The Conservatives got in electoral trouble in the recent election campaign when they questioned gay rights, abortion rights, the Supreme Court as guardian of the Charter of Rights, and official languages policy, a.k.a. bilingualism. Leader Stephen Harper distanced his party from some comments made by his candidates, but he was himself cited on bilingualism. It is a failed ideal, he had said, a leftover from the Trudeau era.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first French settlement in North America. It is being celebrated in Nova Scotia, notably, and in the Acadian French regions across the Maritimes. Despite its apparent longevity, the state of the official language minority outside Quebec remains perilous. Many within Quebec still believe that only political independence can assure the survival of the French language. Sovereignists can show how the French language communities are being assimilated rapidly outside Quebec.

In 1968, Pierre Trudeau campaigned saying Canadians wanted a just society. He asked for support for one nation, with two official languages. This was in sharp contrast to the Conservatives under Robert Stanfield who had adopted a two nations policy, or the NDP and Tommy Douglas arguing for special status for Quebec.

A year earlier, Quebec premier Daniel Johnson had famously called for equality or independence. Trudeau replied that he too spoke for Quebec, and the federal parliament would protect the rights of French speakers across Canada. Quebecers did not wish to live in a “wigwam,” they wanted to be at home everywhere in Canada, said the then Justice Minister, and member of parliament for Mount Royal.

Judging how well minority rights are protected is one way to assess how democratic a society is in practice. It is as if those who decided not to give Harper’s Conservatives their vote understood their role. They were political scientists; the Conservatives failed the democracy test.

In the early 1990s, at the time of the Charlottetown constitutional accord, the Reform Party was vocal in its opposition to bilingualism. Philosopher Charles Taylor talked about Canada, where an outsider would arrive, and could be welcomed into two linguistic societies. Call it what you wish, he said to parliamentarians, that is the reality of our country.

Trudeau himself once mused that his policy should have been called language equality. Bilingualism implied that everyone had to speak two languages. That frightened people, and it was not what the policy was about.

While people associate Trudeau with bilingualism, it was his predecessor, Lester Pearson, who in the summer of 1966 brought forward a white paper outlining plans for a public service able to serve the population in both languages.

The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, headed by André Laurendeau and Davidson Dunton had been established by Pearson as well. The official languages act was its result, though let it be said, the rise of Quebec nationalism was the real instigator.What was at issue in the act was this: citizens had a right to be served in their language. This meant bilingual public services where numbers warranted it. If people were going to be served in their own language, the public servants had to know both. In order for the population to remain unilingual, the public servants would be paid to learn a second language. This was the meaning of bilingualism, or language equality, in practice.

But, many Canadians embraced more than this. They wanted to speak two languages, or have their children learn the other official language — thus Canadian Parents for French, and immersion classes across the country. Canada was a country of great spaces, but also of two of the world’s great languages. Why not make this an integral part of our life?

You have to believe that the personal example of Trudeau speaking both languages was important in all this. And why stop at two? Trudeau spoke Spanish as well. And many Canadians were encouraged to preserve or to learn their ancestral languages.

Canada’s identity has become tied up in the values represented by language policy. This has been reflected in the world of thought. Charles Taylor, who ran for the NDP against Trudeau in Mont Royal, became world-renowned for his writings on identity rights, the self and tolerance. Will Kymlicka of Queen’s University is widely translated, and studied in multi-linguistic societies in Europe.

Recently, in Vancouver, salesperson Glen Chow was giving my companion and me the lowdown on digital cameras. She and I converse in French, normally. Noting this, Chow mentioned that his daughter was in French immersion in Langley (a suburban area, south of Vancouver).

This is not evidence in support of the failed ideal argument of the Conservative party leader. Nor for that matter is Harper himself. His French is better than serviceable; only John Turner and Audrey McLaughlin have done better among Anglophone party leaders from outside Quebec.

Bilingualism, or language equality, does not mean everybody can, or should, speak French. But it is interesting that French language rights have come to be understood, in Canada, to be like other rights. Voters see that if you take one right away, other rights are endangered as well.

The just society still has its enemies though — those who want to treat homosexuality as a medical condition, or criminalize abortion, or stop the Supreme Court from interpreting the Charter of Rights, or limit access to services in French.

Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron

Born in Victoria B.C. in 1944, Duncan now lives in Vancouver. Following graduation from the University of Alberta he joined the Department of Finance (Ottawa) in 1966 and was financial advisor to the...