Connecting power to protection: The political bases of language commissioners in Canada

• Published in: Canadian Public Administration
• Main Author: McDougall, Andrew
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019
• Subjects: Canada; Nunavut
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/capa.12311; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/capa.12311; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1111/capa.12311

Abstract This article explores the connection between the strength of Canadian federal, provincial and territorial language regimes and the political power of the underlying language group. Although such regimes should ideally be constructed to defend languages that are vulnerable, they are more often based on the ability of a language group to organize politically to win the laws they want. Thus, many small linguistic groups, such as those in Nunavut, benefit from very strong protections given their demographic weight in the territory, while there are weaker protections for the Franco‐Ontarians, who are only a small minority in their province. Ultimately power matters a great deal in Canada when it comes to linguistic protection.