Raymond Théberge: The narrative around official languages is changing to become more inclusive

Why did we need a modernized Act?

In my own lifetime I have witnessed first-hand some extraordinary changes in Canadian society.

I grew up in western Canada, in the primarily English-speaking province of Manitoba and while my village—Ste. Anne des Chênes— was nearly 100 percent French Canadian, there was no French school for me to go to. But because my parents fought for our education rights, my younger siblings were able to be educated in French in Manitoba. These were my first experiences learning about rights and diversity. Times were changing.

It’s important to recognize just how divisive the issue of language was in Canada in the 1950s and 60s: it was a period of significant social, economic and political change in my country. Specifically, to address the place of Quebec in the country, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was created. The Commission’s consultations and findings led to an official declaration of English and French as the official languages of Canada; the creation of our Official Languages Act and the position of Commissioner of Official Languages; as well as policies on official languages and multiculturalism.

I was 16 when the Official Languages Act was passed in 1969. For me and those of my generation, it was a declaration of recognition for my mother tongue across the country and an affirmation of who we were as French Canadians and as Franco-Manitobans. It was a recognition of our identity.

I grew up among increasing diversity, as Canada’s multiculturalism policy took wing in 1971, and I saw our collective rights and freedoms entrenched in the  Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms  in 1982, just as my own children were growing up.

From my experience, I feel that I’ve lived Canada’s transition from celebrating French and multiculturalism mostly as folklore—to now recognizing official languages rights and the rights underpinning multiculturalism as a matter of social justice, as well.

Today, it is becoming especially important to address inclusion and diversity issues to ensure that everyone is fully involved in and contributing to society. The way I see it, we have several facets to inclusion and diversity in Canadian society and they are all part parcel of the broader societal value of living together—“le vivre ensemble,” as we say in my native French.

In 2019, the Indigenous Languages Act was passed to maintain, revitalize and promote Indigenous languages, and Ronald E. Ignace was named as the first Commissioner of Indigenous Languages.  our path of Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. As a country, it is important for us to recognize the work that needs to be done to support and promote Indigenous languages alongside recognizing two official languages and celebrating ethnocultural diversity. Indeed, many Canadians find they are impacted by more than one of these key nation-building issues.

Belonging to different groups, embracing multiple identities—this is now a common reality for Canadians, including me: my own grandchildren are both Indigenous and live in a French-language minority community in Manitoba.

The narrative around official languages is changing to become more inclusive. We now recognize in our increasingly diverse society, that identities are not formed along language lines alone. My country is a country of immigrants, and the communities of today look dramatically different from the communities of yesterday.

Today, we talk far more about official language communities and what it takes to sustain and contribute to their vitality. We talk about ensuring initiatives being planned “by and for” communities to achieve their best effect. And we acknowledge the need to take extra care to protect the French language in our country in the face of the growing preponderance of the English language.

More broadly, Canadian society has transformed at an accelerated rate in the past decade, and especially since the onset of the pandemic. But I think it’s fair to say that internationally, we all face change upon change on the social, economic, environmental and technological fronts.

Technology for one, has had an enormous impact on how services are delivered. Who here remembers the rotary phones from the 1970s? That, together with paper correspondence, was our main tool for communicating with citizens at that time. Today we wonder about the potential impacts and opportunities associated with artificial intelligence and service delivery. Change has become the norm. And that requires us to continuously adapt—both as individuals and as a society.

With this backdrop of this constant change, official languages have made news headlines consistently in Canada in recent years, whether it be related to access to education, from early childhood to post-secondary levels; health care, including public safety, as was so apparent during the pandemic; or our experiences in the workplace or when we travel; or the impact of immigration or the media on language use.

I believe that our experience with language is so important to us because it is so intrinsically linked to our identity. And I have always thought that it is important that official languages be talked about on the national stage because it means that we’re reflecting on how they impact society rather than ignoring them or taking them for granted.

All of the changes we contend with have an impact on how our language regime supports our citizens. Canada’s 1969 Official Languages Act was updated in 1988. Both versions addressed the specific social contexts and realities of their times and certainly helped us achieve many things. This includes: a greater representation of our two language communities within the federal government; improved access to federal services in both official languages; the advancement of English and French in Canadian society; and support and assistance for the development of official language minority communities.

In the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of our original Act in 2019, there was significant reflection within my office and among communities, various stakeholders, the media and parliamentarians about the necessity to bring our language policy into the modern age and include more tools to address systemic issues and stalled progress in federal institutions.

Over the course of a half century, Canadian society had changed dramatically. The way we talked about language and identity had changed, and Canada’s language regime needed to reflect that.

And so, when I began my mandate in 2018 it was crystal clear to me that modernizing our Official Languages Act was essential, because Canadians deserve an Act that truly defends their language rights and reflects the modern world in which they live.

How did we go about achieving a modernized Act?

The last six years have been a truly transformational time for official languages in Canada.

Within my office, from the start of my mandate, the project of modernizing the Official Languages Act became our North Star and we aligned our internal and external actions around this fundamental priority.

We started by holding national consultations in which official languages stakeholders raised questions and proposed solutions. This essential exercise helped me articulate my vision for modernizing the Act to the government. I called for an Act that would be relevant, dynamic and strong.

My focus was to ensure that the new Act reflected modern society and could adapt in step with change, as well as ensure the new Act would have ‘teeth’ so that it would be enforceable. The experience of my office in its 55 years of existence confirmed to me and previous commissioners that our mainstay tool of moral suasion simply wasn’t enough.

In my second year in office, I released a position paper with an extensive series of recommendations to the federal government that could serve as a guide for modernizing the Official Languages Act.

In stride with the government’s reflections on the modernization of the Act, I issued statements and undertook meetings with stakeholders and the media and appeared before our two parliamentary official languages committees several times to offer expertise and help guide the process.

Because the new provisions in the Act that affect my powers had received broad consensus throughout the legislative process, we didn’t wait for the new Act to come into force to embark on our own exercise to modernize the Office of the Commissioner.

In the fall of 2022, we started reviewing our processes and corporate structure. We set out to reimagine what our office should ideally look like. As part of our renewal exercise, we created internal working groups to look at best practices and how other similarly structured organizations effectively carry out their duties. This exercise provided us the opportunity to take stock of our organizational health and to re-invent ourselves so that we can be stronger and better equipped to meet future challenges and continue to be a leader in Canadian language policy.

On the compliance front, my team began working on our complaint intake and investigation process. We were also able to take a closer look at our backlog of investigations and follow-ups. We undertook strategies to consolidate complaints we received about the same institution into a single investigation and support federal institutions to help them address their challenges. For follow-ups to recommendations made in investigation reports, we grouped together cases involving similar issues in order to ensure a more systemic approach for institutions that generate multiple complaints. This has enabled us to follow up more effectively on a significant volume of complaints.

In terms of promotion, we started looking at how to better define our activities in relation to our mandate and in relation to the roles of other institutions responsible for promoting official languages in Canada, both in the federal public service and in Canadian society. And we reviewed other aspects of our organization, such as how we respond to requests for information and how we do follow-ups. In addition, we revamped our website, which now features a new visual identity and a simpler, easier-to-navigate interface.

Nearly a year ago, on June 20, Canada’s Official Languages Act was updated.

What has been the result?

In my view, our new language regime is now indeed relevant, dynamic and strong. We have made a significant step forward in protecting the language rights of Canadians and enhancing the vitality of our official language minority communities.

The modernized Act now includes clearer provisions and better-defined obligations to help federal institutions meet their official languages obligations. And it offers important new means of tackling systemic problems while maintaining the achievements communities have made.

As Commissioner, I also now have several new powers to help federal institutions improve their compliance with the Act. These include:

• Compliance agreements: these are aimed at legally binding a federal institution to comply, as opposed to the Commissioner issuing recommendations in an investigation report;
• Orders: these are unilaterally made by the Commissioner and require a federal institution to take action to correct a contravention of the Act;
• Mediation: a new tool aimed at finding a mutually acceptable solution to help resolve a complaint for faster results;
• Administrative monetary penalties: these are aimed at promoting compliance rather than punishing, and are up to an amount of $25,000; and,
• New reasons for refusing or ceasing to investigate a complaint: for example, if we’ve already issued an investigation report on the same subject or the institution has taken steps to correct the problem.

While we now have a new language regime in Canada, many pieces—including regulations, policies and plans—still need to be developed to guide federal institutions in fully implementing federal language policy.

The changes to our Act also necessitate a cultural shift within my organization; while I still have a dual protection and promotion role, my new powers shift our functions more towards compliance. It may well be that I will be called the language watchdog even more in the days to come!

Live your language, increasing the use of minority and official languages

I’d now like to focus on one new part of our language regime that relates specifically to our conference theme: Live your language, increasing the use of minority and official languages.

In our last national Census, in 2021, we learned that in Canada we now have 10.7 million French-speakers, which is nearly 30% of our total population. This includes 7.9 million French-speakers in Quebec, the only province where French is the single official language, and 2.8 million spread across the rest of Canada. French remains by far the most common language in Canada, after English. It is by far the most common in Quebec and by far the second-most common in the rest of the country, where demand for French-as-a-second-language education remains high.

But while there are more French speakers than ever before in Canada, the demographic weight of Francophones has declined. And although French continues to be resilient in Canada, its current relative decline is increasing its vulnerability and is therefore weakening Canada’s linguistic diversity, especially outside Quebec where the influence of English is omnipresent.

Back home, we all know someone who has lost their French – whether they had it as a mother tongue or learned it as a second language but are no longer comfortable speaking it. Francophones are understandably concerned, and I am too.

Our new Official Languages Act recognizes this relative demographic decline of Francophones. The Act now includes a Francophone immigration policy as a means to help reverse the trend. My office played a key role in bringing attention to the decades-long deficit of francophone immigrants to minority communities across Canada. The government has now taken action in the modernized Act to help correct the problem.

As the federal government refined its modernized vision of official languages, we saw an increased emphasis on the protection of French in Canadian society, which is now part of our Act. This is very much about ensuring that people can indeed live in French, learn the language and use it in various aspects of daily life across Canada. Recognizing the issue is the first step in making progress, and we now have that recognition built into our new Act.

At the same time, the new provisions in the Act for protecting French have raised concerns among English-speaking Quebecers about preserving their language rights. English-speakers, many of whose families have lived in Quebec for generations, are the official language minority community in the province. Many of them can and do speak French, and they are on the whole allies of the language. But they are also understandably concerned about maintaining access to services in their own language, and about being able to feel welcome in their home province.

Similarly to what I’m sure you experience in your respective countries, having two official linguistic groups in Canada evokes tensions that flare and fade; the dynamics are always changing because they are a reflection of our society.

It is expressly because of these tensions and changing social dynamics that we need to continue to listen to communities and closely monitor the implementation of our language regime using specific indicators so we can clearly identify any issues that may impact their vitality.

Given that we now have a new obligation to review the Official Languages Act every 10 years, I’m confident that we are better equipped to adjust our policy as needed to keep pace with the evolution of Canadian society.

Conclusion

And so, there is a new chapter in the making in the story of language policy in Canada. Suffice to say, the modernization project has kept my office very busy! But it was all worth the effort.

The entire process to revamp our Act was truly years in the making and involved the sustained effort of my Office, community members, stakeholders and parliamentarians who all worked tirelessly to make the modernized Act a reality.

While my new powers do not bestow me with a magic wand, my role as defender of the language rights of both of Canada’s official language groups has been strengthened significantly with our modernized Act.

I mentioned earlier the importance of ensuring we keep talking about language issues and their impact on our citizens. I believe it is now as important as ever as part of our role as commissioners to help ensure language issues remain at the forefront of the public consciousness in our respective nations. In my experience these past six years as Commissioner, consistent public recognition of the importance of official languages in Canadian society has helped us immensely in achieving our goal of renewing our language policy.

I’m certain we also share the fact that our work will never be done, precisely because of the intrinsic link between language, identity and our ever-changing societies. That is at once a daunting endeavour but also an extraordinary opportunity!

Thank you all for your attention.

I look forward to hearing more about your experiences during our time together and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.