INTRODUCTION
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This report summarizes and analyzes the principal decisions on language rights rendered by the courts in the 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 fiscal years. While not exhaustive, it is intended as a reference tool for people directly or indirectly interested in these rights.
The cases considered in this report illustrate a variety of areas affected by language rights. Judgments have dealt with topics such as minority-language education rights, the use of the two official languages in proceedings of Parliament, language rights in the administration of justice and the right to communicate with and receive services from government institutions in the official language of choice.
The right to minority-language education continues to be an issue before the courts. In the Nguyen4 and Bindra5 judgments, the Court of Appeal of Quebec applied the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Solski6 decision and determined that legislation further restricting access to English instruction was contrary to section 23(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.7 In the Northwest Territories, the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories made several rulings in an ongoing legal battle between the French-language school board and the territorial government, which will have to decide, inter alia, which of the two has the right to determine who has access to minority-language schools.
According to the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada, language rights and the right to a fair trial are distinct in nature. However, this distinction remains misunderstood. Recently, the Ontario Court of Appeal applied this principle in the Belende v. Patel8 decision, while the Court of Appeal for the Yukon Territory failed to make the distinction between language rights and the right to a fair trial in Kilrich Industries Ltd. v. Halotier.9
In R. v. Caron,10 a case that began with a simple traffic violation, the defendant successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Alberta Languages Act,11 which provides that all acts or regulations may be enacted, printed and published solely in the English language. However, the debate on this issue is not over, since the case has been appealed to the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta.
Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered two important judgments involving language rights and services to the public. In Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick Inc. v. Canada,12 the Court determined that members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a federal institution, are required, when performing the duties of provincial police officers, to fulfill the constitutional language obligations imposed on institutions of the New Brunswick government and therefore offer services in both official languages everywhere in the province. In DesRochers v. Canada (Industry),13 the Court found that substantive equality does not necessarily translate into identical services for each language community. Rather, linguistic equality in government services must be defined in light of the nature and purpose of the service in question. While the first of these two judgments is an important victory for members of New Brunswick’s French-speaking community, the latter is expected to have major repercussions for all official language minority communities throughout the country.
