Ottawa, September 9, 2009
Notes for an address at the symposium
40 Years of Official Languages: Our History and the Path Ahead
Graham Fraser – Commissioner of Official Languages
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Good morning, and welcome.
It is humbling to inaugurate a symposium entitled 40 Years of Official Languages: Our History and the Path Ahead in the presence of my predecessors—and so many people who have devoted their working lives to making the Official Languages Act a success.
Each of my predecessors worked within a unique political and social context. Keith Spicer was the pioneer, introducing the concept of a commissioner of official languages to Canadians. Max Yalden took over just as Bill 101 was voted into law in Quebec, becoming the Charter of the French Language. The late D’Iberville Fortier was there when the Act was amended for the first time. Victor Goldbloom absorbed the tensions surrounding the Charlottetown Accord and the referendums of 1992 and 1995—as well as the cutbacks of the mid-1990s. Dyane Adam was Commissioner during the creation of the Action Plan and the amendment in 2005 that reinforced the Act. I want to thank them all, and express my appreciation for the extraordinary work they did. Later today, we will hear from those who are with us.
I would also like to take this opportunity to recognize the contribution of Wallace Lambert, who passed away last week, and who inspired several new fields of study in bilingualism and social psychology. After debunking the myths that learning a second language would curb a student’s intellect, he proved the contrary; that it boosts proficiency in both the mother and adoptive tongues. He also led the way in terms of immersion, having played an important role in launching the first French-immersion program in Canada.
Thanks to your hard work and dedication, we have a great deal to celebrate on this 40th anniversary of the coming into force of the Official Languages Act.
By next year, it will be five years since Part VII of the Act was strengthened, giving federal institutions an obligation to take positive measures in favour of official language communities and promote English and French. The time has come for the federal government to work more closely, and perhaps in new ways, with its partners to ensure that it fulfills its language obligations.
The development of official language communities is at the very core of the Act and of my mandate. When a commissioner has chosen to go to court, it has been in support of individuals or groups from official language communities. Those court cases have helped strengthen Canada’s language rights and further our understanding of them.
Since the Act came into effect, there have been some clear successes on the part of the federal government.
The government is now able, three times out of four, to communicate with citizens in English or French. That proportion is clearly insufficient, but it is an improvement. The routines of government have become bilingual; documents, forms and procedures are readily available in both languages. Individual citizens can correspond with their government in either language, and receive a response in that language. This may sound basic by today’s standards, but four decades ago, communications with and from government were not so simple.
French has become—as an ambassador remarked to me not long ago—the language of ambition in the federal public service. There is now a critical mass of bilingual employees: something that seemed unthinkable 40 years ago.
It is now taken for granted that Canada’s federal political party leaders, the Governor General and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court must speak both languages.
There are some quiet signs of mutual comprehension. Earlier this year, at the concert marking the 40th anniversary of the National Arts Centre—an institution that consistently gets high marks in our annual reports—there was as much laughter and applause at the jokes in French as there was at the jokes in English: an indication that wit in Ottawa can be bilingual.
So we have enjoyed some success. But often our success is overshadowed by failures—by the distance that remains to be travelled before both official languages achieve equal status. For there is indeed a long way to go.
In general, there is a failure of imagination. Canadians fail to realize that English and French are Canadian languages, that they are not only part of our history, but also current assets: these languages belong to all Canadians, regardless of whether—as individuals—they are bilingual. Linguistic duality represents the country, as much as the flag or the national anthem.
To achieve that understanding, we need to develop a linguistic duality reflex: a sense of national ceremony. This would mean that if an event is provincial or local, it might be in only one official language—although, in many areas, having it in both official languages would be at the very least beneficial. But, if an event is national, if it is Canadian, it is incomplete if it is not conducted in both English and French.
It is difficult, however, to achieve such a reflex when, 40 years after the Act was adopted, people still do not understand its true purpose. It is not, and never has been, about making everyone learn both languages. Its purpose is to ensure that government institutions become bilingual so that people don’t have to; and its purpose is to ensure that official language communities not only survive, but also thrive.
The symbolism and the substance of official bilingualism are still misunderstood.
A classic example of this misunderstanding is the discussion that has occurred over MP Yvon Godin’s private member’s bill calling for all Supreme Court justices to be able to hear cases in either English or French, without interpretation.
Even some of those sympathetic to official languages think that such a bill would discriminate against certain regions. How could lawyers and judges from Alberta or British Columbia aspire to a seat on the highest court in the land, they wonder.
However, this is not about a right to federal jobs. This is about ensuring that justice is served. Laws in Canada are not translated; they are drafted in English and in French simultaneously. One version does not have precedence over the other. As early as 1935, the Supreme Court based a decision on a French text rather than an English text.
Currently, eight of the nine judges can read and follow French, including Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. She was born in Pincher Creek, Alberta, practised law in Alberta, taught in British Columbia and served on the British Columbia Supreme Court and the British Columbia Court of Appeal before being named to the Supreme Court.
It seems only normal and reasonable that those who plead before the Supreme Court should be able to do so in the official language of their choice—and know that they will be understood as they express themselves, and not through the voice of an interpreter. Yet throughout much of Canada, this opinion is still seen as some kind of regional bias.
Forty years after the Official Languages Act came into effect, our education system does not emphasize enough the importance of learning both official languages. The demand for immersion programs vastly outweighs the supply, despite the proven success of such programs. Post-secondary institutions—with the honourable exceptions of Glendon College, the University of Ottawa, Simon Fraser’s Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs and a few others—have been slow to recognize that Canada’s largest employer, the federal government, needs bilingual employees.
In October, my office will release a study looking at second-language learning opportunities at the post-secondary level. This study considered all levels of second-language learning opportunities offered at Canadian universities. Sadly, the results were less than reassuring.
Although an increasing number of universities offer programs that specifically cater to immersion students, too few are helping students realize their true potential in their second language. If, for example, you study public administration in Canada, there is more than a remote chance you will be working for the federal government. Still, many universities in Canada teach public administration as if bilingualism was not a reality in the federal public service.
Hundreds of thousands of our youth are now enrolled in immersion or advanced French programs. Many will need English and French in their working lives. Why then is the learning continuum broken when they enter university?
Canada’s official languages policy ensures a constant need for bilingual citizens and public servants. Our education system must support that demand at all levels.
Ottawa, a bilingual city?
In any discussion of the shortcomings and opportunities of language policy in Canada, I would be remiss if I did not mention Ottawa, Canada’s capital.
In a few months, it will be 40 years since the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism published its fifth book, The Federal Capital. At the beginning of Chapter 1, the commissioners wrote:
First, a capital is a symbol of a country as a whole. It should express, in the best way possible, the values of the country as a whole, its way of life, its cultural richness and diversity, its social outlook, its aspirations for the future. This symbolism has both an internal and an external dimension. Citizens from across the country who visit their capital should find in it a fuller understanding of their country’s traditions and a pride in personal identification with it. Similarly, visitors from other countries should be able just as readily to find tangible expression of the values of a country with which they may be unfamiliar.1
After hearing testimony, the commissioners found that the language and culture of English-speaking Canada predominates in Ottawa; that a Francophone resident or visitor cannot feel “at home;” “that the federal capital is like a foreign territory to a substantial sector of the Canadian population.”2
Forty years ago, Ottawa City Council refused to allow traffic signs in French; there were difficulties testifying in court in French; it was difficult to get served in French in stores and shops.
Clearly, there have been many improvements since then. Today, traffic signs, municipal notices, trials and court services all occur in both languages. As well, most municipal services are now offered in both languages following the adoption of a bilingualism policy in 2001.
However, we are still a long way from having a truly bilingual city.
It is still difficult, walking the streets, shopping or attending cultural events, to feel that both official languages have equal status. Too often, there are cultural events in Ottawa where the written program has been carefully translated—but not a word of French is heard. Ottawa continues to resist the idea of being a bilingual capital in the full sense of the term.
I am looking forward to the conference on cities and bilingualism that we are helping to organize next year. The event will explore the approaches that Canadian and international cities have taken towards bilingualism. Places like Russell Township and the City of Moncton (although it is in a bilingual province) serve as examples of communities where positive measures have been taken toward equally recognizing both language communities that make up these places.
Conclusion
I would like to conclude with a comment by Northrop Frye. It was cited by Progressive Conservative MP Gordon Fairweather in the debate over the Official Languages Act in the House of Commons in the summer of 1969. I think it expresses perfectly the idealism and the ambition that the Act represents. Fairweather, you will recall, went on to be Canada’s first chief commissioner of human rights.
The Canada to which we really do owe loyalty is the Canada that we have failed to create. I should like to suggest that our identity, like the real identity of all nations, is the one that we have failed to achieve.3
For me, those words express not discouragement, but determination to be true to the vision of what Canada can achieve. While reality still falls short of the ideals we have set, it is that sense of the unachieved ideal, the identity that we wish to assume, the standard that we are constantly trying to reach that reflects the spirit of the Official Languages Act.
It suggests that the spirit of the law represents a journey as much as a destination. And, I would argue, it is an enriching and challenging journey for all of us—and for Canada.
1. Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Book V: The Federal Capital, Queen’s Printer for Canada, Ottawa, 1970, p. 3.
2. Ibid., pp. 5–6.
3. Northrop Frye, The Modern Century, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. 122–123.
