Ottawa, May 4, 2006
Linguistic Duality and Social Inclusion : Drawing on More than One Source
Notes for a speech to the International Summit for the Alliance on Social Inclusion
Dr. Dyane Adam - Commissioner of Official Languages
Check against delivery
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honour for me to be able to participate in this International Summit for the Alliance on Social Inclusion.
It is a pleasure to salute the efforts of all those men and women who work tirelessly for a fairer society based on respect and inclusiveness, in the spirit of the Montréal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities.
Good governance is more than simply a matter of guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of a country's citizens. We are not really free unless we are working together for the good of all. People achieve a deep sense of solidarity when they work together toward equality of opportunity.
In Canada, therefore, we think that our linguistic duality and our legislated commitment to enhancing the vitality of the English and French minorities are powerful drivers of social inclusion. There is nothing inherently extraordinary about this vision, but it is one that has long been germinating in the rich soil of our values, so that Canadians now understand they will not be able to build an equitable, pluralistic society tomorrow if they do not succeed in ensuring linguistic equity today.
Perhaps you wonder why I am talking about Canadian linguistic duality at a summit on social inclusion. It’s a long time since I was active in the field of clinical psychology. Nevertheless I believe there are some fairly significant commonalities between my current area of work and the work you do, particularly in the context of this event, which brings together people from different traditions in the field of social inclusiveness.
Languages, identities, cultures and values: these plural words express the core of my work as Commissioner of Official Languages. As many of you know, my role as language ombudsman is governed by the Official Languages Act. The Act proclaims the equality of English and French in all federal institutions, and in effect, it proposes an inclusive partnership between English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians.
The federal government operates in both languages, and the provinces are encouraged to provide services to the public in the language of the minority, where numbers warrant. A key objective of the Act is to give the official language minority communities real and realistic choices in matters of growth and development.
My function, like yours, is to be an agent of change. Today I will be drawing on my experience as an agent of change to share with you some thoughts about the unique dynamics of Canada’s official language communities from the point of view of social inclusion. In so doing, I will highlight the importance of creating synergies between the European and North American approaches.
But before I turn to these matters, I would like to say a few words of praise for the City of Montréal. You will soon see why.
Montréal, city of dialogue
When you go out for a walk in the street, take a quick look around and you will immediately be struck by the linguistic and cultural uniqueness of Montréal. First, this is the second largest French-speaking city in the world. Equally striking, it is a modern, pluralist city where different languages, cultures and values routinely interact.
Montréal, the city of a hundred bell towers, reflects the growing diversity of Canadian society. This is a cosmopolitan crossroads, where Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas meet, and where the English-speaking and French-speaking worlds are in contact; in short, a major locus of the intercultural dialogue that is a requirement in any postmodern society.
Montréal has more bilingual workers and students than any other city in Canada—over 50 percent. Montréal also has the highest concentration in the western hemisphere of people speaking at least three languages. According to the 2001 Census, a little over 50 percent of Quebeckers who reported a mother tongue other than English or French claimed to be trilingual. This flourishing cultural and linguistic diversity suggests that new identities will be emerging, identities that are, so to speak, “additive” and inclusive, and that recognize and respect others.
What lessons should we draw from the situation in Montréal?
In The Malaise of Modernity, the philosopher Charles Taylor, a Montrealer with a deep emotional and intellectual attachment to the city, calls on us to think about what it really means to recognize differences. To quote him :
To come together on a mutual recognition of difference—that is, of equal value of different identities—requires that we share more than a belief in this principle; we have to share also some standards of value on which the identities concerned check out as equal. There must be some substantive agreement on value, or else the formal principle of equality will be empty and a sham.1
In other words, if we wish to create a real feeling of security and inclusion in society, we must affirm the intrinsic value of every individual, of whatever origin, with whatever strengths and weaknesses.
It is extremely damaging for a society to exclude individuals and groups for specious reasons related to language or culture. The best approach is to promote understanding and make the accommodations needed to achieve full and open-handed integration.
The same is true with people who have physical or intellectual disabilities. What is needed is to create conditions in which such people have real choices in life.
Taking account of differences
I mentioned earlier that my basic role is to be an agent of change, to foster the inclusion of official language minority communities, and beyond that to help enhance their vitality. Similarly, your role is to encourage the inclusion of a significant disadvantaged minority.
Members of minority language communities who have intellectual disabilities may find themselves doubly excluded, because even basic health services are not always available in their language. In order to ensure quality services in this area, health organizations must be able to identify and monitor minority clients, and they need to be in a position to offer services that are comparable—but not necessarily identical—to those available to the majority. As the Supreme Court of Canada put it in a landmark case, “the accommodation of differences… is the essence of true equality.”2
More consideration needs to be given to methods of delivering services to different groups. For example, the standards and strategies of a program may vary depending on whether it is offered in English or French or targets a particular group, such as Native people. We need more focused research on this question in order to develop forms of service delivery that are truly suited to the cultural and linguistic needs of different client groups.
The important thing is to create approaches that are best suited to the specific situation in which clients find themselves. Of course that will require well-structured research focused on concrete results, as well as close and dynamic linkages with social partners and professionals and effective coordination and sharing of information.
To take an example from the Ottawa area—and I am sure similar situations exist anywhere else—one of the preferred approaches to social integration with some clienteles is the “clubhouse,” where clients and workers regularly meet. However it has been found that this approach is not particularly popular with Francophones. Is that because they are hesitant about going to a place they know operates mainly in their second language? Or are there cultural and demographic reasons that make this model less attractive to Francophones? Field workers have their theories, but they emphasize the need for research.
My husband is a consulting psychiatrist at two rehabilitation centres here in Montréal, and he never ceases to be amazed by the differences in the ways that Anglophone and Francophone services are organized. As an example, Francophones strongly emphasize planning and a broad range of service delivery policies, while Anglophones tend to operate with a single general policy. Both approaches meet the needs of the public, and in a city like Montréal they operate alongside each other and influence each other.
In this regard, I am intrigued by the idea of setting up a social inclusion observatory. I hope that it will help bring together the different schools of thought that exist in the field of social inclusion research and practices.
In another life when I worked as a clinical psychologist, I had the good fortune to do my master’s degree and doctorate at the University of Ottawa. At this bilingual university, I was exposed to two of the major currents in modern psychology, one emanating from the Francophonie and the other from the English-speaking world. So for example, in the French-speaking world, human developmental psychology was at that time based largely on the work of Jean Piaget in cognitive psychology, but this work was not yet well known in the United States.
This was a rare and enriching opportunity to draw on more than one source and learn how to approach an issue from several different angles. I hope that such an observatory, or at least more meetings like this one, will fulfill a similar function. In research and science, there is much to be gained by opening up to diversity.
Conclusion
I’m sure you have understood my message to you today. First, I want to encourage you to undertake more research on the dynamics of social inclusion as it applies in official language communities here and elsewhere. Second, I want to encourage you to overcome language barriers and create a genuine synergy of approaches and practices in the field of social inclusion.
I hope you will be inspired by Montréal, a city that owes much of its prosperity, not to mention its charm, to its unique combination of cultures and currents of thought.
Thank you, and I wish you well in your deliberations.
1 Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity, Toronto, Anansi, 1991.
2 Andrews v. Law Society of British Columbia [1989] 1 S. C. R. 143, pages 168-169.
