Confusing and conflicting agendas: Federalism, official languages and the development of the bilingualism in education program in Ontario, 1970-1983

Journal of Canadian Studies, Spring 2001 by Matthew Hayday

The Bilingualism in Education Program began in 1970 as a federal government initiative to promote official minority language education and second-language instruction in the provinces. This article, a study of the development of language policy under the Trudeau government, examines the evolution of the programme over its first 13 years of operation in the province of Ontario. Over this period, friction developed between the federal and provincial governments and the Franco-Ontarian lobby groups as the programme evolved away from the original objectives of the federal government. Constrained by provincial jurisdiction over education under the Canadian federal system, Ottawa was unable to control the implementation of this programme. Consequently, the programme grew to cater more to the interests of the anglophone majority of Ontario, than to its francophone minority. As the negotiation process proceeded, issues of control and finance came to take precedence, while pedagogical issues tended to fall by the wayside.

Le Programme de bilinguisme en education a debute en 1970 en tant qu'initiative du gouvernement federal pour promouvoir I'education dans la langue de la minorite officielle et l'enseignement de la langue seconde dans les provinces. Etude du developpement des polltiques du langage sous le gouvernement Trudeau, l'article examine l'evolution du programme pendant les treize premieres annees de sa mise en application dans la province de l'Ontario. Au cours de cette periode, des desaccords sont survenus entre les gouvernements federal et provinciaux et les groupes de lobbyistes franco-ontariens alors que le programme s'eloignait progressivement des objectifs premiers du gouvernement federal. Parce que le systeme federal canadien accorde aux provinces la competence en matiere d'education, Ottawa a ete incapable de controler la mise en oeuvre de son programme. Par consequent, ce dernier a fini par repondre davantage aux interets de la majorite anglophone de l'Ontario qu'a ceux de sa minority francophone. Au fur et a mesure qu'avanqait le processus de negotiation, les questions relatives au controle et aux finances ont fini par predominer alors que les questions pedagogiques etaient plus ou moins laissees pour compte.

As we enter the new millennium, Canadians can enjoy a daily breakfast of Flocons de mais, obtain government services in both English and French and sing the national anthem in both official languages at hockey games. The vast majority of our children receive some form of basic instruction in their second official language, and have the option of enrolling in French immersion programmes. Francophones in the English-speaking provinces and anglophones in Quebec have access to school systems that operate in their own mother tongue; however, official bilingualism in Canada is a relatively recent phenomenon. From 1912 to 1929, in the era of Regulation 17, teaching in the French language was banned in the province of Ontario. French-speaking federal civil servants encountered serious obstacles to promotion until the 1960s. French immersion programmes were only developed in the mid-1960s, and both second-language instruction and education services for official-language minorities were quite limited before the 1970s.

Over the course of the 1960s, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (RCBB) began to explore ways of alleviating some of the tensions that existed between Canada's two dominant language communities. Many of the RCBB's recommendations were adopted as government policy, including the Official Languages Act, 1969, which declared French and English to be the two official languages of Canada. Under the terms of Section 92 of the British North America Act, 1867, education is an area of exclusively provincial jurisdiction, except if confessional school rights are violated. Notwithstanding this provision, the RCBB made a number of recommendations advising the federal government to fund minority official-- language education.1 Drawing on these recommendations, the federal government entered into negotiations with the provinces to create the Bilingualism in Education Program (BEP), renamed the Official Languages in Education Program in 1979, which was launched by Secretary of State Gerard Pelletier on 9 September 1970. Under the BEP, the federal government agreed to reimburse the provinces for additional costs that they incurred as a result of providing minority-language education and second-language instruction. This programme would prove to be extremely complicated and created much friction between the federal government, the provincial governments and their respective constituencies, particularly the official-language minority communities.

To date, research on the federal government's attempts to promote bilingualism in the 1970s has been extremely limited. The BEP itself has not been the subject of any study from a political or historical perspective; studies of the programme have focussed on the pedagogical issues involved in French language instruction and its effectiveness.2 Other research on this period has been largely limited to political science analyses of the desirability of a national programme of official bilingualism, typified by the work of Kenneth McRoberts,3 or mini-case studies of particular programmes, such as Leslie Pal's study of the Official Minority Language Groups Programme.4 The remaining literature in this area concentrates on demographic shifts in Canada's language populations, including work by Charles Castonguay5 and Richard Joy.6