It’s the most significant proposal on the status of French and English in Canada since the 1982 enactment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which entrenched the main provisions of the 1969 Official Languages Act in the Canadian Constitution. The last major reform to the act was in 1988.
Both the charter and the act proclaim: “English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status and equal rights … in all institutions of the Parliament and government.”
The new policy,
English and French: Towards a Substantive Equality of Official Languages in Canada is based on the recognition that French and English are not on the same footing in Canada and that the federal government is constitutionally obliged to do more to protect French from coast to coast.