SHIFTING LANDSCAPES - English-speaking Quebec and the Official Languages Act

Without a commitment to a respectful language and culture defining • virtually all of the constitutional litigation and regime such as the one exemplified by the Official Languages resulting jurisprudence – access to education, the sign Act, the chances for the survival of any recognizable future law, use of English in the courts and legislature, etc. [...] These include: • the acknowledgement of the existence and rights of the English-speaking community in the preamble to the Charter of the French Language; • the establishment of our legally enforceable right to receive Health and Social Services in English. [...] The election was held in the year after the Bourassa gov- sion of English from signs, but on the quality of education and on ernment invoked the notwithstanding clause to shield itself practical measures to ensure that French-speaking Canadians from the 1988 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on the lan- can work in French everywhere in the province. [...] official languages, to stress the importance of the English language in Quebec, the English-speaking community – A few months later, his tone shifted to rage and frustration at then 800,000 strong and the largest language minority in the language situation in Quebec in a letter to his old friend Canada – and to underline the importance of the existing and CCF-NDP colleague George Cadbury in Januar. [...] Adopted on July 9, 1969, by the Canadian Parliament and Hébert explains: “The objective was to conduct an in-depth proclaimed on September 7 of the same year, the Official analysis of the situation of French in Canada and to reflect on Languages Act was a response to the growing gap between what could be done to better develop and promote linguistic Quebec and the rest of Canada in the 1960s.