Page 476 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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CONFLICT AND DIVERSITY: CANADA / QUÉBEC 447

In the next section Thériault closes the not exclusively linguistic. It was interested
analysis of Canada and Québec by examin- in the bicultural nature of the country and
ing how issues of social citizenship are its recommendations, published between
impacted by language policies, and how poli- 1965 and 1970 supported a political bilin-
cies legitimizing ethno-linguistic diversity gualization and biculturalisation of Canada.
have paradoxically also weakened one of the The Commission especially stressed the
national language communities. His analysis political, economic, cultural and linguistic
highlights the complexity of the Canadian inequality in which the French Canadian
linguistic question, in particular the contra- community had been maintained. In propos-
dictory logic that determines the paradigm of ing measures aimed at the equality of the
linguistic citizenship in Canada. ‘founding’ peoples, the Commission made
the sociological observation that, in fact,
there were in Canada a dominant majority
and a dominated minority. Linguistic policies
CITIZENSHIP ISSUES AND OFFICIAL were to be written in an effort to overcome
LANGUAGES IN CANADA the effect of the majority domination.
(JOSEPH-YVON THÉRIAULT) The proposal of a re-founding of Canada
on the basis of linguistic duality was
Bilingualism and Binationalism accepted by the federal government, but
without any proposals to transform the ‘de
Canada has not always been a bilingual facto’ French Canadian minority into part of
country. The project of the majority of its an egalitarian community. In 1969, the fed-
Founding Fathers in 1867 was to create a great eral government adopted a law on bilingual-
Anglo-British nation. The ‘Constitution’ of ism, the Official Languages Act. However, it
1867, the British North America Act, is rela- refused to associate the recognition of lin-
tively silent on language. It recognizes the guistic duality with recognition of a national
bilingual character of Québec legislation and duality. Canadian bilingualism would rest
of the federal parliament, but does not say principally on the individual freedom of each
anything about the language of the federal Canadian, all across Canada, to use one or
administration and linguistic rights for the other of the official languages when deal-
Francophones. It recognizes the rights of ing with federal government agencies. As for
existing separate schools, but above all pro- the bicultural character of Canada, the fed-
tects their confessional character (Catholic or eral government completely reversed the
Protestant) and not their French character logic of the Royal Commission and pro-
(Landry and Rouselle, 2003: 15). posed, in 1971, a policy of multiculturalism
During the 1960s, language became a true that endorsed the idea ‘that cultural pluralism
citizenship issue: it involved a political is the very essence of the Canadian identity’
discussion about the very nature of what it is (Houle, 1999: 110, my translation).
to be a Canadian or a Québecer. The main
impetus of this movement was the neo-
nationalism of Québecers whose aim was to Official language: a societal
redefine the pact of Confederation on the language
basis of an equality between the two ‘founding
nations’. As a result, the Royal Commission on From this brief historical overview, it is
Bilingualism and Biculturalism was estab- important to underline that the Canadian lin-
lished in 1963, with the mandate of propos- guistic question does not raise, either politi-
ing the reforms necessary to respond to the cally or sociologically, the question of rights
historical recriminations of French Canadians. or the recognition of ethno-linguistic minori-
As its name indicates, this Commission was ties. Politically, in Canada, English and