Yes. And this is because of our diaspora and because of our multiplicity of unofficial languages. It's also added to and complemented, of course, by our two official languages.
Our two official languages are notable, because the two official languages, English and French, are predominant languages in the international community and around the world. To be able to have that combination of two official languages so predominant around the world and having the languages of the rest of the world as part of our country is just a huge advantage.
What's the population of the earth? That's exactly what it is. We are in agreement.
Now, article 16(2) says this:
English and French are the official languages of New Brunswick and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the legislature and government of New Brunswick.
You see, they even break our charter down so that we have provisos to give specific status to particular provinces and particular areas. Once again, where that becomes problematic is in trying to enforce this in another country and not being respectful of their initiations, which might have differences in governing in one of their provinces or states. There could be a breakdown of understanding in another country. To expect that our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our Constitution would apply across the board in those countries is practically impossible to expect. But we certainly, here in Canada, want to have these made-in-Canada provisos, because having them in our Constitution is one of the benefits and is probably one of the reasons this Charter and Constitution would be reviewed by countries all over the earth so they can pick out the points they like and would be able to apply and do.
Article 16(3) says that nothing in the charter “limits the authority of Parliament or a legislature to advance the equality of status or use of English and French”. Once again, we go into the linguistic. We have chosen to have the two official languages be English and French. There have been discussions. If we look at Nunavut territory, I believe they have three languages. I think they have the languages of the aboriginals in the territory. If we look at our aboriginal communities across this country, we probably have 40, 50, or 60 languages.
Of course, very much so, under our Constitution, particularly the 1867 Constitution and indeed in the charter--we'll be getting there in a few minutes--we respect the rights of the aboriginal people. Of course, they were the founding people of this country. They were here before all others. In fact, we are the product of the people that enjoined the aboriginals in a relatively short period of time of a couple of hundred years.
Of course, our Constitution makes good reference to the aboriginal people, and also, under its provisos, it certainly does not limit or discriminate against the aboriginal people. As a matter of fact, our country rather encourages the aboriginal people to develop their own languages. We see that on a regular basis. There's encouragement to actually put in written form aboriginal languages that have never in the past been in written form. Our government has been contributing towards them doing so. I believe that's right, because some of the aboriginal languages are being lost. That's more a product of our country evolving. With so many people and populations, the media, and everything else, it's difficult to keep a language that maybe has been more localized when you have other languages coming in. So we should be encouraging them to put them into written expression and written form so that they can be preserved and the original cultures in this country can have continuity in their languages and keep their languages.
Then there's article 16.1(1), which--