Official bilingualism in Canada
The official languages of Canada are English and French,[1] which "have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and Government of Canada," according to Canada's constitution.[2] "Official bilingualism" is the term used in Canada to collectively describe the policies, constitutional provisions, and laws that ensure legal equality of English and French in the Parliament and courts of Canada, protect the linguistic rights of English- and French-speaking minorities in different provinces, and ensure a level of government services in both languages across Canada.[3]
In addition to the symbolic designation of English and French as official languages, official bilingualism is generally understood to include any law or other measure that:
At the provincial level, the Constitution Act, 1982 recognizes and guarantees the equal status of French and English in New Brunswick. While French has equal legal status in Manitoba restored due to a court ruling, Reference re Manitoba Language Rights, that struck down seventy-year-old English-only laws in 1985, in practice, French language services are only provided in some regions of the province.[4] Quebec has declared itself officially unilingual (French only). Alberta and Saskatchewan are also considered unilingual (English only).[5] In practice, all provinces, including Quebec, offer some services in both English and French and some publicly funded education in both official languages up to the high school level (English-language post-secondary education institutions are also present in Quebec, as are French language post-secondary institutions in other provinces, in particular in Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick). English and French are official languages in all three territories. In addition, Inuktitut is also an official language in Nunavut, and nine aboriginal languages have official status in the Northwest Territories.
Educational, linguistic, economic, and other challenges of official bilingualism[edit]
Success rates in second-language instruction[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
The mandate of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was to
Proposed alternatives to official bilingualism based on the personality principle[edit]
Official bi-unilingualism based on the territoriality principle[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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 interlingualism through an international auxiliary language[edit]
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]