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

Of much greater significance were the formula payments. Under the terms of the 1970 agreement, the federal government agreed to pay a fixed percentage of per capita costs of instruction for students studying official languages. The federal government committed itself to paying nine per cent of the costs of instruction of a full-time, minority-language student. Assuming that the extra costs would be lower for second-language courses, the federal government agreed to pay five per cent of the costs of instruction for students studying the second language, payable on a pro-rated, per-student basis. The agreement was retroactive to January 1970, and would run to March 1974, with $50 million committed for 1970, and the expectation that the total cost of the programme would run to $300 million over the course of the following five years.

A number of aspects of this initial arrangement require additional comment, as they became increasingly important over the course of theBEP. In addition to providing for minority-language education, which was recommended by the RCBB, the federal programme also made provisions for funding second-language instruction in the official languages, which had not been recommended. In a 1976 speech to the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF), Jane Dobell of the Secretary of State Department emphasized that one of the programme's objectives was to provide Canadians with the opportunity to become bilingual.24 It is also likely that the governments wished to make the programme more palatable by including the promotion of second-language instruction, which had been found to be more acceptable by the general population, in order to soften the impact of providing minority-language education, which was unpopular in English-speaking Canada. By fostering individual bilingualism in anglophones, the programme would also eventually produce qualified applicants for civil service positions.

Another notable feature of these arrangements is the manner in which the formulas were constructed. The formula payments were based strictly on the number of students currently studying the other official language. The provinces with the most poorly developed minority-language education systems were in western and Atlantic Canada, particularly compared to Quebec's complete system of English school boards. These two regions were the main target of the BEP when it was conceived, and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, with much more developed programmes, were fit into the formulas afterwards.25 Due to the funding structures established for the formula programmes, the regions with low enrolments ended up receiving only a small share of the total amount of funding, while Ontario and Quebec received hefty subsidies for their pre-existing programmes.

Moreover, the figures of nine per cent and five per cent were estimations by federal officials,26 who lacked hard statistical data upon which to base their percentages. The concept of paying only for additional costs was not made a condition of the programme, and thus federal funds could very easily be used to pay for pre-existing provincial programmes. Furthermore, the provinces were not required to demonstrate how they were using the federal funds. The formula arrangements were linked to provincial costs and were of an open-ended nature, with no fixed cap. Accordingly, the initial $300 million budget could prove to be grossly inadequate if these costs increased substantially over time. Finally, the federal government had not implemented stringent controls on the use of its funds and thus loopholes existed for the provinces to pursue their own agendas and divert funds accordingly.