Source: The Conversation – Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada recently handed down a landmark decision on a narrow but important constitutional question: must the lieutenant governor of New Brunswick — the Crown’s representative in Canada’s only officially bilingual province — be able to perform the functions of that office in both official languages?
A six-judge majority answered yes. Three judges disagreed.
Reasonable people can debate which side got it right. But the debate should begin with an accurate understanding of what the majority actually decided.
From the outset, it’s important to reject the false claim that the Supreme Court believes Canadians who speak only English or only French are somehow “inferior,” less worthy or less capable citizens. That is a profound mischaracterization of the judgment.
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We are law professors and lawyers who specialize in Canadian language rights, an area of law that too often becomes a target for critics of official bilingualism. Like the Supreme Court, we believe Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms promotes national unity, tolerance and diversity.
The court held that the person appointed lieutenant governor of New Brunswick must be able to carry out the constitutional functions of that office in both English and French.
This is not an indictment of unilingual Canadians. It is simply the recognition that certain public offices carry qualifications tied to their constitutional responsibilities.
Senators must satisfy constitutional age and property requirements. Judges must possess legal training and years of professional experience. No one interprets these qualifications as declarations that other Canadians are inferior. They simply define the requirements of a particular office. The same principle applies here.
The court majority’s reasoning is rooted in New Brunswick’s unique constitutional status as Canada’s only officially bilingual province. The Charter recognizes not only the equality of English and French, but also the equality of New Brunswick’s two official language communities and their institutions.
The judgment carefully analyzes the Charter’s text, the province’s history, the evolution of language rights jurisprudence and the institutional role of the lieutenant governor.
The decision does not mandate bilingualism for other public offices, such as the provincial premiers, or require senior officials across Canada to become bilingual. It concerns one constitutional office in a single province with constitutional architecture that’s unlike that of any other jurisdiction in the country.
Historical backdrop
A large part of the majority’s decision turns on the legal requirements of substantive equality: ensuring that neither official language community is treated as subordinate to the other.
In New Brunswick, both linguistic communities must enjoy equal status within a constitutional institution that exists to serve them both. Requiring the lieutenant governor to communicate directly with both communities is not about privileging bilingual people — it’s about ensuring that a constitutional institution can fulfil its legal obligations equally to all New Brunswickers.
Any suggestion that bilingualism represents an elite preference imposed by activist judges is equally misguided. It ignores the historical reality that gave rise to constitutional language protections in the first place.
Official language guarantees in New Brunswick were not enacted to reward bilingual professionals or create opportunities for a privileged class. They emerged from a long history of linguistic inequality and political exclusion experienced by Acadian and francophone communities.
Constitutional protection was intended to ensure that public institutions would respect and reflect the province’s unique linguistic character. The majority’s judgment must be understood against that historical backdrop.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Interpreting the Charter
The disagreement among the Supreme Court justices ultimately turns on the interpretation of Section 16 of the Charter, which establishes English and French as the official languages of Canada and New Brunswick with equal status, rights and privileges.
The majority of justices concluded that Section 16 is an independent, normative force. The dissenters found no textual basis for that conclusion. Whether one ultimately agrees with the majority justices or the dissenters, the majority’s interpretation is a serious constitutional argument grounded in text, history, structure and purpose.
Reasonable people can disagree about constitutional interpretation. The judges themselves certainly did. Such disagreement is healthy in a constitutional democracy.
Mark C. Power and Darius Bossé, partners at Power Law in Ottawa, co-authored this analysis.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/28/no-the-supreme-court-didnt-declare-unilingual-canadians-inferior/