Language policies of Canada's provinces and territories
Language policies in Canada / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The language policies of Canada's province and territories vary between the provinces and territories of Canada. Although the federal government operates as an officially bilingual institution, providing services in English and French, several provincial governments have also instituted or legislated their own language policies.
From the 1890s until the 1960s, English was the only language in which most government services were provided outside of Quebec (which was functionally bilingual) and using French in the courts or in schools was often illegal. These developments led to fears by French-Canadian nationalists that French speakers would be assimilated into the increasingly Anglophone culture of Ontario, leading the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–1969) to recommend that the Government of Canada and all provinces offer more services in French.
Since that time, Quebec has used provincial law to encourage the use of French (see Charter of the French Language) ahead of other languages, while the other provinces have begun to offer more and more services in French and in other languages besides English, including aboriginal languages and immigrant languages.[1] The 1982 amendments to the Constitution of Canada included a right of minority-language education that has resulted in policy changes in all of the provinces. Quebec is unique in requiring private businesses to use French and requiring immigrants to send their children to French-language schools. In other provinces there is no requirement that businesses use a particular language, but English predominates, and immigrants may send their children to English, French or third-language schools.[2]