Although I was little more than a thought in my parents’ mind when Canada’s Official Languages Act (OLA) originally appeared in 1969, the OLA has fundamentally shaped the way I live and work. Not only as an Anglophone growing up in an English-speaking household and learning to speak French d’une feuille blanche, but also as a translator who lived in Ottawa, who worked for the federal government, and who recognizes the importance of a legal statute setting out our country’s official language obligations.
The federal Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages notes that the Official Languages Act set out three key objectives or priorities of the Government of Canada, in particular:
- to ensure respect for English and French as the official languages of Canada and ensure equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all federal institutions;
- to support the development of English and French linguistic minority communities and generally advance the equality of status and use of the English and French languages within Canadian society;
- to set out the powers, duties and functions of federal institutions with respect to the official languages of Canada.
Ultimately, the OLA enshrined the rights of both the French and English languages and promoted linguistic duality in a federal government context.
As a member of Generation X/Y, my parent’s decision to send me to a French immersion public school in Scarborough in the 1980s was only motivated to “help me land a job” later on. Little did they know that it would later help me gain admission to a unilingual French public school several years later and even a unilingual French high school a year after that in Penetanguishene, Ontario. Little did they know that this decision would open multiple doors and eventually lead to a passionate career in languages, specifically the translation of these two languages, and the process of conveying communications in the official languages that cemented Canada’s linguistic position on the international stage. For me at least, the Official Languages Act was undoubtedly the ‘tie that binds’.
Neither one of my parents speaks French and neither has ever been especially skilled in language learning, either. However, some part of them recognized an unexpected need to send me (along with my younger siblings) to a school that, although located far outside the municipal boundaries of possible school choices for us based on where we lived, would educate me in both official languages, an education that would serve me for the rest of my life.
Granted, as many of us in the Canadian language industry know, the Official Languages Act is not perfect, but how many things are? I sometimes think that the specifics of the matter are not nearly as important as the spirit of the matter. The Official Languages Act made history in 1969 and was indeed an Act “that changed the nation forever” as the current Commissioner of Official Languages, Graham Fraser, once wrote.
So, even though I am a few days late in celebrating the 40th birthday of the Official Languages Act, I wanted to mark the day because it’s an important part of my life and work. (And besides, a belated happy birthday wish is always better than none at all!)
Has Canada’s Official Languages Act has an impact on your life? How? Feel free to let us know in the comments.
Want to learn more?
The Library of Parliament has an article called the “Official Languages Act: Understanding its Principles and Implementation”, which provides a good overview of the Act. You can access it here.
You can also access official HTML and PDF versions of the Official Languages Act from the Department of Justice Canada website here.
If you’re lucky enough to be in Ottawa today or tomorrow, Library and Archives Canada is hosting a syposium entitled “40 Years of Official Languages in Canada: Our History and the Path Ahead” as part of the Fourth Annual Symposium on Official Language Minorities in Canada. You can find more information on the ACS website.
