The Education Act of Canada: Part XII Language of Instruction.
Within this act there are provisions made for both French and English school boards to teach in both of Canada's official languages. However, this is not the only section that refers to language. There are 461 references to language within the Education Act. There is also section 1.43. (1) that looks at the movement of students between boards and section 2.58.8 that looks at electors for boards.
During 1997, there were many exceptions placed in the Education Act that benefit French-speaking Canadians. For example section 46(2) no person has the right under subsection 43. (1) " to attend a French-language instructional unit operated by a board unless the person is a French-speaking person."
The take away from “Language of Instruction” and the exceptions are that both French-speaking students and English-speaking students, regardless of grade, who notifies their school authority that they wish to receive instruction in their mother tongue, must have instructional units provided to them. This is done by the board either establishing and operating the language instructional units or making an agreement with another board that has these instruction units in place.
The Languages of Instruction Commission of Ontario/ Commission des langues d’enseignment de l’Ontario
This Commission consists of five members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. There must be at least 2 who speak French and at least 2 that speak English. One member of the five is appointed by the others as the chair of the commission. These Members have a term of 1-3 years. If there is a vacancy in the membership on the Commission the vacancy may be filled for the remainder of the term. A recommendation made by the Commission must have majority before receiving approval. The Commission must notify French-speaking individuals when their request have been denied and send this information to the Minister of Education. Mediators are used to confer with school boards, parents and other officials to try to find an agreement concerning languages in schools. The mediator has 21 days to report an agreement to the Commission. If there is no consensus Commission has additional 21 day to collect information to come to an agreement. Currently, there are no members appointed to this Commission.
Legislation pre-1982
Ottawa RC School Trustees v. Mackell (1917) court decision ruled that Ontario had the right to stop teaching French after the second grade. They were not violating Section 93 of the BNA Act, because it protected religion and not language. (Riddell 2004)
This did not mean that provinces refused to teach in French. A majority of provinces outside of Quebec had legislation or regulations to provide French-language schooling based on demand. These programs were considered to be French first language (FFL) programs (Ibid.). The numbers of FFL programs were highest in Ontario and New Brunswick which had the largest number of Francophones outside of Quebec (Ibid.)
When the 1969 Official Languages Act made English and French the official languages of Canada, the First Nation, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) languages were ignored because it was assumed that the English and French ‘founded’ Canada (Ghosh 2004). This meant that FNMI languages were rarely taught.
Legislation post- 1982
The provincial government has exclusive jurisdiction over education, where alterations made within language instruction depends on demographics. To protect French minority language speakers in Western Canada, inclusion of the OMLE rights were included in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and by extension entrenched into the 1982 Constitution of Canada (Riddell 2004).
Section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants the rights to instruction in the minority language, which includes the right to facilities for such instruction where the numbers warrant, with such instruction and facilities to be paid out of public funds.
The qualifications for this Section of the Charter include:
1) The parent must be a Canadian citizen
2) a) the parent must have learned French (or English) first and still understand it
OR
2) b) The parent`s primary school instruction must have been in the relevant minority language in Canada
OR
2) c) The parent must have, or had, children in the relevant minority-language primary or secondary schools in Canada(CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, S.23).
Despite the language rights entrenched in the Constitution, some more Anglophone provinces chose not to implement FFL programs when numbers warranted. This led to Mahé v. Alberta (1990), where Supreme Court decided that OMLE was under the control of the minority-language groups. In 1992, the Official Languages Commission contested the implementation of the OMLE ruling made by the Supreme Court (Riddell 2004). This did not decrease the effort made at a provincial and national level to create more Francophone schools.
These issues continued during the 2000s in legal cases, Arsenault-Cameron v. Prince Edward Island (2000) and Doucet-Boudreau v. Nova Scotia (Minister of Education) (2003), when courts intervened in cases where French-language schools were not being managed appropriately. In PEI, students originally were sent 29 kilometers away to go to a FFL school but the Court ruled that an FFL institution be created in Summerside to accommodate the few students who would have to be sent away (Ibid.) In Nova Scotia, the Court ordered a creation of more solely Francophone school boards (Ibid.).
In addition to official language policies and legislation, Canada has multicultural policies that promote the multiple cultures, and therefore languages, within Canada. These policies include the Multiculturalism Policy of 1971 and the Multiculturalism Act of 1988 (Ghosh 2004). By having provincial jurisdiction over education there is ability for provinces to adapt to their demographic.
The exception to this would be First Nations education which is currently controlled mostly by the federal government but slowly these powers are being returned to band councils (Ibid.).
Since 1975, Western provinces have started to implement linguistic choices for instruction. The languages of instruction, offered on a board-by-board basis, included Ukrainian, Russian, German, Jewish and Cree (Ibid.). By 1990, there were 63 language based instruction classes offered throughout Canada that were not legally required.
REFERENCES
CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, S. 23, PART 1 OF THE CONSTITUTION ACT, 1982, BEING SCHEDULE B TO THE CANADA ACT 1982 (UK), 1982, C.11. WEB.
GHOSH, RATNA. (2004.) “PUBLIC EDUCATION AND MULTICULTURAL POLICY IN CANADA: THE SPECIAL CASE OF QUEBEC.” INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF EDUCATION 50.5-6: 543-566.
ONTARIO MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (1990.) THE EDUCATION ACT R.S.O. 1990, CHAPTER E2. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION. RETRIEVED FROM WWW.LAWS.GOV.ON.CA/HTML/STATUTES/ENGLISH/ELAS_STATUTES.
RIDDELL, TROY Q. (2004.) “THE IMPACT OF LEGAL MOBILIZATION AND JUDICIAL DECISIONS: THE CASE OF OFFICIAL MINORITY-LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN CANADA FOR FRANCOPHONES OUTSIDE QUEBEC.” LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW 38.3: 583-610.
Within this act there are provisions made for both French and English school boards to teach in both of Canada's official languages. However, this is not the only section that refers to language. There are 461 references to language within the Education Act. There is also section 1.43. (1) that looks at the movement of students between boards and section 2.58.8 that looks at electors for boards.
During 1997, there were many exceptions placed in the Education Act that benefit French-speaking Canadians. For example section 46(2) no person has the right under subsection 43. (1) " to attend a French-language instructional unit operated by a board unless the person is a French-speaking person."
The take away from “Language of Instruction” and the exceptions are that both French-speaking students and English-speaking students, regardless of grade, who notifies their school authority that they wish to receive instruction in their mother tongue, must have instructional units provided to them. This is done by the board either establishing and operating the language instructional units or making an agreement with another board that has these instruction units in place.
The Languages of Instruction Commission of Ontario/ Commission des langues d’enseignment de l’Ontario
This Commission consists of five members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. There must be at least 2 who speak French and at least 2 that speak English. One member of the five is appointed by the others as the chair of the commission. These Members have a term of 1-3 years. If there is a vacancy in the membership on the Commission the vacancy may be filled for the remainder of the term. A recommendation made by the Commission must have majority before receiving approval. The Commission must notify French-speaking individuals when their request have been denied and send this information to the Minister of Education. Mediators are used to confer with school boards, parents and other officials to try to find an agreement concerning languages in schools. The mediator has 21 days to report an agreement to the Commission. If there is no consensus Commission has additional 21 day to collect information to come to an agreement. Currently, there are no members appointed to this Commission.
Legislation pre-1982
Ottawa RC School Trustees v. Mackell (1917) court decision ruled that Ontario had the right to stop teaching French after the second grade. They were not violating Section 93 of the BNA Act, because it protected religion and not language. (Riddell 2004)
This did not mean that provinces refused to teach in French. A majority of provinces outside of Quebec had legislation or regulations to provide French-language schooling based on demand. These programs were considered to be French first language (FFL) programs (Ibid.). The numbers of FFL programs were highest in Ontario and New Brunswick which had the largest number of Francophones outside of Quebec (Ibid.)
When the 1969 Official Languages Act made English and French the official languages of Canada, the First Nation, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) languages were ignored because it was assumed that the English and French ‘founded’ Canada (Ghosh 2004). This meant that FNMI languages were rarely taught.
Legislation post- 1982
The provincial government has exclusive jurisdiction over education, where alterations made within language instruction depends on demographics. To protect French minority language speakers in Western Canada, inclusion of the OMLE rights were included in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and by extension entrenched into the 1982 Constitution of Canada (Riddell 2004).
Section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants the rights to instruction in the minority language, which includes the right to facilities for such instruction where the numbers warrant, with such instruction and facilities to be paid out of public funds.
The qualifications for this Section of the Charter include:
1) The parent must be a Canadian citizen
2) a) the parent must have learned French (or English) first and still understand it
OR
2) b) The parent`s primary school instruction must have been in the relevant minority language in Canada
OR
2) c) The parent must have, or had, children in the relevant minority-language primary or secondary schools in Canada(CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, S.23).
Despite the language rights entrenched in the Constitution, some more Anglophone provinces chose not to implement FFL programs when numbers warranted. This led to Mahé v. Alberta (1990), where Supreme Court decided that OMLE was under the control of the minority-language groups. In 1992, the Official Languages Commission contested the implementation of the OMLE ruling made by the Supreme Court (Riddell 2004). This did not decrease the effort made at a provincial and national level to create more Francophone schools.
These issues continued during the 2000s in legal cases, Arsenault-Cameron v. Prince Edward Island (2000) and Doucet-Boudreau v. Nova Scotia (Minister of Education) (2003), when courts intervened in cases where French-language schools were not being managed appropriately. In PEI, students originally were sent 29 kilometers away to go to a FFL school but the Court ruled that an FFL institution be created in Summerside to accommodate the few students who would have to be sent away (Ibid.) In Nova Scotia, the Court ordered a creation of more solely Francophone school boards (Ibid.).
In addition to official language policies and legislation, Canada has multicultural policies that promote the multiple cultures, and therefore languages, within Canada. These policies include the Multiculturalism Policy of 1971 and the Multiculturalism Act of 1988 (Ghosh 2004). By having provincial jurisdiction over education there is ability for provinces to adapt to their demographic.
The exception to this would be First Nations education which is currently controlled mostly by the federal government but slowly these powers are being returned to band councils (Ibid.).
Since 1975, Western provinces have started to implement linguistic choices for instruction. The languages of instruction, offered on a board-by-board basis, included Ukrainian, Russian, German, Jewish and Cree (Ibid.). By 1990, there were 63 language based instruction classes offered throughout Canada that were not legally required.
REFERENCES
CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, S. 23, PART 1 OF THE CONSTITUTION ACT, 1982, BEING SCHEDULE B TO THE CANADA ACT 1982 (UK), 1982, C.11. WEB.
GHOSH, RATNA. (2004.) “PUBLIC EDUCATION AND MULTICULTURAL POLICY IN CANADA: THE SPECIAL CASE OF QUEBEC.” INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF EDUCATION 50.5-6: 543-566.
ONTARIO MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (1990.) THE EDUCATION ACT R.S.O. 1990, CHAPTER E2. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION. RETRIEVED FROM WWW.LAWS.GOV.ON.CA/HTML/STATUTES/ENGLISH/ELAS_STATUTES.
RIDDELL, TROY Q. (2004.) “THE IMPACT OF LEGAL MOBILIZATION AND JUDICIAL DECISIONS: THE CASE OF OFFICIAL MINORITY-LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY IN CANADA FOR FRANCOPHONES OUTSIDE QUEBEC.” LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW 38.3: 583-610.