It’s not just spring that warms bodies numbed by winter in Ottawa, there is also language that warms the spirits. The contrast is striking as we look these days at the puny and dysfunctional, if not sick, body of official Canadian bilingualism.
On Tuesday, the Commissioner of Official Languages delivered his annual report, playing elegantly to put federal institutions in their place that are still reluctant to take “their linguistic obligations seriously” despite his repeated warnings. It was a year of transition at the police station, with a drop in complaints. This was felt in the calm but firm speech of Raymond Théberge, who knows that Rome was not built in a day.
Coming into force last June, the modernization of the Official Languages Act promises fruits that still appear sickly a little less than a year after flowering. Certainly, the Canadian linguistic regime has gained muscle and breadth, but it has not completed its transformation. And if he has gained new powers, the commissioner is still getting to grips with their ins and outs.
He will really need it. Beneath seemingly calm waters, the specter of a bold defense of a minority language need not stir loudly these days to offend Canadians convinced they live in the “best country.” [bilingue] of the world “. This is the case of MP Francis Drouin, who came off his hinges on Monday at the Standing Committee on Official Languages.
In language that is anything but chastened, the Franco-Ontarian liberal denounced the vision of a fringe of thinkers whom he described as “full of crap” as their fight for the protection of French in Quebec pours, in his opinion, into “extremism”. Criticized by all parties for his remarks as vulgar as they were insulting, including weakly by his own, the MP refused to apologize to independent researcher Frédéric Lacroix and Professor Nicolas Bourdon. Even after Quebec made the formal request on Wednesday.
The two men had been invited by the Bloc Québécois to share with the Committee their knowledge and their impressions on the financing of English-speaking post-secondary establishments in Quebec and French-speaking ones elsewhere in Canada. With solid studies and figures to back it up, they took up an argument that we know well in Quebec and which in truth has such numerous members that we cannot accuse all these beautiful people of extremists without making a fool of ourselves.
This outburst from Mr. Drouin reminds us that it does not take much to disturb Canadian linguistic peace. We can certainly rejoice at the drop in the volume of complaints deemed admissible, to 847 compared to 1,788 the year before. But anyone who follows the annual complaints from the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages knows that it only takes one event like this for the psychics to panic.
This was the case when Michael Rousseau admitted to being “capable of living in Montreal without speaking French.” This ill-advised exit caused the commissioner to be buried under angry complaints in 2021. Obviously much more is needed to change the trajectory of a recalcitrant mind: the big boss of Air Canada is still far from being comfortable in French and its flagship does not shine any more. Again in January, the carrier was criticized for its inability to take the linguistic bull by the horns. The intractable dunce is also the one who collects the greatest number of complaints this year again.
We should therefore not be naive. Yes, the figures revealed Tuesday reveal a rather quiet year in terms of linguistic recriminations, but, in the room, we very clearly see not one, but two elephants. And we can even see the shadow of a third on the horizon.
All are from the same family, that of the federal commissions, which are, in a way, the mirror of what minority cultures have the right to expect from a bilingual country worthy of the name.
Anyone who followed the Rouleau commission on the state of emergency knows how French was reduced to less than nothing during the hearings (6 witnesses out of 76). Rebelote to the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario and the Hogue Commission on Foreign Influence. Investigations are underway for these three commissions. You don’t need to have a Papineau brain to predict that their conclusions will give a completely different color to these seemingly rather peaceful recent months.
In his report, which we recommend urgent reading to MP Francis Drouin and all those who think like him, Commissioner Théberge reserved a few lines for these complainants who are accused of “leading a crusade against federal institutions” as soon as they express a complaint or even a doubt. These “ardent defenders of linguistic rights,” he writes, are the ones who not only “allow official language minorities to maintain and flourish,” but “allow Canadian society to evolve.”