Some in formations so we understand and tolerate some differences…
Quebec, which is home to an English-speaking minority of over half a million, had traditionally been the only province which was generous in its treatment of its minority-language population, and for this reason had been cited by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism as the model to be emulated by other provinces.
Objective…
The preamble of the Charter states that the National Assembly resolved "to make French the language of Government and the Law, as well as the normal and everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business". It also states that the National Assembly is to pursue this objective "in a spirit of fairness and open-mindedness, recognizes "the right of the Amerinds and the Inuit of Quebec, the first inhabitants of this land to preserve and develop their original language and culture".
Some history…
French settlers founded the colony of what is now Canada (was New France from 1534 to 1756)… New France (Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763. At its peak in 1712, the territory of New France extended from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.
After the British conquest (1756–1760), the Quebec Act of 1774, an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain has been passed to set procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. Among other components, this act restored the use of the French civil law for private matters while maintaining the use of the English common law for public administration (including criminal prosecution), replaced the oath of allegiance so that it no longer made reference to the Protestant faith, and guaranteed free practice of the Catholic faith.
More recently…
The Charter of the French Language (La charte de la langue française), also known as Bill 101, is a law in the province of Quebec in Canada defining French, the language of the majority of the population, as the official language of Quebec, and framing fundamental language rights.
Within Quebec, changes to the treatment of French-speakers within the federal public service were met with approval that this actually helped the unilingual French-speaking majority of Quebecers, who continued to be excluded from some federal jobs designated "bilingual", since by definition a "bilingual" job requires the use of English, and is therefore closed to a unilingual Francophone. That obviously unilingual anglophones are excluded as well is rarely mentioned… There is a vastly higher rate of bilingualism among Francophones than Anglophones.
Official bilingualism should not be confused with personal bilingualism…
A bilingual country is not one where all the inhabitants necessarily have to speak two languages. Nearly 95% of Quebecers speak French, and 40.6% speak English.
In the rest of the country, 97.6% of the population is capable of speaking English, but only 7.5% can speak French.
Personal bilingualism is most concentrated in southern Quebec and a swath of territory sometimes referred to as the “bilingual belt”, which stretches east from Quebec through northern and eastern New Brunswick and west through Ottawa and that part of Ontario lying to the east of Ottawa, as well as north-eastern Ontario. There is also a large French speaking population in Manitoba .
In all, 55% of bilingual Canadians are Quebecers. We try, you know.
Let’s share the land and smile at each other.