French Kiss by Chantal Hebert

Author:Chantal Hebert [Hébert, Chantal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307369468
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2007-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

PART IV

THE LAW OF UNINTENDED

CONSEQUENCES

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE END OF THE LANGUAGE WARS

Over the past two decades, the law of unintended consequences has made changes in the dynamics of the Canadian national debate that no act of Parliament could have achieved. The Internet and the new global village have had more impact on the evolution of the Canadian language debate than forty years of official bilingualism. The Quebec sovereignty movement, at least as we had known it since its inception in the sixties, died on the bloody fields of the country once known as Yugoslavia. And the downing of the twin towers in New York City has accelerated the coming of age of a second distinct society in the federation, one based on the riches of oil and gas rather than on those of language and culture.

On the surface, Canada continues to operate according to a text drafted by a group of relatively wealthy white males working under the colonial auspices of the nineteenth century. Modernization has so far passed its political institutions by. But in spite of the passivity of the political class, it has been anything but business as usual within the federation since 1990, with one of the biggest changes taking place on both sides of the French-English divide.

Canada is not now the country that tore itself apart over language in the seventies and eighties. It is infinitely more complex, and slightly more mature. While there will always be rearguard skirmishes, this country will likely never fight over language again. In fact, the Canada that went to bed with language aches at the end of the twentieth century may have woken up in the twenty-first with a cure for some of the world’s migraines.

It is no accident that the political debate over the federal official-languages policy died with a whimper in the nineties. Was it only a bit more than ten years ago that the Reform Party was scoring points in large sections of Western Canada by promising to take the battle against official bilingualism to Parliament Hill? These days, no mainstream politician would see turning back the clock to an English-only era as a positive signal to the rest of the world. Too much of Canada’s international profile has been vested in its duality, and too much of its economic future rests on its diversity.

In a 2004 survey titled “Official Bilingualisms: Part of our Past or Part of our Future,” the Centre for Research and Information on Canada — an adjunct of the now defunct Council for National Unity — found that 77 percent of anglophones who live outside Quebec feel it is important for their children to learn a second language. Seventy-four percent said French was the most important second language for their children to acquire. That same survey found that 75 percent of all immigrants agreed that “having two official languages has made Canada a more welcoming place for immigrants from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds.” Overall, new Canadians were even more supportive of official bilingualism than those born here.

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