The Official Languages Act belongs to all Canadians
Linguistic duality is a fundamental characteristic of what it means to be Canadian and one of Canada’s global calling cards. The core value that underpins the Official Languages Act is respect—respect for both official languages, for unilingual Canadians, for minority language communities, for citizens, for taxpayers, for parliamentarians and for public servants.
Among other things, the Act:
• Provides for the equal status of English and French, enabling all Canadians to express themselves in their official language of choice in Parliament and before the courts established by Parliament, in accordance with the Constitution.
• Gives Canadians the right to receive federal government services in either English or French in the National Capital Region and wherever, as defined by the Official Languages Regulations, the size of the minority population and the nature of the office warrant it. Some 95% of official language minority communities in Canada are able to receive at least some federal services in their own language.
• Guarantees equal employment and career advancement opportunities in federal institutions for English and French-speaking Canadians and also guarantees that the composition of the federal workforce reflects the proportion of English- and French-speaking Canadians in the overall Canadian population. The two official language communities are relatively well represented: Anglophone and Francophone participation in institutions subject to the Act is 73% and 27% respectively while 74.5% of the population is English-speaking and 24.1% is French-speaking.
• Ensures that federal employers are objective in setting the language requirements of jobs in federal institutions. These requirements must be genuinely necessary to perform the duties of the position to be filled. Only 40% of positions in the federal public service are designated bilingual. In some provinces, the percentage of bilingual positions is less than 4%.
• Gives federal government employees the right to work and be supervised in the official language of their choice in the National Capital Region and other designated regions (New Brunswick, parts of northern and eastern Ontario, the Montréal area, parts of the Eastern Townships, the Gaspé region and western Quebec).
• Obliges the federal government to promote English and French in Canadian society and to co-operate with the provinces and territories in enhancing the vitality of the official language communities and supporting their development.
• Encourages and supports measures for learning English and French.
• Provides for the appointment of a Commissioner of Official Languages.
