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The Road to Bilingualism
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British Conquence of Canada
"From this forward, the legal status of the French language underwent a succession of expansions and contractions." (p.16) -
First act of bilingualism
Lord Elgin was the Governor General of Canada and the first civil servant to read the "Speech from the Throne in both English and French". (p.17) -
Bilingual Status
"Section 133 of the British North American Act (BNB Act) provides bilingual status for the federal government. -
Manitoba enteres Conference bilingual
Under section 23 of the Manitoba Act, Catholic schools are constitutionally protected (p.20). The implicit message is that French schools are protected since at this time most individuals who were catholic spoke French. -
Common School Act
New Brunswick government passed this act "declaring that all publicly funded schols must be nondenominational and imposing regulation on teachers certificate." (p.19) This is significant since religion is linked to linguistic eduction. In short, this was seen as an attack to the Acadian community. -
English is Supreme!
The Ontario government a regulation that English is required to be taugh in all schools. -
Manitoba Official Language Act
This legislative document switched the Manitoba education system to a nondenominational education system, cutting the funding for catholic schools, whom were patroned by French speaking members of the province. The result is all citizens were now educated in English. -
Alberta chooses English
The Canadian Parliement transfered the authority to the province to choose their official language. Alberta choose English, a decision which would affect the provinces education system until the 1960's. -
Recognition of French Canadians in Ontario
The established of the Association canadienne-francaise d'education d'Ontario (ACFEO) was the result of French elites in Ontario convienced that bilingual schools had a place in Ontario. -
Bilingual signs in Quebec
The "Lavergne law [la loi l concernant les contrats faits avec les compagnies de services d'utilité publique (1910, Geo. V, c. 40)] required public utilities to provide bilingual signs and communications" (p.24) in Quebec. Arguably a precedence for the loi 101. -
Regulation 17
A school inspector, F.W. Merchant wrote a report which indicated that French schools, instead of being bilingual, they were teaching English very poorly. Province of Ontario responded to this report by establishing the Reguluation 17, making "English the sole language of instruction for the province afer grade 2..." (p.18) -
Addressing disparity in New Brunswick
The Mackenzie Commission "revealed the disparity of funding, between the urban (and English) and rural (normally Acadian) districts in te province." (p.20) This disparity helped government to understand the link between poor funding a low litteracy rates in Acadian communicties. -
A step back for Franco-Manitoban
The McFarlen Commission "consolidated the pronvince's school divisions, merging small homogenous Franco-Manitoban divisons into larger divisions containing larger numbers of anglophones" (p.21) making Franco-Manitobans minorities. -
Quiet Revolution
This is a very important turning point in Canadian history, especially when discussion bilingualism. The Revolution throughout the decade is marked with the French middle class educating themselves and engaging in politics. Previously the English minority of the province lead the province. -
French in back in Manitoba!
The government of Duff Roblin, Premier of Manitoba, unanimously passed Bill 59, "permitting the use of Rench as a language of instrustion" (p.27). This overturned the 1916 restrictions legislated to reduce the use of French in the education system. -
Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism
This commission was co-chaired by Andre Laurendeau and Davison Dunton, who examined the state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and make suggestions on next steps to develop the "Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races" (p.29) safeguarding the contribution of each. The commission published a variety of reports which lead to both the Official Languages Act and the Official Languages in Education Program. -
Tomorrow Conference
1967 was an important year for Canada since we were hosting Expo 67 and the Centenial celebrations. Seamlessly Premier of Ontario Robarts convened a conference with other provincial leaders to "....propose that the federal government provide financial and technical aid for minority-langauge education programs." (p.29) This conference failed, but it was an important step towards linking traditionally provincially lead issues onto a federal realm. -
End of Unilingual Prime Minister
Wishing to preserve national unity, Pearson devoted particular attention to bilingualism. Pearson is quoted saying that he hopes that he would be the last unilingual leader of Canada. He was. -
School Act in Alberta
This act provided the ability for primary and secondary schools to be instructed in French. This is particularly important since Alberta, until this point, was a unilingual Anglophone province. -
Bill 140 and 141
Ontarian conversative Premier, John Robarts, worked to prove the Quebec that French and English Canadians can live happily and peacefully together. To do so, the status of Franco-Ontarians was required to be addressed. He did so by establishing "...legislation providing full funding for public French-landguage secondery schools." (p.26) Rights of Frenco-Ontarians were guaranteed through bills 140 & 141. -
Equal Opportunity in NB
The Primer of New Brunswisk, Louis Robichaud was instrumental in establishing legislation that equal funding was provided to both English and French schools, replacing the old system of local taxation. This program is known as the Equal Opportunity Program. -
Official Language Act / Loi sur les langues officielles
This law provides equal rights to French and English speaking Canadians.This document was the conerstone of Trudeau's government, who was strongly committed to bilingualism. T This legislation ensures that federal government services would be provided in both official languages, wherever population size warranted it. his law was the keystone in establishing the law on Canadian bilingualism. -
The Clash
The language conflicts came to a head in Quebec between the Italian minority in a French-speaking suburb of Montreal - St-Leonard. The Ligue pour l'integration scolaire was created by French speaking Quebecers to ensure the existance of French in the school system. The Ligue infiltrated the school commission resulting in the end of bilingual classes in 1968. The Italian community was outraged, resulting in growing tensions between both communities which peaked in September 1969. -
Bill 101
This charter, also known as Bill 101, was established the Quebec Charter of Rights to ensure the protection of French speaking Canadians. -
Constitution of Canada
This significance of this document created an independant Canada, meaning the end of British parliamentary legislative authority over Canada. Specifically, section 52 of Constitution act states that “The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada” Nancy Holmes. “Human Rights and the Courts in Canada” -
Amendment to Official Language Act
The Act was revised following the establishment of the Canadian Constitution in 1982. A significan change is that each Canadian has the right to work in their language of choice, independant of the location of their work. -
Official Language Act Updated... Again
In a growing reality of allophones in the country, the Official Language Act was revised to clarify the duties of federal institutions with respect to enhancing the vitality of official language minority communities and promoting linguistic duality.
