The Vitality of the Communities
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Political and Legal Dimension
Political capital, in the broad sense of resources of power and influence, is probably the dimension in which the OLMCs invest the most energy. It covers constitutional and legislative guarantees, elected officials and representatives, government services, community institutions and leadership, modes of governance, types of relationship between majorities and minorities, and so on.
The dominant feature of this dimension is obviously rights acquired through official language legislation and court decisions (Bastarache, 2004; Braën, 2005). These rights have been acquired gradually, thanks to the mobilization of the OLMCs and the (variable) openness of the various levels of government (Commissioner of Official Languages, 2005). The major pillars are:
- the Constitution Act 1982 with its Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, forming the underpinning of these rights;
- the Official Languages Act of 1988 and in particular Part VII, amended in 2005 through Bill S-3, which places the vitality and development of the OLMCs at the heart of the government's obligations with regard to the official languages; and
- court decisions that clarify the meaning and scope of these rights, notably by attributing unwritten principles to the Constitution, including the protection of minorities (Bastarache, 2004: 33).
Today the status of OLMCs, which has been seen as one of the variables of ethnolinguistic vitality (Giles et al., 1977), is firmly rooted in this legal and political framework. Note in addition that the provinces and territories as well as certain municipalities have adopted laws, policies or regulations that support the vitality of OLMCs.
Elected officials and political representatives from OLMCs may be assets for them at all levels of government. Much is made of the federal and provincial/territorial levels with respect to OLMCs' quest for power and influence, but not to be neglected are the municipal and regional governments, which are nearest the communities. Thus, Francophone municipalities in certain majority Anglophone provinces as well as municipalities in Quebec and other provinces, that offer services in both languages can be used by OLMCs to sustain their vitality (Bourgeois, 2005; Bourgeois and Bourgeois, 2005).
Government services provided to OLMCs under the terms of legislation or court decisions are a factor in vitality, and they are a central focus of OLMC demands. Aunger (2005), for example, uses access to services in the minority language and perceptions of these services as indicators of vitality. The services are provided by various levels of government, and these days they may all be available in the form of "one-stop" service, thereby increasing their accessibility to minority communities. Most recently, governments and the communities have agreed on ways of developing education, economic development and health services.
Community institutions such as schools, media, churches and advocacy organizations, which have legitimacy within OLMCs and enjoy recognition on the part of government agencies, contribute to what Breton calls institutional completeness (R. Breton, 1964).
The concept of institution is used frequently by individuals active in OLMCs, sometimes with a degree of ambivalence. Bourhis and Lepicq (2004: 6-7) define institutional control as a factor in vitality:
"Official institutional control refers to the level achieved by members of a language group in management and decision making in the private and public institutions of a country: education, political institutions; government services, social services, justice, health; media; military and police institutions; linguistic landscape; economy and cultural industries; sports and recreation; religious institutions; associations and leadership. Unofficial institutional support refers to the level of organization of a linguistic community into associations that represent and defend its linguistic interests in a range of contexts: private education, business, sports, cultural and religious activities."
In the political arena, leadership is crucial. It constitutes:
"[...] an additional factor that contributes to the institutional control of linguistic communities: the presence and importance of leaders at the head of official and unofficial institutions who represent the interests of their linguistic in-group. Progress linked to institutional control depends on the existence of activities and the presence of charismatic leaders who succeed in mobilizing the members of their linguistic in-group by urging them to fight for the survival of their language and their culture in a multilingual setting. The absence of such leadership, especially within the language minority, can undermine the achievements of previous generations in terms of official and unofficial institutional control and may compromise the progress that is necessary to the survival of future generations of the language group in question" (Bourhis and Lepicq 2004: 8).
| "My vision of a community that is truly healthy is not a community that does not get all excited, it is not a community that is not in search of itself, it is not a community that does not suffer, but it is a community that has an internal sense of direction because it has within itself the elements it needs to effectively determine its own destiny." – Dyane Adam, Address at the Discussion Forum on the Vitality of Official Language Minority Communities, Ottawa, September 2005 |
The attitudes, information and capabilities of leaders, their visions and strategies are part of the communities' political capital and development capabilities. Leadership (that is, a sense of direction) is a key to community empowerment and thus, to greater vitality. Devolution of powers and shared governance in a number of sectors that are crucial to OLMCs provide an opportunity to draw on political capital in order to invest in collective development (Cardinal and Juillet, 2005). 5
Globalization is bringing about political, economic and cultural changes that affect OLMCs (Thériault, 1999; Heller, 1999). These changes are having an impact on modes of governance (Cardinal and Andrew, 2001), in particular on horizontal governance (Cardinal and Hudon, 2001), and they are giving rise to new language regulations and new practices in the areas of cooperation, management and decision making (Forgues, 2003; Cardinal and Juillet, 2005). They suggest redefining the allocation of and access to resources needed for delivering services to the communities (Commissioner of Official Languages, 2000).This is, for example, how the Quebec Community Groups Network was created in 1995, or more recently, how the Assemblée des communautés franco-ontariennes and the Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise have redefined themselves.
How can community leadership position itself in this situation? Labrie, Erfurt and Heller (2000) published an account of a wide-ranging investigation into speeches made by the leaders of Canada's Francophone communities. They identified three types of cultural model that characterize the relationship to the community. In addition to the "traditional" and "modernizing" types most commonly observed, they identified the "globalizing" type, which is characteristic of a number of urban and metropolitan communities.
"When we study vitality for official language minority communities, we're also looking at enhancing the vitality of the majority."
– Aline Visser, Address at the Discussion Forum on the Vitality of Official Language Minority Communities, Ottawa, September 2005
Finally, to state the obvious, the relationship between majority and minority affects the vitality of the latter. The capacity for dialogue and communication, and specifically the level of individual bilingualism in official language communities, affects the degree to which majority and minority confront each other or accommodate each other (Churchill, 1998; O'Keefe, 2001). Bourhis and Lepicq (2004: 11) identify this problem in large measure in terms of the variables of status, which "[...] are related to the social prestige of a linguistic community, to its socio-historical status and to the prestige of its language and its culture in the regional, national and international dimensions." It is important, however, not to obscure, under the notion of acquired status, the power-based relationships that determine access to and control of development resources.
