Official Languages: For a Remedial Aspect and a New Acadian Diplomacy
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Official Languages: For a Remedial Aspect
and a New Acadian Diplomacy
Brief from the Société Nationale de l’Acadie Submitted to the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages as Part of the Modernization of the Official Languages Act of Canada
Société Nationale de l’Acadie
224 St. George Street, Suite 103
Moncton, New Brunswick E1C 0V1
Tel.: 506-853-0404
Email: info@snacadie.org
Website: www.snacadie.orgTable of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Brief review of events .................................................................................................................................. 4 Executive summary of the SNA’s brief “Langues officielles: pour un vrai contrat social” (2019) ............. 5 A remedial aspect ......................................................................................................................................... 6 Public and cultural diplomacy ...................................................................................................................... 7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................... 9
Introduction
1. The Société Nationale de l’Acadie (SNA) is a non-profit federation of the four francophone
advocacy associations in the Atlantic provinces and the four youth associations. In
addition, the SNA has affiliate members in Atlantic Canada, Maine, Quebec, France and
Louisiana. Its mandate is to represent the Acadian people on the Atlantic, national and
international scenes.
2. The SNA applauds the work done to date to better implement Canada’s Official
Languages Act (OLA), including Part VII. The SNA recognizes that a number of members
and associations have helped spearhead discussion on the modernization of the OLA by
submitting briefs or appearing before parliamentary committees in recent years.
3. In May 2019, the SNA unveiled its brief on the modernization of the OLA, which provided
recommendations from the Acadian people. The purpose of this brief was to add the
SNA’s voice to the calls for possible improvements for Parliament to consider.
4. Although a bill has yet to be tabled, Mélanie Joly, Minister of Economic Development and
Official Languages, released a white paper on the modernization of the OLA in
February 2021.
5. The SNA has reviewed the Minister’s proposal and is pleased to see that a number of the
recommendations made in its brief “Langues officielles: pour un vrai contrat social”
(2019) have been adopted.
6. The SNA thanks Senator René Cormier and the Standing Senate Committee on Official
Languages for inviting the official organization representing the Acadian people to submit
a brief in order to inform the work of parliamentarians until the government’s bill to
amend the Official Languages Act is introduced, which is expected later this year.
7. This document echoes the brief we published in 2019. We will try to draw legislators’
attention to two aspects the proposal overlooked, namely, the remedial component and
public and cultural diplomacy.Brief review of events The following is a brief review of events related to the ongoing OLA modernization effort. ★ April 2017—The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages begins a study and a series of consultations with official language communities on the modernization of the OLA; ★ March 2018—The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne submits its brief on the modernization of the OLA; ★ April 2018—The Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse submits its brief on the modernization of the OLA; ★ April 2018—The Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick submits its brief on the modernization of the OLA; ★ June 2018—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commits to modernizing the OLA, saying this would be done before the September 2019 election; ★ May 2019—The SNA releases its brief on the modernization of the OLA, “Langues officielles: pour un vrai contrat social”; ★ June 2019—The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages concludes its consultations, presents its thirteenth and final report on the modernization of the OLA and submits its recommendations to the federal government; ★ October 2019—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says modernization is achievable by April 2020; ★ June 2020—Mélanie Joly, Minister of Official Languages, says her government will not modernize the OLA until 2021; ★ February 2021—Canada’s Minister of Official Languages unveils her proposal, English and French: Towards a Substantive Equality of Official Languages in Canada; and ★ May 2021—The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages invites stakeholders to submit briefs to fuel legislators’ discussion on the introduction of a bill.
Executive summary of the SNA’s brief “Langues officielles: pour un vrai
contrat social” (2019)1
The SNA believes that the OLA must be modernized now. After 50 years under the OLA, we note
the following:
Minority language communities do not enjoy all the opportunities and privileges available to the
majority language community:
1. Some federal institutions are lax or avoid their legislated responsibilities;
2. Without a coercive aspect, federal institutions have no real sense of urgency to
implement their obligations under the OLA;
3. The OLA does not take into account the historical setbacks caused by the unequal
treatment of the two official language communities;
4. The onus is still on official language minorities to enforce their rights, which
discourages them from fully asserting them;
5. The lack of performance markers hinders the progress and reorientation of the
approach taken by federal institutions.
A modernized OLA must build on these six clear positions of the SNA:
1. The OLA will be the cornerstone of the Canadian social contract;
2. The OLA will prescribe clear and specific obligations;
3. The OLA will include coercive measures to ensure full compliance;
4. The OLA will include a remedial aspect;
5. The OLA will allow for a generous interpretation of the rights of official language
communities;
6. The OLA will establish and provide for the enforcement of specific targets.
The OLA must be modernized. This social contract must be affirmed so that its foundation can
help the communities that founded and built this country live together in harmony. By
broadening the scope of the rights conferred by the Act, Canada will fully support bringing the
official language communities together and promoting dialogue between them. Let us give
Canada’s official language communities the right to be treated as equals by their country’s
institutions.
1
Langues officielles: pour un vrai contrat social, Société Nationale de l’Acadie (2019)
https://snacadie.org/images/PDF/4.3.4_-_Memoire_SNA_LLO_2019.pdf [Available in French only]A remedial aspect
8. As we pointed out in our brief, the OLA must take into account the historical wrongs and
current challenges of the minority community. Since it was introduced, the OLA has not
been implemented consistently and evenly within the federal government, creating
inequalities between official language communities that have grown over the years.
9. Just as the Supreme Court recognized the remedial principle of education rights in
Mahé v. Alberta and Arsenault-Cameron v. Prince Edward Island, federal institutions must
redouble their efforts to make up for lost time in their areas of intervention, if necessary.
10. Inaction that exacerbates the problem or widens the gap between the ambitions of
communities and the ideals of vitality and development must not allow a federal
institution to evade responsibility or buy time. A national program that has excluded or
completely ignored community realities for the past 10 years must not only be corrected,
but also provide more support to communities to make up for lost time.
11. If the institution had not failed from the outset, the disparities between the minority and
majority communities would not be so severe. Equality of status, rights and privileges
means that linguistic communities are entitled to the same benefits, in their language or
for the vitality of their community, as the rest of Canadians.
12. Ms. Joly’s official languages reform proposal identifies substantive equality as one of the
central pillars of the reform. We believe that the remedial and quasi-constitutional
aspects of this fundamental law should be part of it as well.Public and cultural diplomacy
13. Cultural diplomacy, or more broadly, public diplomacy, is an area that has unfortunately
been neglected for too long by Ottawa and is of utmost importance to the Acadian people,
their cultural and artistic industries and their international influence. The international
success of the Acadian people shows the way forward for the renewal of cultural
diplomacy policy in Canada.
14. Cultural diplomacy is the spearhead of public diplomacy in which creators, civil society
and Canada’s diverse peoples participate fully. Cultural diplomacy can be defined as “a
course of actions [that] are based on and utilize the exchange of ideas, values, traditions
and other aspects of culture or identity” to advance national interests. When integrated
strategically and consistently into Canadian foreign policy, “culture can influence public
opinion abroad and thereby generate support for a country’s foreign policies.”* It is
therefore a more subtle—but no less crucial and cross-cutting—component of diplomacy.
15. Neither Acadia nor Canada is a stranger to cultural diplomacy. In retrospect, it is clear that
we have benefited greatly from it, particularly in creating and maintaining partnerships,
building our reputation and promoting our cultural products and interests, as well as our
political and commercial interests, on the international stage.
16. Cultural diplomacy has been central to the Acadian national project for a century and a
half. It is by forging links with the francophonie, including Quebec, France and the
international Francophonie, that we have asserted ourselves as a people within the
Canadian federation and that we have collectively launched ourselves on the
international stage since the 1960s. Through exchange and collaboration agreements in
the academic, professional and artistic fields, we have consolidated our international
presence. More recently, tremendous progress has been made over the last 25 years: the
five editions of the Acadian World Congress, created in 1994; partnerships between the
SNA and Louisiana, Quebec, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and Belgium; the SNA’s
membership in the International Organisation of La Francophonie; and the creation of the
Stratégie de promotion des artistes acadiens sur la scène internationale (SPAASI) and the
Office de la mobilité internationale en Acadie (OMIA). Cultural diplomacy is the
cornerstone of our place in the world and our relationship with it.
17. More importantly, the internationalization of contemporary Acadia coincided with the
cultural turn in Canadian diplomacy. There was a time, from 1995 to 2005, when values
and culture were one of the three pillars of Canadian foreign policy, along with economic
growth and global peace and stability. The year 2005, however, marked the beginning of
the decline of Canadian cultural diplomacy. Projects that had been funded by Ottawa,
such as Trade Routes and the Public Diplomacy Program (PDP), were discontinued.18. It also seems that this form of diplomacy has two main, complementary components: on
one hand, Canadian authorities’ openness to these practices, including at Global Affairs
and embassies, and on the other, government support for the civil society, peoples and
First Nations that make up Canada’s diversity. Consequently, government, civil society
and the cultural community must also set up cooperative practices dedicated to
international cultural development. In addition, new partnerships between Canadian
Heritage and Global Affairs Canada should be established to support these efforts.
19. Lastly, the effectiveness of the reform will depend on its implementation, which requires
the effective participation of the various departments. Departments such as Canadian
Heritage and Global Affairs can support official language communities by relaunching a
cultural diplomacy policy.Conclusion We live in a law-based society. When a law is passed by a democratically elected assembly, it governs society by establishing guidelines and rules. A law can be seen as the top of a pyramid that expresses the political and administrative intent of a free and democratic society. That law must be fully adhered to, both by citizens and by the public administrations that implement them. In the very title of the proposal by the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, the federal government also recognizes an inequality between the official language communities that needs to be corrected.2 Was the intention of the OLA when it was created in 1968 to ensure equity between official language communities? We believe it was, but these efforts have been undermined to date by the federal government’s inaction. The government deliberately, widely and disproportionately failed to implement this quasi-constitutional law, allowing these inequalities to worsen over several decades. We cannot claim to modernize the OLA without addressing these facts and its original intent. This modernization must contain remedial components for francophone minority communities. Acadians have been very patient with the OLA modernization process. The urgency of this modernization has been underscored on many occasions, this brief being the most recent expression of it. We are now awaiting the introduction of a bill: it is time to act. 2 English and French: Towards a Substantive Equality of Official Languages in Canada, Canadian Heritage https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/pch/documents/campaigns/canadians-official-languages-act/ol-en-2021.pdf
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