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Charter - Language Rights [ss.16-23]. Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick v. Canada (Prime Minister)
In Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick v. Canada (Prime Minister) (SCC, 2026) the Supreme Court of Canada allowed an appeal, this brought against a NB Court of Appeal ruling that allowed a Crown appeal, this from a NB Queen's Bench ruling that held that "ss. 16(2), 16.1 and 20(2) of the Charter impose an obligation of personal bilingualism on the holder of the position of Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick".
The court considers the appropriate Charter remedy, here a Charter s.24(1) declaration:V. Remedy
[119] An order in council is a legal instrument that results from a decision made by the Governor in Council. When it formalizes an appointment, an order in council has [translation] “a more specific, non-statutory scope” (Brun, Tremblay and Brouillet, at para. I.109). An order in council making an appointment is therefore not a law, because it does not establish “binding rules of general application” relating to “the rights and obligations of the individuals to whom they apply” (Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority v. Canadian Federation of Students — British Columbia Component, 2009 SCC 31, [2009] 2 S.C.R. 295, at para. 64). It is simply a manifestation of the exercise of a particular power of appointment codified in the Constitution, and it grants the appointed person specific powers and privileges associated with the office of Lieutenant Governor.
[120] In the case of a government act and not a law, the appropriate remedy for an infringement of Charter rights is in theory based on s. 24(1) (R. v. Ferguson, 2008 SCC 6, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 96, at para. 61; R. v. Albashir, 2021 SCC 48, [2021] 3 S.C.R. 531, at para. 62; see also R. v. 974649 Ontario Inc., 2001 SCC 81, [2001] 3 S.C.R. 575, at para. 14; Alberta v. Hutterian Brethren of Wilson Colony, 2009 SCC 37, [2009] 2 S.C.R. 567, at para. 67; K. Roach, “Enforcement of the Charter — Sections 24(1) and 52(1)”, in E. Mendes and S. Beaulac, eds., Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (6th ed. 2025), 1221, at § 22.04[1]). Section 24(1) allows anyone whose rights have been infringed to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances. The court’s determination of an appropriate and just remedy is based on its “careful perception of the nature of the right and of the infringement, the facts of the case, and the application of the relevant legal principles” (Doucet-Boudreau, at para. 52).
[121] The appellant has shown that the appointment of a unilingual Lieutenant Governor in New Brunswick infringes the rights guaranteed to it by s. 16(2) of the Charter. However, the appellant has not established, or even argued, that the federal government’s decision reflected an unreasonable balancing of the rights or freedoms protected by the Charter and the legitimate objectives pursued by the Governor in Council in appointing Lieutenant Governor Murphy (Doré v. Barreau du Québec, 2012 SCC 12, [2012] 1 S.C.R. 395). As described above, the appellant chose instead to argue its case from the standpoint of a declaration dealing with the pure question of law of the interaction between ss. 16 to 20 of the Charter and s. 58 of the Constitution Act, 1867. In these circumstances, the specific remedy of quashing the order in council making the appointment is not appropriate.
[122] The appropriate remedy is a declaration. The jurisprudence recognizes the special value of a declaration in constitutional cases. In Canada (Prime Minister) v. Khadr, 2010 SCC 3, [2010] 1 S.C.R. 44, this Court noted that such a remedy, even without a coercive order, is an effective measure because it clarifies the legal situation and requires the authorities to comply with the law, while leaving them the measure of discretion they need to determine the most appropriate means of implementation (para. 46). This flexibility is of particular importance where the remedy affects the functioning of a constitutional institution whose responsibilities are closely linked to the continuity of the state, as is the case here.
[123] For these reasons, the appeal is allowed. The judgment of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal is set aside, and the judgment of the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench is restored in part. The Court declares that the appointment of a Lieutenant Governor in New Brunswick who does not have the ability to understand both official languages and to communicate in these languages when performing their functions infringes s. 16(2) of the Charter. It is understood that neither the order in council making the appointment nor the acts of Lieutenant Governor Murphy are invalidated by this decision. . Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick v. Canada (Prime Minister)
In Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick v. Canada (Prime Minister) (SCC, 2026) the Supreme Court of Canada allowed an appeal, this brought against a NB Court of Appeal ruling that allowed a Crown appeal, this from a NB Queen's Bench ruling that held that "ss. 16(2), 16.1 and 20(2) of the Charter impose an obligation of personal bilingualism on the holder of the position of Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick".
Here the court considers the s.16(2) ['Official languages of New Brunswick'] Charter provision, addressing NB language rights:(4) Interpretation of Section 16(2) of the Charter
[54] The appellant submits that the appointment of a unilingual Lieutenant Governor in New Brunswick violates the guarantee of equality of status of the official languages conferred in s. 16(2) of the Charter. It maintains that equality of status has an expressive dimension that is not realized when the unipersonal institution of Lieutenant Governor is embodied by a unilingual person. Since several of the Lieutenant Governor’s functions cannot be delegated and carry significant institutional responsibility, the appellant argues that the Court of Appeal erred in unduly limiting the scope of this section and that it failed to take into account the unique nature of the institution of Lieutenant Governor.
[55] The respondent counters that s. 16(2) is concerned solely with institutional bilingualism, and thus the administrative organization of institutions, and not with the office holders’ personal skills. He emphasizes the distinction between the “office” and the “institution”, saying that the Charter imposes only an obligation to provide services, not a personal language requirement. According to the respondent, the appellant’s interpretation thus disregards the ordinary meaning of the word “institution”, which refers to an administrative structure and not to an individual, even if the individual holds a constitutional office.
[56] This Court has never had occasion to rule on the interpretation of s. 16(2) of the Charter.
[57] Writing for the majority in Beaulac, Bastarache J. noted that s. 16 “formally recognizes the principle of equality of the two official languages of Canada” (para. 22). He noted in this regard that “[l]anguage rights are not negative rights, or passive rights” (para. 20), and that “[e]quality does not have a lesser meaning in matters of language. With regard to existing rights, equality must be given true meaning” (para. 22). However, Beaulac provides little guidance on the nature, content and scope of s. 16(2).
[58] In Charlebois, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal, referring mainly to Beaulac, provided some additional guidance. According to the court, s. 16(2) enshrines a principle of substantive equality of the official languages in New Brunswick’s institutions (paras. 63-77). The court stated that the provincial language regime is institutional, not personal, bilingualism: it aims for the use of both languages by public institutions in the provision of services (para. 10). The court also emphasized that this substantive equality may require government action for its implementation (para. 113).
(a) Declaratory or Mandatory Nature of Section 16(2)
[59] Before considering the precise content of this provision, I think it is necessary to dispel any ambiguity regarding whether s. 16(2) is declaratory or mandatory.
[60] There has been some debate about the scope of s. 16 in the academic literature and jurisprudence. According to one school of thought, s. 16 is a provision that is purely symbolic, declaratory in nature and not capable of grounding a claim for relief. On this view, this provision merely sets out an introductory principle for the regime of language rights in the Charter and should be understood in light of the provisions that follow it and set out specific modalities for the achievement of linguistic equality (B. B. Pelletier, “Les pouvoirs de légiférer en matière de langue après la ‘Loi constitutionnelle de 1982’” (1984), 25 C. de D. 227, at pp. 253-69; J. E. Magnet, Official languages of Canada: Perspectives from law, policy and the future (1995), at p. 101). This position is similar to the one taken by the New Brunswick Court of Appeal, which stated in its reasons that s. 16(2) “is somewhat a magnifying lens of substantive equality through which existing language rights must be considered and analyzed” (para. 114). This is also the position favoured by the respondent.
[61] In contrast, a second school of thought maintains that this section sets out the fundamental, autonomous and binding principle of Canadian language policy and creates specific obligations for the government in order to ensure the equality of the official languages in its institutions (J. Klinck et al., “Le droit à la prestation des services publics dans les langues officielles”, in Bastarache and Doucet, Les droits linguistiques au Canada, 451, at pp. 519-25; H. Brun, G. Tremblay and E. Brouillet, Droit constitutionnel (6th ed. 2014), at paras. XI.24-XI.27; A. Tremblay, “Les droits linguistiques (Articles 16 à 22)”, in G.-A. Beaudoin and E. Mendes, eds., The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (3rd ed. 1996), 15-1, at pp. 15-1 to 15-11; L. Huppé, “Droit Constitutionnel — Article 16 de la Charte des Droits et Libertés — Égalité de Statut des Langues Officielles — Une Intention ou une Obligation?: Société des Acadiens c. Association of Parents” (1988), 67 Can. Bar Rev. 128, at p. 135). In other words, on this view, s. 16 is “the cornerstone or pivot of all language provisions” at the federal level and in New Brunswick (A. Tremblay, “The Language Rights (Ss. 16 to 23)”, in W. S. Tarnopolsky and G. A. Beaudoin, eds., The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Commentary (1982), 443, at p. 450).
[62] Contrary to the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeal and my colleague Rowe J., I am of the view that s. 16 is not simply a magnifying lens through which the other specific language rights in the Charter must be analyzed. Rather, this provision has its own independent mandatory scope. Nothing in the architecture of the Charter serves to establish a hierarchy among the various language guarantees or supports the view that some are mandatory while others are merely declaratory. Such a reading needlessly fragments the constitutional language regime and risks depriving s. 16 of the structuring effect conferred on it by the framers. Rather, s. 16 is part of a coherent set of guarantees whose purpose is to ensure the stability and predictability of the language regime of Canada and New Brunswick, not an ancillary mechanism intended to magnify rights already set out elsewhere in the Charter.
[63] As authors Brun, Tremblay and Brouillet point out, the debate surrounding the mandatory or declaratory nature of equality of status and use must be understood in light of its historical context (para. XI.24; Klinck et al., at pp. 519-25). This debate is rooted in part in the interpretation given by some courts to s. 2 of the Official Languages Act of 1969, which was drafted in terms analogous to those of s. 16 of the Charter. In cases dealing with the use of French as a language of work, those courts had found that the provision was merely declaratory in nature and devoid of any real effect (see Air Canada v. Joyal (1982), 1982 CanLII 3079 (QC CA), 134 D.L.R. (3d) 410 (Que. C.A.); Association des Gens de l’Air du Québec Inc. v. Lang, 1978 CanLII 2029 (FCA), [1978] 2 F.C. 371 (C.A.)).
[64] However, as Professors Brun, Tremblay and Brouillet note, the limits applicable to the former Official Languages Act of 1969 no longer apply when s. 16 of the Charter is being interpreted (para. XI.24). First, the constitutional nature of s. 16 means that it has supra-legislative authority which exceeds that of ordinary laws, giving it a normative force that cannot be neutralized by traditional rules of interpretation. Thus, s. 16 appears not as an isolated objective, but as a component of a broader structural reconfiguration (Huppé, at p. 135).
[65] Second, unlike s. 2 of the 1969 Official Languages Act, the application of s. 16 of the Charter is squarely within the purview of the courts under s. 24(1) of the Charter and s. 52(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, and this allows for judicial review of measures that are contrary to linguistic equality. As authors Foucher and Snow note, the s. 24(1) remedy would be illusory if the guarantees in s. 16 had no real import (P. Foucher and G. Snow, “Le régime juridique des langues dans l’administration publique au Nouveau-Brunswick” (1983), 24 C. de D. 81, at p. 92).
[66] Furthermore, it would be difficult to conclude that s. 16(1) and s. 16(2) of the Charter form only a preamble whose content is exhausted by the provisions that follow. As Professors Brun, Tremblay and Brouillet point out, the scope of ss. 17 to 23 of the Charter is too narrow to lessen the generality of the terms of s. 16 (para. XI.25). Like s. 7 of the Charter, which introduces legal rights without being coextensive with ss. 8 to 14, s. 16 sets out an independent standard whose specific incarnations appear in the provisions that follow, though without exhausting its meaning (see G. C. N. Webber, “The Promise of Canada’s Official-Languages Declaration”, in J. E. Magnet, ed., Official Languages of Canada: New Essays (2008), 131; Huppé, at p. 137; Re B.C. Motor Vehicle Act, 1985 CanLII 81 (SCC), [1985] 2 S.C.R. 486, at pp. 502-3; R. v. Lyons, 1987 CanLII 25 (SCC), [1987] 2 S.C.R. 309, at p. 354). In other words, ss. 17 to 23 of the Charter are specific incarnations of the equality of status of the official languages and of the rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the legislature and government of New Brunswick that is guaranteed by s. 16, but they do not exhaust its scope.
[67] Likewise, the fact that s. 16(2) does not specify who holds the enunciated rights does not deprive it of all normative force. It is true that this provision does not confer rights on a specific person, but rather states that the official languages have equality of status and equal rights and privileges. This formulation contrasts with the one used for most rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Charter that expressly identify the holders, whether for fundamental freedoms, the right to life, liberty and security of the person and legal rights (ss. 7 to 10 and 12 to 14 (“[e]veryone”)), the right to equality (s. 15 (“[e]very individual”)), mobility rights and democratic rights (ss. 3 and 6 (“[e]very citizen”)) or minority language educational rights (s. 23 (“[c]itizens of Canada”)). However, as Professor Webber rightly points out, the absence of an expressly named right holder is not unknown in our Constitution (p. 148). For example, the provisions on sittings of Parliament and on its maximum duration of five years do not identify any individualized beneficiary. The same is true of the existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of Indigenous peoples, which are “recognized and affirmed” in s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. The absence of a holder cannot, as my colleague suggests, justify a purely interpretive reading of this provision.
[68] Similarly, the broad and abstract nature of the language of s. 16(2), just like the absence of internal limits or explicit criteria allowing its implications to be predicted, is consistent with the existence of something other than a strictly interpretive function. Our constitutional provisions are often drafted in general and abstract terms, as this Court in fact noted in Hunter with respect to s. 8 (p. 154; Brun, Tremblay and Brouillet, at para. XII-3.2). Section 7, and specifically its second part concerning the “principles of fundamental justice”, does not provide any more criteria than s. 16(2) does for determining its precise content or circumscribing its scope. This flexibility in the text is precisely what allows the Charter to grow and develop in line with the various social and political realities it may be faced with over time (Hunter, at p. 155). As recognized by Professors Hogg and Wright, “[a] constitution differs from an ordinary statute in that a constitution is expressed in language sufficiently broad to accommodate a wide and unpredictable range of facts” (§ 36:18). This is why the Court has consistently stated that interpreting the Charter’s provisions requires identifying the purpose of the right in question, and not limiting oneself to just reading its text, in order to delineate its contours (Taylor, at para. 85). The guidance needed for this analysis must be sought beyond just the wording. In short, the open-ended drafting style used for constitutional provisions is not a reason to restrict the mandatory nature of a Charter right.
[69] Finally, it should be borne in mind that this decision is firmly grounded in the particular historical and social context of New Brunswick. This is the same context that, as I have explained, led to the inclusion in the Charter of specific provisions on language rights in New Brunswick. While the wording of the provisions specific to New Brunswick (Charter, ss. 16(2), 17(2), 18(2), 19(2) and 20(2)) is similar to the wording used in the corollary provisions applicable to the institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada (ss. 16(1), 17(1), 18(1), 19(1) and 20(1)), it does not necessarily follow that these provisions must be given the same interpretation. As this Court noted recently in Taylor, “the purpose of a right or freedom is to protect the interests and values embodied by the individual Charter provision” (para. 73). In this regard, “[t]he historical origins of the right in question provide [an] interpretive source of purpose” (para. 80). The interpretive exercise we have conducted in these reasons is anchored in the specific context of the history of the protection of language rights in New Brunswick and cannot necessarily be transposed to the interpretation of the provisions concerning the institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada. This question does not need to be resolved for the purposes of this case. At paras 70-100 the court walks through a 'statutory' (although this is a constitutional provision) interpretation assessment of Constitution Act, 1982. s.16(2) ['Official languages of New Brunswick'].
. Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick v. Canada (Prime Minister)
In Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick v. Canada (Prime Minister) (SCC, 2026) the Supreme Court of Canada allowed an appeal, this brought against a NB Court of Appeal ruling that allowed a Crown appeal, this from a NB Queen's Bench ruling that held that "ss. 16(2), 16.1 and 20(2) of the Charter impose an obligation of personal bilingualism on the holder of the position of Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick".
Here the court considers the history and the constitutional status of NB language rights in Canada:(2) Constitutional Protection of Language Rights in New Brunswick
[32] The interpretation of language rights in New Brunswick cannot be undertaken in a factual vacuum. It must be contextualized by reference to the history of that province’s Francophone minority.
[33] In 1604, French colonists began settling in the region that is now the Maritimes, which they called Acadia. This territory quickly became the subject of conflict between the French living there and English settlers in New England. Following the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded the territory of Acadia to Great Britain, which there imposed British law and English as the language of administration (J. E. Cote, “The Reception of English Law” (1977), 15 Alta. L. Rev. 29, at pp. 36 and 41).
[34] After refusing to swear allegiance to the British Crown, a large portion of the Acadian population was deported from Acadian territory to the British colonies of North America from 1755 to 1763, in what is today called the “Great Upheaval”. More than 10,000 Acadians were forced to leave their villages and families and abandon their culture (P. Girard, J. Phillips and R. B. Brown, A History of Law in Canada, vol. 1, Beginnings to 1866 (2018), at pp. 229-30). Thousands of them perished from illness, in shipwrecks or in their places of refuge. This event resulted in significant trauma to the Francophone community in the Maritimes, but it also laid the foundations of the Acadian identity.
[35] Following the Seven Years’ War, many of them gradually returned and settled in the northern and eastern regions of what is now New Brunswick. However, they remained politically marginalized. When the province was created in 1784, no protection was granted to the French language or the Acadian culture (M. Bastarache and A. Boudreau Ouellet, “Droits linguistiques et culturels des Acadiens et des Acadiennes de 1713 à nos jours”, in J. Daigle, ed., L’Acadie des Maritimes: études thématiques des débuts à nos jours (1993), 385, at p. 395). This institutional invisibility persisted after Confederation (G. Migneault, “La progression des droits linguistiques au Nouveau-Brunswick dans une perspective historique globale” (2007), 52 McGill L.J. 83, at pp. 87-97). The Constitution Act, 1867 did not extend the language guarantees set out in s. 133 to New Brunswick, despite the presence of a significant Francophone minority. Similarly, Catholic schools, which were predominantly French-language schools, did not enjoy the constitutional protection conferred by s. 93, since they were treated as non-denominational public schools by the law preceding the province’s entry into Confederation (see, in this regard, Ex parte Renaud (1873), 1873 CanLII 23 (NB SC), 14 N.B.R. 273, reasons approved by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Maher v. Town of Portland (1874), [1896] Wheeler’s Confederation Laws of Canada 338).
[36] New Brunswick thus carried out an institutional assimilation of the Francophone minority: the administration and courts functioned in English only, while education in French remained limited (see Bastarache and Boudreau Ouellet, at pp. 419-21). The French language was therefore excluded from New Brunswick’s institutions. Francophones were minoritized, since they did not enjoy the same language rights as members of the majority group. In this context, institutions played a role as vectors of social and linguistic inequality. This non-recognition was combined with the economic precarity experienced by the Francophone minority, which made up nearly a third of the province’s population.
[37] The 1960s marked a turning point in New Brunswick’s linguistic landscape and were the backdrop for intense advocacy by the Francophone minority to ensure the substantive and institutional equality of the two official language communities. In 1963, the federal government created the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and gave it a mandate to inquire into the state of bilingualism and relations between Anglophones and Francophones in Canada and to recommend steps for ensuring their linguistic and cultural equality. In one of its reports, published in 1967, the Commission recommended, among other things, that New Brunswick recognize English and French as the province’s official languages (Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Book I, The Official Languages (1967), at p. 97).
[38] It was in this context that, in 1969, the province enacted the Official Languages of New Brunswick Act, S.N.B. 1969, c. 14, which recognized the equality of status and equal rights and privileges of both languages in the entire field of provincial jurisdiction, following the lead of the Parliament of Canada, which passed its first Official Languages Act, S.C. 1968-69, c. 54, the same year. New Brunswick thus became the first and only bilingual province in Canada. In 1981, the province enacted the Act Recognizing the Equality of the Two Official Linguistic Communities in New Brunswick, S.N.B. 1981, c. O-1.1. That statute officially recognized the existence and equality of the province’s two official language communities.
[39] During the same period, New Brunswick also did away with bilingual schools and districts and adopted a system based on a duality of distinct school systems, each homogeneous in its own language. This arrangement, which was put in place even before s. 23 of the Charter was enacted, still structures its entire educational system today (M. Doucet, Les droits linguistiques au Nouveau-Brunswick: À la recherche de l’égalité réelle! (2017), at p. 425).
[40] In 1982, when the Constitution was repatriated, New Brunswick became the only province in Canada whose institutions are subject to specific language guarantees set out in ss. 16(2), 17(2), 18(2), 19(2) and 20(2) of the Charter, which reflect its commitment to linguistic equality and institutional bilingualism. These provisions read as follows:[16](2) English and French are the official languages of New Brunswick and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the legislature and government of New Brunswick.
[16](2) Le français et l’anglais sont les langues officielles du Nouveau-Brunswick; ils ont un statut et des droits et privilèges égaux quant à leur usage dans les institutions de la Législature et du gouvernement du Nouveau-Brunswick.
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[17](2) Everyone has the right to use English or French in any debates and other proceedings of the legislature of New Brunswick.
[17](2) Chacun a le droit d’employer le français ou l’anglais dans les débats et travaux de la Législature du Nouveau-Brunswick.
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[18](2) The statutes, records and journals of the legislature of New Brunswick shall be printed and published in English and French and both language versions are equally authoritative.
[18](2) Les lois, les archives, les comptes rendus et les procès-verbaux de la Législature du Nouveau-Brunswick sont imprimés et publiés en français et en anglais, les deux versions des lois ayant également force de loi et celles des autres documents ayant même valeur.
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[19](2) Either English or French may be used by any person in, or in any pleading in or process issuing from, any court of New Brunswick.
[19](2) Chacun a le droit d’employer le français ou l’anglais dans toutes les affaires dont sont saisis les tribunaux du Nouveau-Brunswick et dans tous les actes de procédure qui en découlent.
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[20](2) Any member of the public in New Brunswick has the right to communicate with, and to receive available services from, any office of an institution of the legislature or government of New Brunswick in English or French.
[20](2) Le public a, au Nouveau-Brunswick, droit à l’emploi du français ou de l’anglais pour communiquer avec tout bureau des institutions de la législature ou du gouvernement ou pour en recevoir les services. [41] Section 16(2) enshrines the equality of the province’s official languages, which, through its combined effect with the other provisions, establishes a complete regime of institutional bilingualism. In 1993, on the initiative of the New Brunswick government and in accordance with the amending procedure set out in s. 43 of the Constitution Act, 1982, s. 16.1 was entrenched in the Charter. This unique provision recognizes the equality of the English and French linguistic communities in the province:16.1(1) The English linguistic community and the French linguistic community in New Brunswick have equality of status and equal rights and privileges, including the right to distinct educational institutions and such distinct cultural institutions as are necessary for the preservation and promotion of those communities.
(2) The role of the legislature and government of New Brunswick to preserve and promote the status, rights and privileges referred to in subsection (1) is affirmed.
16.1(1) La communauté linguistique française et la communauté linguistique anglaise du Nouveau-Brunswick ont un statut et des droits et privilèges égaux, notamment le droit à des institutions d’enseignement distinctes et aux institutions culturelles distinctes nécessaires à leur protection et à leur promotion.
(2) Le rôle de la législature et du gouvernement du Nouveau-Brunswick de protéger et de promouvoir le statut, les droits et les privilèges visés au paragraphe (1) est confirmé. [42] This section establishes in New Brunswick, with respect to language rights, a constitutional regime that is entirely unique in the country. Its purpose is to ensure the preservation of the two official languages and the cultures associated with them while promoting the vitality and development of the official language communities (M. Doucet, M. Bastarache and M. Rioux, “Les droits linguistiques: fondements et interprétation”, in M. Bastarache and M. Doucet, eds., Les droits linguistiques au Canada (3rd ed. 2013), 1, at pp. 30-52). This provision, whose entrenchment in the Constitution was validated by a referendum (see Migneault, at p. 121), reiterates the principle of equality and the legislature’s commitment in this regard already expressed in the Act Recognizing the Equality of the Two Official Linguistic Communities in New Brunswick.
[43] Language rights in New Brunswick therefore serve a remedial purpose, since they break with the inequality of status of the official languages that had characterized social, political and legal relations in that province since the British conquest. They also serve a unifying purpose, because they form the basis for an egalitarian relationship between the official language communities and represent the province’s commitment to building a multicultural society that cares about the vitality of the minority language community. This model of linguistic development differs from that of all other Canadian provinces. Its uniqueness must be taken into account when interpreting these particular language rights.
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