Movement pushes for official bilingualism policy in Ottawa
n Ottawa group is renewing a nearly 45-year-old plea to make Ottawa an officially bilingual city ahead of the 150th anniversary of confederation in 2017.
The National Movement for an Officially Bilingual Capital of Canada is finding little support with Mayor Jim Watson, however, despite municipal and provincial politicians’ throwing their support behind the idea.
Jacques de Courville Nicol, leader of the movement, says more than 40 federal, provincial and regional associations support official bilingualism in Ottawa, as do the federal Liberals and NDP.
The provincial minister for francophone affairs and MPP for Ottawa-Vanier, Madeleine Meilleur, also came out in support of the idea Monday. She told Le Droit that she would “strongly support” a bilingualism policy, which she said would protect the rights of francophone residents.
The concept was first brought to the fore by a report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1970, which recommended that Ottawa give both French and English full equality, with all services and facilities reflecting both languages. This would also include an “invitation to the private sector” to do the same, the report states.
De Courville Nicol said that despite improvements in Ottawa’s French services over the past decade, the city’s lack of official bilingualism is unfair for francophone residents and damages its international image.
“We don’t believe that this is a local issue. We believe this is a national issue,” he said. “It is the capital of Canada and as such, it has to reflect the existence of English and French Canadians.”
The Citizen approached the federal Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, Shelly Glover, on the issue. A spokesman for the minister, Mike Storeshaw, said that “it falls entirely within the jurisdiction of individual municipalities to decide whether to become officially bilingual.
“It would not be appropriate for the federal government to intervene in those decisions,” he said.
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