Legal environment of official languages in Canada
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Pierre Foucher
Abstract
Language rights are an important part of the socio-legal environment in Canada. This article examines the constitutional division of legislative powers over language in Canada and its consequence on language rights. It also looks into constitutional language rights to ascertain how these rights shape the future of linguistic communities in Canada. The article shows that constitutionally protected language rights foster the constitutional dialogue theory and helps to advance the status and power of French and English minorities in a delicate balance between courts and legislatures, federal and provincial jurisdictions, and English minorities in Quebec and French minorities outside Quebec.
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Official language minorities in Canada: an introduction
- The English-speaking minority of Quebec: a historical perspective
- From “Nouvelle-France” to “Francophonie canadienne”: a historical survey
- Legal environment of official languages in Canada
- Follow the leaders: reconciling identity and governance in Quebec's Anglophone population
- Language politics and horizontal governance
- Anglo-Quebec today: looking at community and schooling issues
- Bilingual schooling of the Canadian Francophone minority: a cultural autonomy model
- The Canadian state and the empowerment of the Francophone minority communities regarding their economic development
- Language planning and French-English bilingual communication: Montreal field studies from 1977 to 1997
- A macroscopic intergroup approach to the study of ethnolinguistic development
- Ethnolinguistic minorities and national integration in Canada
- Book reviews
Articles in the same Issue
- Official language minorities in Canada: an introduction
- The English-speaking minority of Quebec: a historical perspective
- From “Nouvelle-France” to “Francophonie canadienne”: a historical survey
- Legal environment of official languages in Canada
- Follow the leaders: reconciling identity and governance in Quebec's Anglophone population
- Language politics and horizontal governance
- Anglo-Quebec today: looking at community and schooling issues
- Bilingual schooling of the Canadian Francophone minority: a cultural autonomy model
- The Canadian state and the empowerment of the Francophone minority communities regarding their economic development
- Language planning and French-English bilingual communication: Montreal field studies from 1977 to 1997
- A macroscopic intergroup approach to the study of ethnolinguistic development
- Ethnolinguistic minorities and national integration in Canada
- Book reviews