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(Posted
10 a.m., Jan. 15)
Francophone coalition calls for official recognition of
city's 'bilingual character'
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online
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 A
coalition of francophone academics, legal
experts, businessmen and more than 40 organizations
and associations has put forward a proposal
to designate Ottawa officially bilingual in
time for the 150th celebrations. File phoo
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A
broad-based coalition of francophone academics, business
leaders, lawyers and representatives from more than 40
different organizations is calling on the City of Ottawa
to officially recognize it's bilingual character in time
for next year’s sesquicentennial celebration.
A
broad-based coalition of francophone academics, business
leaders, lawyers and representatives from more than 40
different organizations is calling on the City of Ottawa
to officially recognize it's bilingual character in time
for next year’s sesquicentennial celebration.
The
Movement pour une capitale du Canada officialement bilingue
(MOCOB) was formed in 2014 to explore the thorny issue
of official bilingual status for Ottawa.
At
the time, the initiative was dismissed by Ottawa mayor
Jim Watson.
In
an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Watson defended
the city’s current French language services policy
and said that official bilingual status wasn't necessary.
“I
don’t support designating Ottawa as officially bilingual,
because we already have a very good language policy in
Ottawa. We’ve had it for over a decade, and it works
well,” said Watson. “There’s some confusion
as to what this group is asking for."
That
last statement forced MOCOB to rethink its approach. After
broadening the coalition to include academic leaders and
legal experts, the group spent the past year developing
a more “politically friendly” path to official
bilingual status.
The
result of that effort is contained in a communique released
by the coalition earlier this month which calls for amendments
to the City of Ottawa Act that echo the intent of the
current French language services policy, while providing
city council with the discretion to determine the scope
of the accompanying bylaw and exclude certain services
if they so choose.
The
latter amendment is meant to allay fears in the anglophone
community that official bilingual status could be used
to expand existing services and increase costs.
According
to coalition advisor François Larocque, who is
Vice-Dean of Common Law Section of the Faculty of Law
of the University of Ottawa and who helped write the suggested
amendments to the Ottawa Act, the aim of the initiative
is to give the francphone community’s historical
status official recognition and to protect existing French
language services in both provincial legislation and the
city’s bylaws.
“This
is what we felt was the most reasonable and most likely
approach to present to City Hall and Queen's Park. It
disturbs very little while meeting our aspirations,”
says Larocque.
The
initiative would require two simultaneous procedures:
City
council must first adopt a resolution asking the province
of Ontario to amend the City of Ottawa Act in order to
explicitly recognize the equal status of the French and
English languages in the City of Ottawa.
Concurrently,
the resolution must be accompanied by an amendment to
the Bilingualism By-law to give local effect to the proposed
changes to the City of Ottawa Act.
The
coalition is hoping to gain support among Ottawa’s
anglophone community to have the changes enacted in time
for Canada’s 150th birthday celebration in 2017.
“I
can not think of a better way to recognize the contribution
of all linguistic communities that contribute so much
to the dynamism of Ottawa while celebrating cultural diversity
of a proudly inclusive and welcoming community,”
says coalition coordinator Jacques de Courville Nicol.
(This
story was made possible thanks to their generous support
of our local business partners.)
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