Statement made on 15 September 2009 by Senator Maria Chaput
Hon. Maria Chaput:
Honourable senators, September 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the coming into force of the Official Languages Act. As the Commissioner of Official Languages, Graham Fraser, said, without this legislation, Canada would not be the country we know today. The act was important to Canada as a whole. Most Canadians now recognize the importance of linguistic duality in Canada and support it.
On September 9 and 10, I attended a symposium on 40 years of official languages in Canada, where I heard from notable lecturers and panellists. We were treated to a round table chaired by Graham Fraser with former commissioners who shared their perspectives on the evolution of official languages.
While there has been significant progress and minority language communities are better equipped to move forward than they were at the end of the 1960s, they are still in danger. We must remain vigilant because the act is still far from being fully enforced.
That same week, in addition to the symposium, I attended the annual general meetings of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada and the Quebec Community Groups Network.
For me, this 40th anniversary was an opportunity to celebrate our official languages with minority francophone communities and Quebec's minority anglophone community and to look back at how far we have come in the past 40 years.