<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="">Federal language law often misunderstood: commissioner</h1>
<div class="">
<span class="">By
<a href="http://globalnews.ca/author/amy-minsky/" title="Posts by Amy Minsky" rel="author">Amy Minsky</a> </span>
<span class="">Global News</span> </div>
<div class="">
<div>
<br></div>
<p>
Ensuring every Canadian speaks English and French was never the goal,
Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser says. It's actually almost
the opposite. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
</p>
</div>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>This summer, we spoke with Canada’s officers of Parliament. We profile each in an eight-part series. Read them all <a href="http://globalnews.ca/tag/hounds-of-parliament/" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">Describing “the Canadian identity” is never an easy feat. For one man, there’s no question linguistic duality is at its heart.</p>
<div class="">
</div>
<p dir="ltr">But believing that bilingualism is at the core of Canadian
identity doesn’t mean, as some may think, every Canadian should be able
to speak both English and French, says Graham Fraser, Canada’s
commissioner of official languages and one of the eight officers of
Parliament.</p><p dir="ltr">“That has never been the purpose of the policy,” he said recently. “This is something that is fundamentally misunderstood.”</p><p dir="ltr">Rather, enshrining French and English as Canada’s official languages was meant to achieve almost the opposite, Fraser says.</p>
<p dir="ltr">He described the misunderstanding as the “paradox of official bilingualism.”</p><p dir="ltr">“The
purpose of the policy is to ensure that the state becomes bilingual and
can serve Canadians in their official language of choice so that
citizens don’t have to be bilingual,” Fraser explained.</p><p dir="ltr">The
success of the Official Languages Act therefore, should not hinge on
whether Canadians are able to speak and write in both languages, he
says. It would have to be considered an abject failure if so, as a large
majority of Canadians remain unilingual.</p><p dir="ltr">However, those
individuals are able to receive services from the federal government in
either language. This is where Fraser measures the success of the
legislation, and where he says it becomes entwined with Canadian
identity.</p> <div class="">
<div>
<br></div>
<p> Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser in Ottawa, ready to release his 2009 annual report. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand</p>
</div>
<h3>Versions of history</h3><p dir="ltr">Whether Canadians agree with
Fraser’s picture of the Canadian identity is another question, and even
he admits he is uncertain. </p><div class="">
<div>
<div class="">
<h3 class="">Related Stories</h3>
<ul class=""><li class="">
<h3>
<a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/814619/canada-parliament-watchdogs/">
<span>The Hounds of Parliament: an interview series with Canada’s 8 independent watchdogs </span>
</a>
</h3>
</li><li>
<h3>
<a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/302645/parti-quebecois-minister-says-bilingualism-shouldnt-be-a-job-requirement-in-quebec/">
<span>
Parti Quebecois minister says bilingualism shouldn’t be a job requirement in Quebec </span>
</a>
</h3>
</li></ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p dir="ltr">For those who don’t, it may be that they don’t fully comprehend this country’s history, he offers.</p><p dir="ltr">“I
think one of the things that’s happened over the last few years is that
Canadian history is not taught as much or as systematically as it used
to be in previous generations,” he says. “And we’re a country that
welcomes 250,000 newcomers every year who, by definition, haven’t
studied Canadian history, haven’t gone to school in Canada.”</p><p dir="ltr">One
storyline, oft recited by Quebec nationalists, Fraser says, offers a
negative narrative of language relations through Canada’s history. That
storyline frequently hits on the conquest of Lord Durham, the hanging of
Louis Riel and the conscription crises, among other low points.</p><p dir="ltr">But
there is an often-neglected, positive narrative that dates back just as
far, Fraser says before recounting a history so familiar to him he may
as well be reciting the names of his family members.</p><p dir="ltr">The
negative storyline, Fraser noted, ignores the fact that a decade after
Lord Durham moved for the assimilation of French, Lord Elgin, Canada’s
governor general in the late 1840s, helped reintroduce French to the
national legislature, even giving part of a throne speech in French.</p><p dir="ltr">Nor
does it mention, as Fraser’s narrative continues, Sir John A.
Macdonald’s careful balancing of French and English interests, after
realizing that establishing positive relations between the two groups
was the only way the government and country could survive.</p><p dir="ltr">And
lost in the story of the conscription crisis of the First World War is
the fact the government, with the help of a French Canadian
entrepreneur, established the Royal 22e Régiment, a solely French
Canadian regiment.</p><p dir="ltr">“There has been this constant desire
within the country to have positive relations between the English and
French,” Fraser says after speeding through the history lesson. “Many
Canadians don’t necessarily understand.”</p><p dir="ltr">Of course, Fraser is intimately familiar with it.</p> <div class="">
<div>
<img src="http://vipmedia.globalnews.ca/2013/09/4942517.jpg?w=1200&h=800&crop=1" alt=" Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser responds to questions in Ottawa following the release of his 2009 annual report. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand"></div>
<p> Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser responds to
questions in Ottawa following the release of his 2009 annual report. THE
CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand</p>
</div>
<h3><strong>A gloriously asymmetrical system</strong></h3><p dir="ltr">As
commissioner, Fraser is responsible for overseeing federal language
laws. Each province, however, decides independently the language in
which services will be offered. This discrepancy has created, in
Fraser’s words, an “odd, asymmetrical, but nevertheless quite powerful
and quite effective language policy.”</p><p dir="ltr">The hodge-podge,
Fraser says, is the result of another of the Royal Commission’s
recommendations: in order for French-speaking culture to survive, the
government needed to ensure it remained prominent in Quebec, rather than
try to extend bilingualism across the rest of the country.</p><p dir="ltr">“So
now we have a gloriously asymmetrical language system in Canada, in
which we have one officially bilingual province, which is New Brunswick
and one officially unilingual French-speaking province, Quebec,” Fraser
says.</p><p dir="ltr">Ontario, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have
French-language service laws, while Manitoba has a language policy that
is not yet legislated.</p><p dir="ltr">In Saskatchewan and Alberta,
meanwhile, guarantees of French services on the provincial level were
essentially wiped out in the early 20th century; Alberta now has a
languages act that specifies English as the official language.</p><p dir="ltr">And
in British Columbia, a provincial court ruled it would not accept
documentation in French—a decision that was upheld in the Supreme Court.</p><p dir="ltr">“So
we go from one end of the spectrum to the other,” Fraser says. “But I
think what that means is that it is very important that the federal
government take every measure it can to ensure that both languages be
present on the national scene.”</p><p dir="ltr">The federal government
has come under fire for breaching the spirit of the law after appointing
a unilingual anglophone as auditor general in late 2011.</p><p dir="ltr">“As
agents of Parliament, we are accountable to parliamentarians, and I
think any parliamentarian should feel they can have a private meeting
with me or any of my colleagues and speak in their language of choice,”
Fraser says, reflecting on the controversy. “They should not have to
learn a second language to be able to speak to one of us.”</p><p dir="ltr">The
immediate outcry from Canadians, evidenced in newspapers across the
country, demonstrated just how strong the spirit of the law actually is,
Fraser says. As a consequence of that appointment, the official
Opposition tabled a bill requiring officers of Parliament nominees be
able to speak and understand English and French at the time of their
appointment. The bill received support from all parties.</p><p dir="ltr">Fraser’s
term was recently extended three years, until 2016. With the extra
time, he said, he hopes to move in three key areas: laying the
groundwork for the 2017 celebrations commemorating 150 years since
Confederation, examining the ongoing challenge immigration presents for
language issues, and developing a means for Canada to share what it has
learned with other countries where language is an element of social
conflict.</p><p dir="ltr">“You have to remember that when the royal
commission was launched, there were terrorist bombs going off in
Montreal,” he says. “It was developed as a policy that would ease
deep-rooted social discontent and serious conflict.”</p><p dir="ltr">While
those tensions have waxed and waned throughout the decades, Fraser says
he believes Canadians are finally beginning to understand that
linguistic duality is part of being Canadian.</p><p dir="ltr">“I think
increasingly there’s a sense that this other language belongs to us as a
Canadian, even if we don’t speak that other language,” he says. “It’s
part of what it means to be Canadian.”</p><p dir="ltr"><a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/838816/federal-language-law-often-misunderstood-commissioner/">http://globalnews.ca/news/838816/federal-language-law-often-misunderstood-commissioner/</a><br>
</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br>
<br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************
</div>