The Honourable James Moore

Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality 2008–2013

[ PDF Version, 174 KB ]

Issue

Canadians do not have a clear understanding of what the government of Canada is doing to support linguistic duality.

Facts

The Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality 2008–2013: Acting for the Future, is a an unprecedented government-wide commitment of $1.1 billion over five years to linguistic duality and the vitality of official-language minority communities.  Announced on June 19, 2008, it promotes participation by all Canadians in linguistic duality and support for official-language minority communities in five priority areas: health, justice, immigration, economic development, and arts and culture.

The Roadmap is in line with the overall approach of the Government of Canada and is in addition to other government strategies and departmental responsibilities regarding official languages, as set out in the Official Languages Act. The Roadmap is designed to improve access to services for official-language minority communities. It involves 14 federal departments and agencies.

The Government of Canada is working together with key partners—including the provincial and territorial governments, official-language communities, and all Canadians—to implement the Roadmap so that people can benefit from linguistic duality throughout our country.

There is no shortage of talented people in our official-language minority communities (English-speakers in Quebec and French-speakers in the other provinces and territories). To support the cultural vitality of these communities, the Roadmap calls for the Cultural Development Fund to make further investments in the field of arts and culture. The National Translation Program for Book Publishing enables all Canadians to have access to a larger number of Canadian literary works in either of our two official languages.

Better understanding of English and French enables us to be more open to a world of opportunities and fosters undeniable personal empowerment. By investing in greater access to minority-language education or second-language instruction, the Official Languages Support Programs contribute directly to achieving these objectives.