LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium
2003 Lecture

The Right Honourable Chief Justice of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, PC

In fact, however, the Canadian experience with bilingualism can be argued to support the opposite conclusion - that in states facing the reality of widely entrenched linguistic difference, recognition of the right to use minority languages furthers national unity. Canada's minority language and religion guarantees continue to serve their intended purpose - the purpose of providing security to minority citizens that the majority will respect their identities. Minority linguistic rights serve as a bulwark against fear of marginalization, allowing them to participate as equal citizens secure in the knowledge that they will not be excluded because of their linguistic identity. The economic cost of bilingual services is far outweighed by the benefits of inclusion. As Chief Justice Dickson stated for the Supreme Court of Canada in 1990, "any broad guarantee of language rights...cannot be separated from a concern for the culture associated with the language. Language is more than a mere means of communication, it is part and parcel of the identity and culture of the people speaking it. It is the means by which individuals understand themselves and the world around them". To draw linguistic interests into the protective embrace of the state is, therefore, a means of expressing society's commitment to the integrity of cultures and respect for the dignity of individuals.

En somme, la protection constitutionnelle des deux langues officielles au Canada souligne le rôle essentiel de la langue dans la conception que chacun se fait de son identité. Elle souligne en même temps le caractère primordial, pour notre société, de l'intégrité des cultures et du respect de la dignité de chaque personne qui s'exprime à travers des caractéristiques culturelles aussi riches que diversifiées.

Canada's foundation in the ethic of respect and tolerance provided space for citizens of two diverse cultures to work out their political, linguistic and religious differences in a climate of mutual accommodation. It did not, however, mean that the old exclusionary way of thinking did not persist. Sadly, against the backdrop of our remarkable history of accommodation and respect, Canada's first century was marred by the ethic of the assimilation and exclusion of peoples it slotted into special groups -- its first inhabitants, the Aboriginal Peoples; immigrants of so-called "different" races -- that is, neither French nor English; and the 52% or so of the population who were women.

Our country's policy toward the ancestral inhabitants of Canada's lands, the Aboriginal Peoples, has throughout its history veered between exclusion and assimilation on the one hand and respectful acceptance on the other. Prior to Confederation, Aboriginal groups were more often than not treated as autonomous nations. Indeed, the Hurons and Mohawk nations played important opposing roles in the Franco-British wars on what was to become Canadian Territory. But in the 19th Century, as settlement progressed, exclusion, confinement and assimilation came to dominate Canadian policy. The results, most now agree, were at best a failure, at worst tragic. Only in recent decades have First Nations people begun to reclaim their group identity and their rightful place in our country.

The 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples laid bare for Canadians a history which can without exaggeration be characterized as institutionalized discrimination. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 recognized the entitlement of Aboriginal Peoples to their lands and stipulated that these must not be taken from them unless they consented by agreement with the Crown. Translated into the Realpolitik of the 19th Century, this meant the Treaty system, whereby the Indians, as they were called, gave up right to their larger territories in return for a small parcel of reserved land - the reservation -- and minor gifts. In British Columbia, treaties were not entered into; First Nations people were simply allotted parcels upon which to live.

The second-class status of Aboriginal Peoples was clear. In 1857 Upper Canada passed the Act to Encourage the Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes in this Province, which provided for the enfranchisement of Indians of "good character" who would, thereafter, be declared to be "non-Indian." The theory was clear. Aboriginal Peoples were regarded as "uncivilized savages". The only solution was to change them to "non-Indians", or in words of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to "do away with the tribal system, and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the inhabitants of the Dominion." Following passage of the first Indian Act in 1876, native cultural institutions and spiritual practices came under attack. On the west coast, the potlatch ceremony was prohibited. On the plains, the police were called in to break up the sun dance, a ceremony thick with cultural significance for the Aboriginal Peoples of the prairies.

In illogical locked step, assimilationist policies were paired with exclusionary practices in the pervasive reserve system. The very peoples the leaders were proclaiming should be assimilated found themselves virtual prisoners on their reservations with the Department of Indian Affairs adoption of the pass system in 1885. The residential school system, established first in 1849 in Alderville, Ontario, and subsequently expanded, likewise combined exclusionary and assimilationist impulses, with the often tragic consequences that are only now coming fully to light. Policies were no better in the early part of the 20th century. The assimilation-exclusion model persisted. On the exclusionary side, Canadian Aboriginals were not permitted to vote until the 1950's and 60's, unless they renounced their aboriginal status. On the assimilation side, Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, stated in 1920 that government policy was "to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question and no Indian department."

The simultaneous pursuit of exclusion and assimilation produced cultural displacement, marginalization, and tragic loss of identity and self-esteem. The policy of exclusion cut Aboriginal Peoples off from opportunities available to the rest of the country. At the same time, the policy of assimilation undermined their identity as members of a group -- their shared history, language and culture. The good aspects of the group dynamic -- a solid identity rooted in one's history and culture -- were weakened; the negative aspects -- isolation, alienation and lack of opportunity -- enhanced. Despite the often good intentions of well-meaning men, it is difficult to conceive in retrospect of a more problematic approach to the other.