An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (communications with and services to the public)

This bill was last introduced in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session, which ended in March 2011.

Status

Second reading (Senate), as of March 24, 2011
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment amends the Official Languages Act. The concept of equal quality of communications and services in each official language is introduced. The enactment modifies the criteria used to determine when there is a significant demand for communications and services in one of the official languages.
This enactment specifies the locations where federal institutions have a duty to provide communications and services in both official languages. That duty is applied to cases where an official language minority is located in a specific geographic region or faces linguistic assimilation. Many of the duties of the federal institutions to provide communications and services in both official languages are extended to the carriers designated by regulation of the Governor in Council.
The provisions on prior consultation are applied more specifically to amendments to regulations that provide for exceptions to the application of Part IV of the Act in certain circumstances or to certain bodies.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

November 4th, 2010 / 10:30 a.m.
See context

Bloc

Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Senator Chaput's Bill S-220 is currently before the Senate. Its mandatory remedial nature is being talked about because of the pressures to assimilate faced by communities, especially in predominantly minority communities, demographically and linguistically, in the provinces in question.

A study entitled "Vision d'avenir" was conducted by the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française and led by Roger Bernard, who is unfortunately no longer with us today. If I remember correctly, that was in 1990. In keeping with the objective of the exercise, the study traced the ethnolinguistic reality of francophone communities at the time. Since then, unfortunately, our communities have continued to be adversely affected by assimilation.

Mr. Commissioner, under your mandate, can you examine studies of that kind that suggest potential solutions and remedies? That would probably require additional funds or efforts, although they are very few and far between in many places in the federal government. That way, the wording of the act regarding the vitality—and not the assimilation—of minority linguistic communities would have some meaning.

Can you delve into that aspect? Earlier on, we talked about third parties. I think that is another aspect that affects minority communities more.