Modernization of the OLA Recap

Last Friday, LQ's own Gabrielle Thomas and Sarah Conley attended a Roundtable on the modernization of the Official Languages Act.  The roundtable is part of a tour being made by Canada's Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie, Melanie Joly. The goal is to take another look at the Act on its 50th birthday. An example of why this is necessary was given in the opening of the roundtable: when the Act was created in 1969, the internet did not even exist. The Act has come a long way in Canada's history, but now it is time to rethink how it can better serve our communities and meed the needs of modern Canadians.

Gabrielle and Sarah were joined by many other Montreal community representatives. Unfortunately, Minister Melanie Joly was unable to attend.

At LQ, we believe that Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs) should be consulted on how the Act can be changed to better meet their needs. A lot has been done historically to help preserve Francophone minority communities outside of Quebec and we believe the same support should be shown to Anglophones living inside Quebec. English has not been an official language in Quebec since 1974. Given these circumstances, how may the Anglophone community continue to thrive and grow alongside our French-speaking counterparts?

We are in the process of answering this important question.

If you have thoughts on the matter, we would love to hear them - send us a message at [email protected]

Author

Sarah Conley is Literacy Quebec's Policy Intern.