Ottawa, October 17, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Commissioner's position on the review of the Social Policy Framework Agreement
A letter sent to the Honourable Jane E. Stewart and the Honourable Peter G. Christie, Co-Chairs of the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Council on Social Policy Renewal.
Dear Co-chairs:
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to share some of my thoughts on the Social Union Framework Agreement for the review your Council is currently conducting. I would also like to congratulate the federal, provincial and territorial governments for their leadership in negotiating the Framework Agreement. Their commitment to transparency and accountability in building our social infrastructure places Canada on the leading edge of democracy.
The Social Union Framework Agreement is extremely important given the breadth of issues that government social programs seek to address. The future of Canadian society depends on the governments' ability to work together in order to be able to meet the challenges we face in the first half of the 21st century.
The Social Union Framework Agreement is a keystone of the advancement of Canada's official languages. In the first agreement, there was no mention of linguistic duality as a foundation of the Canadian social union. Yet linguistic duality was originally and continues to be at the heart of the Canadian social contract; it is an integral part of our social union.
Failure to include linguistic duality in the Framework Agreement has had and will continue to have negative impacts on Canadian unity. It has hampered the advancement of English and French and weakened the vitality of official language minority communities. This omission has carried over to agreements made in the wake of the Framework Agreement, such as the Early Childhood Development Agreement.
It appears to me that, when the Constitution Act, 1982 was adopted, the federal, provincial and territorial governments made a commitment to ensure that English and French would be Canada's official languages. They have committed to advancing the equality of these two languages and to enhancing the vitality of official language minority communities.
The Canadian social union is lived out every day in English and French. It involves all sectors of social activity, including health, social services, immigration, culture, the status of women, labour market development , human resources development, poverty in general and child poverty in particular, senior citizens, childcare services, housing, the environment, rural development, Northern development and literacy.
Now it is time to make some changes. Changing the Framework Agreement so that it effectively supports the advancement of English and French and the preservation and development of official language communities in Canada would honour the 1982 constitutional commitment.
Official languages are at the very heart of Canada's underlying values. It is imperative that the Social Union Framework Agreement be changed to accurately reflect Canada's linguistic duality and the unwritten constitutional principle of respect for and protection of minorities. Appropriate implementation measures should also be identified in the agreement.
Yours sincerely,
Dyane Adam
Commissioner of Official Languages
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