Official Languages and Parliament /

This paper provides a brief overview of the various aspects of the issue of official languages in the context of the Canadian Parliament by examining: • the guarantees and obligations arising from the Constitution, including relevant provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; • the statutory provisions contained in the Official Languages Act; • some [...] Without the use of English and French in granting English and French official the official records and journals of status, section 133 nevertheless the houses of Parliament; and confirms the bilingual character of the use of English and French in the Parliament of Canada, which printing and publishing Acts. [...] First, the “records” of the houses, which include their Acts and bills.13 Second, the “journals,” which are the Minutes of Proceedings and Journals – the official minutes of the votes and proceedings of the houses.14 Before 1976, the Journals were printed in separate English and French versions. [...] The Senate, the House of Commons, the Library of Parliament, the office of the Senate Ethics Officer, the office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and the Parliamentary Protective Service are the “institutions” enumerated in section 3 of the OLA and, consequently, are subject to other parts of the Act involving, in particular, language of work and language of services offered to [...] In Lavigne v. Canada (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages), the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that the OLA is no ordinary statute: The importance of these objectives and of the constitutional values embodied in the Official Languages Act gives the latter a special status in the Canadian legal framework.