The 1867 Compromise

• Date: 22 August 2023
• Author: Michel Bastarache

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 

The 1867 Compromise1

[What Cartier wanted was a Canada] that would be French and

English in each of its parts as well as in its whole — not French

and English in the sense of some bastard fusion of the two races,

in which they would lose their distinctive qualities and character-

istics, but a fruitful alliance of the two races, each one remaining

distinctly itself, but f‌inding within the Canadian confederation

enough room and liberty to live together side by side.

From the moment of Confederation in , the French and Eng-

lish languages have had a constitutionally re cognized protection in

Canada. is protection, present in section  of the Constitution

Act, , is, however, limited; section  guarantees the right to

use either French or English in the federal Parliament and in the

Legislative Assembly of Quebec, as well as in the courts of both

jurisdictions. is section also mandates that statutes adopted in

these jurisdictions be adopted and printed in both languages. e

rights and obligations relating to the federal government and to

the province of Quebec do not extend to any of the other provinces.

Section  is the only part of the Constitution Act,  that deals

directly with matters of language policy. In fact, the capacity to

legislate on matters of language policy is not included in the distri-

bution of legislative powers present in sections  and .