 79% and 91%, but among Anglophones support was never higher than 48%, and fell as low as 32% in the early 1990s. The ebb in support for bilingualism among anglophones can likely be attributed to political developments in the late 1980s and 1990s, including the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, and the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence. By 2006, affirmative responses to the question "Are you personally in favour of bilingualism for all of Canada?" had increased considerably, with 72% of Canadians (and 64% of anglophones) agreeing. 70% of Canadians, and 64% of anglophones were "in favour of bilingualism for heirprovince". Support for bilingualism is thought likely to continue to increase, as young anglophones are more favourable to it than their elders. According to Turcotte and Parkin, other poll data reveal that "in contrast to Francophones, Anglophones, in general, have resisted putting more government effort and resources into promoting bilingualism ... What is revealing, however, is that only 11% of those outside Quebec said they disagreed with bilingualism in any form. Opposition seems to be directed to the actions of the federal government, rather than to bilingualism itself ... is distinction is key to understanding public opinion on the issue." This helps to explain results that would otherwise seem contradictory, such as a 1994 poll in which 56% of Canadians outside Quebec indicated that they either strongly or moderately supported official bilingualism, but 50% agreed with a statement that "the current official bilingualism policy should be scrapped because it's expensive and inefficient." In English Canada, there is some regional variation in attitudes towards federal bilingualism policy, but it is relatively modest when compared to the divergence between the views expressed by Quebecers and those expressed in the rest of the country. For example, in a poll conducted in 2000, only 22% of Quebecers agreed with the statement, “We have gone too far in pushing bilingualism,” while positive response rates in English Canada ranged from a low of 50% in the Atlantic to a high of 65% in the Prairies. Both French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians tend to regard the capacity to speak the other official language as having cultural and economic value, and both groups have indicated that they regard bilingualism as an integral element of the Canadian national identity. Once again, however, there is a marked divergence between the responses of French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians. In a 2003 poll, 75% of Francophones indicated that "having two official languages, English and French" made them proud to be Canadian. Among English-speakers, 55% said that bilingualism made them proud, but far higher percentages (86% and 94%, respectively) indicated that multiculturalism and the Charter of Rights made them feel proud.Findings of Public Hearings
From time to time, boards or panels are commissioned, either by the federal government or the government of one of the provinces, to conduct hearings into the public’s views on matters of policy. Some of these hearings have dealt largely, or even primarily, with official languages policy, and the responses that they have collected provide snapshots into the state of public opinion at particular points in time.Findings of the public hearings into the Poirier-Bastarache Report (1985)
The ''Advisory Committee on the Official Languages of New Brunswick'' was commissioned by the provincial legislature as a way of determining the response of the population to the 1982 Poirier-Bastarache Report, which had recommended a considerable expansion of French-language services. Public hearings were conducted in twelve cities and towns across the province in 1985, and a report was submitted by the committee in 1986. The briefs submitted to the Advisory Committee were subsequently summarized in an academic study of the hearings in the following terms:Findings of the Spicer Commission (1990)
In late 1990, a six-man ''Citizens’ Forum on Canada’s Future'' was established by the federal government with a mandate to engage in "a dialogue and discussion with and among Canadians ... to discuss the values and characteristics fundamental to the well-being of Canada". The Forum, which was headed by former Commissioner of Official Languages Keith Spicer, published a report in June 1991, which included a detailed discussion of Canadians’ reactions to a variety of issues, including federal official languages policy. These comments, which probably represent the most extensive consultation ever with Canadians on the subject of official bilingualism, were compiled statistically by the Spicer Commission, and tend to reinforce the findings of pollsters, that Canadians are favourable towards bilingual services, but frustrated with the implementation of official languages policy. Thus, for example, nearly 80% of group discussions sponsored by the Commission produced favourable comments from participants on what the commission's report refers to as "bilingualism generally", but nearly 80% of these discussions produced negative comments on "official languages policy". These results prompted Spicer to write,Advocacy groups
;Advocacy in support of expanding / extending official bilingualism exclusively of other language communities A number of groups exist, which, as part of their mandate, seek to promote official bilingualism or to extend the scope of the policy (although advocacy is not always the sole, or even the primary activity, of the groups). Among these groups: * Alliance Quebec (defunct) * L'Association des municipalités francophones du Nouveau-Brunswick * Canadian Parents for French, established with the assistance of the Commissioner of Official Languages in 1977, promotes French second-language education for children whose mother tongue is English; *Commission nationale des parents francophones *Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada serves as an umbrella for 22 groups representing French-speaking minorities in different provinces and territories; *Fédération des jeunes francophones du Nouveau-Brunswick *Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones *Positions of the federal political parties
Language issues currently dividing the parties
The issues on which Canada’s political parties have most recently shown divergent voting patterns are two private members’ bills. The first, ''An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (Charter of the French Language)'' (Bill C-482), was introduced by Bloc MPConservative Party of Canada and its predecessors
The Conservative Party of Canada was created in 2003 by the merger of the oldLiberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party sees itself as the party of official bilingualism, as it was a Liberal prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, who enacted the first ''Official Languages Act'' in 1969 and who entrenched detailed protections for the two official languages in the ''Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' in 1982. The depth of the party’s commitment to official bilingualism is demonstrated by the fact that the constitution of the Liberal Party contains provisions modelled almost word-for-word on Section 16(1) of the ''Charter of Rights'': "English and French are the official languages of the Party and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all federal institutions of the Party. In pursuing its fundamental purposes and in all its activities, the Party must preserve and promote the status, rights and privileges of English and French."New Democratic Party
New Democrat MPs voted in favour of the 1969 ''Official Languages Act'', the 1988 ''Official Languages Act'', and the protections for the two official languages contained in the ''Charter of Rights''. More recently, the party has edged towards supporting an asymmetrical version of bilingualism. Early in 2008, the party’s languages critic,Bloc Québécois
Although the main objective of the Bloc Québécois is to assist in the secession of Quebec, the party’s parliamentary caucus has maintained an active interest in issues relating to official languages policy (for example, sending MPs to participate in the standing Commons committee on official languages). The party seeks to alter federal language policy, as it applies within Quebec, so as to eliminate the statutory equality of English that is guaranteed under the ''Official Languages Act'' and other federal legislation. In recent years, this has included introducing a private member's bill titled ''An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (Charter of the French Language)'' (better known as Bill C-482), intended to supersede the ''Official Languages Act'' with the ''Charter of the French Language'' for all federally regulated corporations within Quebec, this principle uses an asymmetrical conception of federalism inSee also
* '' Attorney General of Quebec v. Blaikie'' * ''References
Further reading
* Gagnon, Robert (1996). ''Anglophones at the C.E.C.M.: a Reflection of the Linguistic Duality of Montréal''. Trans. by Peter Keating. Montréal: Commission des écoles catholiques de Montréal. 124 p., ill. with b&w photos.External links