OTTAWA (Staff) — The next generation of Canadians will go a long way toward ending Canada’s linguistic “two solitudes” because a record number of young Canadians are trying to become bilingual, says Canada’s commissioner of official languages.
It includes a sharp increase during the past 15 years in the number of students taking second language training on the Prairies.
Victor Goldbloom’s report, tabled in the House of Commons last week, said that almost 60,000 prairie students were enrolled last year in second-language immersion programs.
Fifteen years ago, there were barely 2,000.
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“Canada’s youth represent a generation that understands that diversity does not threaten, it enriches,” he wrote. “Already, it is the most bilingual generation in Canadian history, a fact that may signal the progressive end of two linguistic solitudes for those who are up to that challenge.”
Goldbloom also reported that French-language minority communities on the Prairies made progress in having their education rights recognized last year.
Manage own schools
“The year 1993 will go down in history as the one which finally, 11 years after the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms … saw movement on the issue of school management by the francophone communities in three of the four western provinces,” he wrote.
In Manitoba, a court reaffirmed the right of French-speaking parents to have their children educated in French in schools managed by francophone-controlled school boards.
In Saskatchewan, the government approved legislation allowing creation of eight francophone school boards. Alberta legislation allows francophones management of their own schools.