language rights

Appeal Watch: Can’t Talk to Your Head of State? SCC to rule on Unilingual Lieutenant Governors in New Brunswick in Acadian Society

In the Acadian Society of New Brunswick v The Right Honorable Prime Minister of Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) will decide whether the Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick must be bilingual [41398].  Overturning the decision by the Court of Queen’s Bench of New Brunswick (“NBQB”), the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick (“NBCA”) ruled in the Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada et al v. La Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick 2024 NBCA 70 (“SANB” ) that the appointment did not contravene the Charter's language provisions.

PM Trudeau Appoints the Honourable Mary Moreau to the SCC

Roughly four months after Brown J.’s resignation from the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”), Prime Minister Trudeau has announced his appointment of the Honourable Mary Moreau to Canada’s highest court.

A Sliding Scale: Minority Language Educational Rights Upheld in Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique v British Columbia

In June 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada (“the Court”) released a groundbreaking judgment in support of minority language rights. By adopting a broader interpretation of section 23 of the Charter, which guarantees educational rights to English and French linguistic minority populations across Canada, the Court unequivocally affirms that minority language students must receive educational […]

Lost in Translation: Language Rights in Federal Courts

As the two official languages of Canada, French and English form the bedrock of our legal system, and their usage is a constitutionally protected right found in both the Constitution Act, 1867 (“Constitution”) and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“Charter”). With such a high level of recognition and protection, one might assume the […]

Minority Language Schools Don’t Have to Be Perfect: NWT v Association des parents ayants droit de Yellowknife

Minority language rights were at the centre of a recent case heard by the Northwest Territories Court of Appeal ("NWTCA"), with the court ruling that equality does not mean perfect schooling conditions. The court, in Northwest Territories (Attorney General) v Association des parents ayants droit de Yellowknife, 2015 NWTCA 2, set aside a lower court […]