Before confederation

After confederation

Bilingual (English/French) stop sign on Parliament Hill in Ottawa^[7]

Royal Military College Paladins Bilingual (English/French) Scoreboard, inner field, Royal Military College of Canada^[8]

Bilingual (French/English) sign for Preston Street (rue Preston) in Ottawa, placed above a sign marking that the street is in Little Italy, an example of bilingualism at the municipal government level^[9]

In 1867, the use of both English and French for official Acts,parliamentary debates, parliamentary publications, and federal court cases was mandated, as mandated by Section 133 of the British North America Act, 1867.

Constitution Act, 1867 (Section 133)

English and French have had limited constitutional protection since 1867. Section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867 guarantees either language may be used in federal courts and the Parliament of Canada, and must be used in its parliamentary journals, records, and acts.

Similar obligations are placed on the Province of Quebec.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Sections 16–23)

Language rights are primarily provided in sections 16–23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which became law in 1982 and declares English and French Canada's official languages. Sections 16–19 guarantee them equal status in federal parliament, government institutions and courts; require all statutes, records and journals of Parliament be published in both languages; and give both those versions equal authority. Section 20 guarantees each Canadian's right to English or French communication with every central office of the federal government and with each of its regional offices on which exists "a significant demand for communication with and services from that office". Significant demand is not defined in the Charter itself but in the Official Languages Act of 1988.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms places similar constitutional obligations on the Province of New Brunswick, making it the only officially bilingual province in Canada.^[10] (Both languages are official in all three territories by statute: Yukon, Nunavut along with Inuit languages, and the Northwest Territories along with Inuit, Métis, and many First Nations languages besides.)

Section 21 ensures that the Charter supplements, rather than replaces, any English or French language rights constitutionalized previously. Section 22 ensures that the Charter does not affect rights of other languages.

Education rights (Sections 23 and 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.

Language 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.^[13]

Section 57 states that the "English and French versions of this Act [i.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.^[14]

Official Languages Act

Bilingual logo of the Government of Canada

Canada adopted its first Official Languages Act in 1969,^[15] 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.^[16]

In addition to formalizing Charter provisions in Parts I through IV, the act adopts several specific measures to achieve these objectives.^[17] For example, Part V specifies that the work environment in federal institutions in the National Capital Region and other prescribed bilingual regions be conducive to accommodating the use of French and English at work.^[18] Part VI mandates that English-speaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians not be discriminated against based on ethnic origin or first language learned when it comes to employment opportunities and advancement.^[19]

Finally, the act establishes a Commissioner of Official Languages^[20] and specifies their duties to hear and investigate complaints, make recommendations to Parliament, and delegate authority in matters pertaining to official languages in Canada.^[21] Canada's current Commissioner of Official Languages is Raymond Théberge.

Section 32 of the Official Languages Act authorizes the Governor in Council (i.e., the federal cabinet) to issue regulations that define the geographic regions where the federal government offers services in the relevant minority language (English in Quebec and French elsewhere).^[22]

This provides a legal definition for the otherwise vague requirement that services be provided in the minority official languages wherever there is "significant demand." The definition used in the regulations is complex, but basically an area of the country is served in both languages if at least 5,000 persons in that area, or 5% of the local population (whichever is smaller), belongs to that province's English or French linguistic minority population.^[23]

Regulations were first promulgated in 1991.^[24]

New Brunswick

Of Canada's ten provinces, only one (New Brunswick) has voluntarily chosen to become officially bilingual. New Brunswick's bilingual status is constitutionally entrenched under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Sections 16–20 of the Charter include parallel sections guaranteeing the same rights at the federal level and at the provincial level (New Brunswick only).

• Section 16(2) is a largely symbolic statement that "English and French are the official languages of New Brunswick" with "equality of status".
• Section 17(2) guarantees the right to use English or French in the New Brunswick legislature
• Section 18(2) states that New Brunswick's laws will be bilingual, with both texts equally authoritative, and that official publications will be bilingual.
• Section 19(2) guarantees the right to use either official language in all New Brunswick court proceedings.
• Section 20(2) guarantees the right to receive provincial government services in either official language.

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.^[28] 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%.^[29] In 1890, the provincial government of Thomas Greenway stripped funding from the French school system and revoked the equal status of French, a controversial move that caused tension between French and English speakers throughout Canada.^[30]

Despite the protests of Franco-Manitobans that the act had been violated, Manitoba remained monolingual in practice until the early 1980s, when legal challenges created a crisis that threatened to invalidate almost all laws passed in Manitoba since 1890, on the grounds that these statutes were not published in French as required by the act.^[31] The provincial government under Howard Pawley tried and failed to address the crisis, with the opposition refusing to attend legislative sessions.^[31] In 1985 the Supreme Court ruled that the act had been violated and that all provincial legislation must be published in both French and English, restoring the legal equality of the languages that had existed when the province was created.^[32] While this restoration of legal equality faced overwhelming public opposition at the time,^[31] polls taken in 2003 showed a majority of Manitobans supported provincial bilingualism.^[33]

Due to Manitoba's unique history, it has a complex bilingual profile combining that of a province with a "small official-language minority and one with constitutional protection of said minority".^[34] Currently, the French Language Services Policy guarantees access to provincial government services in French, though in practice French language services are available only in some areas.^[4] Public primary and secondary education is provided in both French and English, and parents are free to choose instruction in either language.^[35] Post-secondary Francophone education is provided by the Université de Saint-Boniface, the oldest university in Western Canada.^[36]

Quebec

Bilingual sign in a Quebec supermarket with markedly predominant French text

Older street sign in Montreal with the word Avenue covered up. Although Avenue is also a French word, in French it would precede the street name Earnscliffe.

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, the Parti Québécois government of René Lévesque introduced the Charter of the French Language (better known as "Bill 101") to promote and preserve the French language in the province, indirectly disputing the federal bilingualism policy. Initially, Bill 101 banned the use of all languages but French on most commercial signs in the province (except for companies with four employees or fewer), but those limitations were later loosened by allowing other languages on signs, as long as the French version is predominant. Bill 101 also requires that children of most immigrants residing in Quebec attend French-language public schools; the children of Canadian citizens who have received their education in Canada in English may attend English-language public schools, which are operated by English-language school boards throughout the province. The controversy over this part of Quebec's language legislation has lessened in recent years as these laws became more entrenched and the public use of French increased.^[37]

Quebec's language laws have been the subject of a number of legal rulings. In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the case of Ford v. Quebec (A.G.) that the commercial sign law provisions of Bill 101, which banned the use of the English language on outdoor signs, were unconstitutional. In 1989, the Quebec National Assembly invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights to set aside enforcement of the court ruling for five years. A UN appeal of the 'McIntyre Case' resulted in a condemnation of Quebec's sign law – regardless of the legality of the notwithstanding clause under Canadian law. In response, in 1993 Quebec enacted amendments to the sign law, availing itself of the suggestions proposed in the 1988 Supreme Court ruling by allowing other languages on commercial signs, subject to French being markedly predominant .

On March 31, 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that the interpretation made by the provincial administration of the "major part" criterion in Quebec's language-of-instruction provisions violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This criterion allows students who have completed the "major part" of their primary education in English in Canada to continue their studies in English in Quebec. The court did not strike down the law but, as it had done in its 1988 ruling on sign laws, presented the province with a set of criteria for interpreting the law in conformity with the Charter of Rights, broadening the interpretation of the phrase "major part".

It is also illegal for signs on streets and highways in Quebec to contain English translations, thus most road signs in Quebec are in French-only although in 2018 efforts were underway to change that.^[38]

On May 24, 2022, Bill 96 was passed, amending the Charter of the French Language, with 78 MNAs in favour (from the Coalition Avenir Québec and Québec solidaire) and 29 against (from the Liberal Party and Parti Québécois).^[39]

Territories

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 in Nunavut, being languages of the territory's Inuit population.

The Northwest Territories accords official status to nine aboriginal languages (Chipewyan, Cree, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey, and Tłįchǫ/Dogrib). NWT residents have the right to use any of the territory's eleven official languages in a territorial court and in debates and proceedings of the legislature. However, laws are legally binding only in their French and English versions, and the government publishes laws and other documents in the territory's other official languages only when asked by the legislature. Furthermore, access to services in any language is limited to institutions and circumstances where there is significant demand for that language or where it is reasonable to expect it given the nature of the services requested. In practice, this means that only English language services are universally available, and there is no guarantee that any particular government service will use other languages except the courts. Following a 2006 territorial supreme court ruling, Fédération Franco-Ténoise v. Canada (Attorney General), universal French-language services are also mandatory.

This is despite the fact that the proportion of native French-speakers in the territories is negligible, and they are vastly outnumbered by speakers of indigenous languages. At the 2016 census, there were 1,455 "mother-tongue" speakers of French in Yukon (4.3%), 1,175 in the Northwest Territories (2.9%), and 595 in Nunavut (1.7%).^[40]

Elsewhere in Canada

A bilingual English and French sign in Lake Superior Provincial Park

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,^[41] 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.

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 French

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.^[113]

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.^[114]

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.’^[115]

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.’^[116]

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.^[117]

Federal party leaders often master the official languages poorly themselves^[118] and even Senate translators might fail to master their languages of work well enough to provide trustworthy translations^[119]

According to an article in the Globe and Mail published on 13 February 2019:

‘Growing demand from parents for French immersion has created a shortage of teachers in many parts of the country, with some school boards settling for educators who can speak French only slightly better than their students, according to a new report.’^[120]

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.’^[121]

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.’^[119]

Direct monetary cost of official bilingualism

In Official Language Policies of the Canadian Provinces: Costs and Benefits in 2006, published by the Fraser Institute in 2012, we read on page xii:

‘In our previous study, Official Language Policies at the Federal Level in Canada: Costs and Benefits in 2006, we estimated that the total cost of federal bilingualism at $1.8 billion. Since these expenditures include transfers to provinces that are spent by them on official language programs (Vaillancourt and Coche, 2009: 25, table 1), aggregating federal, provincial, and local spending must net out these transfers to avoid double counting. Once transfers are netted out, we have $1.5 billion at the federal level and $868 million at the local and provincial level for a total rounded of $2.4 billion or $85 per capita for 2006/07.’^[122]

Distribution 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.’^[123]

The linguistic provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Official Languages Act, the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act,^[124] the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and other laws obligate a greater demand for English and French speakers (even foreign ones if necessary) than a freer linguistic market would require. This, combined with English and French being more difficult to learn than some languages due to their orthographic (especially for the Deaf, dyslexics, and Deaf-dyslexics), grammatical, and lexical particularities, accentuates the wealth gap between official and Deaf, indigenous, and other unofficial language communities by limiting market supply and blocking equal access to Federal and federally-regulated employment ranging from the packaging and labelling industries all the way up to appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada for unofficial language communities. Perry Bellegarde and Romeo Sagansh have addressed this concern as it applies to indigenous peoples.^[125][126]

In Parlez-vous francais? The advantages of bilingualism in Canada, published by the Canadian Council on Learning, page 4 states:

‘The bilingual advantage appears to extend to individual income. According to the 2001 Canadian census, people who speak both official languages had a median income ($24,974) that was nearly 10% higher than that of those who speak English only ($22,987) and 40% higher than that of those who speak French only ($17,659). Similar gaps remain after controlling for individual characteristics such as educational attainment and work experience.’^[115]

While the inherent difficulties of English and French can prevent some from learning them well, their international spread can greatly benefit those who have the means to learn them well.^[127]

The perception of official bilingualism as an exclusively bi-ethnocentric policy

The mandate of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was to

inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution.^[128]

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:

We should point out here that the Commission will not examine the question of the Indians and the Eskimos. Our terms of reference contain no allusion to Canada's native populations. They speak of "two founding races," namely Canadians of British and French origin, and "other ethnic groups," but mention neither the Indians nor the Eskimos. Since it is obvious that these two groups do not form part of the "founding races," as the phrase is used in the terms of reference, it would logically be necessary to include them under the heading "other ethnic groups." Yet it is clear that the term "other ethnic groups" means those peoples of diverse origins who came to Canada during or after the founding of the Canadian state and that it does not include the first inhabitants of this country.^[25]

Chapter I, Paragraph 19 states:

Still, as we have pointed out earlier, there is such a thing as a French culture and a British culture. Of course, the differences between them are not as great as they would be if either were compared to one of the many Asian or African cultures. In Canada, the Anglophones and the Francophones wear the same sort of clothing, live in the same sort of houses, and use the same tools . They are very similar in their social behaviour, belong to religions which are not exclusive, and share the same general knowledge. To a greater or lesser extent, they share a North American way of living.^[25]

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.’^[129]

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.'^[130]

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.”^[126]

Senator Murray Sinclair has opposed requiring Supreme Court judges to know both official languages too.^[131]

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."^[132]

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 in Kingston, Ontario, said that the Trudeau government has put Canada's francophone communities in an "impossible position": "No one in Canada wants to be against reconciliation," she said. "Francophone communities know better than most what it means to be a linguistic minority and how important it is to acknowledge Indigenous languages." But Chouinard said English Canadians would likely balk if a governor general spoke an Indigenous language and French but not a word of English."^[133]

In the fall of 2022, further Franco-indigenous tensions erupted after the Treasury Board rejected an idea pitched by some Indigenous public servants to offer "blanket exemptions" so they don't have to learn both of Canada's official languages.^[134]

Conflict 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.^[135]

By the 1960s, 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)^[136]

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.^[137]

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.^[133]

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.^[138]

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.^[139]

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.^[140][141]

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."’^[125] Romeo Saganash has expressed the belief that Members of Parliament have a constitutional right to speak any of Canada’s indigenous languages in Parliament.^[142]

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.^[143]

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.^[144] It is argued that such a policy would conform to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.^[145]

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.^[146] 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%.^[147] 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.^[148]

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 ..."^[149]

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.^[150] 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.^[148]

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 [their] province".^[148] Support for bilingualism is thought likely to continue to increase, as young anglophones are more favourable to it than their elders.^[148]

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 ... [T]his distinction is key to understanding public opinion on the issue."^[151] 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."^[152]

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.^[153]

Both French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians tend to regard the capacity to speak the other official language as having cultural and economic value,^[154] 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.^[155]

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.

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
• Francophone Association of Municipalities of Ontario seeks to oversee the maintenance and development of municipal government services in French, in Ontario municipalities with French-speaking populations.
• Impératif français seeks to promote the use of French within Quebec, and to challenge inequalities between the languages that may arise within areas of federal administration.
• Quebec Community Groups Network serves as an umbrella for 38 English language community organizations across Quebec for the purposes of supporting and assisting the development and enhancing the vitality of the English-speaking minority communities;
• Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick

Advocacy in favour of restraining or abolishing official bilingualism

A number of groups have existed, since the first Official Languages Act was proclaimed in 1969, which sought to end official bilingualism or to reduce the scope of the policy. Among these groups:

• The Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada (often referred to as "APEC"). In 2000, the group was renamed Canadians Against Bilingualism Injustice.^[161] In 2001, the organization changed its name again, becoming the Canadian Network for Language Awareness.;^[162]
• Canadians for Language Fairness;
• The New Brunswick Association of English-speaking Canadians was formed in 1984 and disbanded in 1986. Its primary purpose was to oppose the proposals of the province's "Poirier-Bastarache Committee" for an expansion of the province's policy of official bilingualism.

In the first decade or so following the 1969 adoption of the act, opposition to the new policy sometimes took a radical form that has subsequently nearly disappeared. Books such as Jock V. Andrew's Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow, advocated either the repeal of the Official Languages Act or an end to the policy of official bilingualism. Leonard Jones, the mayor of Moncton, New Brunswick, was an aggressive opponent of bilingualism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Jones challenged the validity of the Official Languages Act in court, arguing that the subject matter was outside the jurisdiction of the federal government. In 1974, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Jones, and found the law constitutional. In 1991, a local resurgence in anti-bilingualism sentiments allowed the Confederation of Regions Party to win 21.2% of the vote in New Brunswick's provincial election and to briefly form the official opposition with eight seats in the provincial legislature.

Some organizations or individuals within certain movements also propose introducing a more inclusive language policy either via official multilingualism, or an official unilingual language policy in an auxiliary language so as to intrude minimally into the first-language choice of residents. Such ideas are sometimes inspired by Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights relating to discrimination on the basis of language, and Article 26(3) of the same Declaration so as to give parents the freedom “to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” Others can be inspired by religious or other beliefs.

Assembly of First Nations: National First Nations Language Strategy, presented by the Assembly of First Nations on 5 July 2007, inspired by previous statements including the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples presented in 1996, rejects official bilingualism in favour of linguistic equality for speakers of indigenous languages:

“First Nations seek legislated protection via a First Nations Languages Act that would be consistent with First Nations and Government of Canada laws dealing with languages.”

The French Nation of Canada (FRENCA): The NAFRAC favours a more interlingual approach to language policy that promotes the local sign language, the local indigenous language, Esperanto or another international auxiliary language, and more linguistic freedom in unofficial domains.^[163]

Positions of the federal political parties

Positions of other political figures