The last major revision of the Official Languages Act (the OLA) dates back to 1988. Apart from a pointed amendment in 2005, the OLA has remained largely unchanged for almost 35 years. In recent years, a consensus has been emerging, namely that of breaking with a stultifying status quo, which threatens the survival of French and hinders respect for the rights and reasonable expectations of Francophone communities.
It’s finally time for modernization in Ottawa, but beware the scarecrows!
The current OLA is proving to be opaque and ineffective, since it entrusts the responsibility of coordinating its implementation by federal institutions to two separate entities—Canadian Heritage and the Treasury Board—through votive and discretionary provisions. The observation is undeniable: the two-headed (and variegated) implementation of the Llo remains its Achilles’ heel.
French and its communities have come up against the structural defects of the Llo since its genesis. The keystone of any reform has been known and demanded for too long: that the coordination of the implementation of the OLA be entrusted to a single entity, namely the Treasury Board. Signaling its understanding, the federal government had therefore promised, in 2021 in its white paper on official languages, that it would ” [r]strengthen and expand the powers conferred on the Treasury Board” and “ [c]entrust the strategic role of horizontal coordination to a single minister, in order to ensure effective governance and implementation”. Yet Bill C-13 does not implement this promise.
The first scarecrow erected by the defenders of the status quo is the following: the Treasury Board cannot coordinate official languages because it does not ensure the delivery of programs. But no one asks that! Of course, the Treasury Board should not ensure the delivery of official languages programs, any more than it is asked to develop immigration, environmental protection or defense policies national.
What is being asked is that the Treasury Board play the role it could always have played, namely monitoring, coordinating and supervising the implementation of the OLA, that this duty be extended to the whole of the act, and that the Treasury Board cannot delegate this responsibility to a third party. Sovereign, Parliament can certainly entrust the Treasury Board with such a mandate.
The second bogeyman is the invitation (or command?) that Bill C-13 be passed by Parliament “as quickly as possible”, even “without delay”. A little objectivity and realism are essential. Also a historical reminder.
Tabled in the House of Commons in 1987, Bill C-72 modernized the OLA for the first time since 1969. The reform of the 1980s, launched by the majority Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, had 111 articles spread over 45 pages. Bill C-13 is of the same scope (113 clauses, 64 pages). It is among the ten longest government bills.
The reform of the 1980s required 17 meetings with witnesses in the House of Commons (34 hours; 11 of these hours were devoted to the appearances of the Minister of Justice, the President of the Treasury Board and the Secretary of State). The analysis article by article was carried out in eight meetings (18 hours). In 2005—Paul Martin was then leading a minority government—the fourth iteration of a tiny Senate bill of just three clauses occupied the House of Commons Official Languages Committee for 13 meetings (27.5 hours), including one for the article by article analysis which lasted 4.5 hours!
The contrast is striking: since June 2022, Bill C-13 has only been the subject of 10 meetings with witnesses (6 p.m.). Five other meetings (9 hours) were devoted to debating government motions seeking to limit testimony and, above all, the length of the clause-by-clause analysis. To date, no minister has testified!
Despite the imposing stature and complexity of Bill C-13, the government tried to muzzle its study at the first meeting of the House of Commons Official Languages Committee! He relapsed on 1er November 2022 by proposing that the article-by-article analysis be limited to seven hours at the most. However, the government’s bill must be amended to ensure the future of French, in particular so that its implementation is rigorous and successful. The Government of Quebec alone submitted some thirty requests for amendments. The Commissioner of Official Languages has made almost forty of them!
The entire Canadian Francophonie strongly hopes for the adoption of an OLA “as soon as possible”. Still, the law must be capable of achieving its objectives. This requires amending Bill C-13, even if that takes some time. What is worth doing is worth doing well.