Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, just 100 days ago, the statements hostile with regard to Canadian sovereignty-including disturbing allusions to a potential annexation-have sowed concern throughout the country. This situation forces us to ask an essential question: what do we do, concretely, to preserve our national identity?
The answer must inevitably go through the protection of French. In a mainly English -speaking continent, subject to increasing cultural pressure, defending the French language does not fall under whim: it is a strong political gesture, an act of sovereignty, a way of saying that we are, as nation, and to resist erasure. With the renewal of the Liberals in power, Prime Minister Carney will be able to carry the torch of the linguistic rights of Francophones?
Admittedly, the outgoing liberal government has accomplished a historical advance with the in -depth reform of the Act respecting official languages (LLO). This modernization, almost unanimously praised – a single liberal deputy having opposed it – is one of the most striking progress in matters of linguistic rights since the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Among its major innovations, the revised LLO devotes an asymmetrical approach to official languages, explicitly recognizing the situation of increased vulnerability of French and the need for particular measures to promote the development of French-in Quebec as outside it.
But the Liberals of Justin Trudeau also tripped, both in the application of their own law, in the fields of immigration and early childhood, as in the symbolic – and highly political – issue of appointments. Two striking examples come to mind: the appointment of a general governor of Canada and a lieutenant-government of new Brunswick who did not speak French. These choices have been experienced as a disavowal by French -speaking and Acadian communities. One of these appointments aroused more than a thousand complaints from the Commissariat for official languages; The other is the subject of a dispute before the Supreme Court. The Carney government will have to learn clear lessons.
-The new Prime Minister should soon name the new official official languages commissioner, Raymond Théberge’s mandate having already been temporarily extended following parliamentary extension. This choice will occur in a highly strategic context: the upcoming entry into force of the law on the use of French in private companies of federal competence and the adoption of regulations which will implement important sections of the LLO. These new developments to the protection of French require increased vigilance.
Some argue that an English -speaking commissioner should be appointed in the name of an alleged tradition of linguistic alternation. However, this alternation has no legal or historical basis. Keith Spicer and Max Yalden, two English speakers, were named one after the other in the past. In addition, the only deputy who rejected the Reformation of the LLO did it precisely because he opposed the recognition of asymmetry between the needs of the two official language communities. Giving in to this logic would be a mistake.
Canada has long joined the principle of real equality in the field of human rights, recognizing that an identical treatment of unequal situations can perpetuate injustice. This principle, now embedded in the LLO, must inspire the gestures of the next government. It starts with the appointment of a French -speaking official language commissioner – not by identity reflex, but by consistency with the very mission of the post.
Such a nomination would send a clear signal: that of a Canada which intends to resist cultural homogenization, which values linguistic duality as a base of its identity, and which claims with determination its difference against the United States, this cultural hegemon which has just proclaimed English as the only official language.
