Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race, and Belonging in Canada by Eve Haque (review)

The year 2013 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the inception of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–70). The B & B Commission was struck at a particular point in Canadian history when the convergence of many factors put pressure on Canada to rethink its formula for nation building. The commission’s recommendations exerted a significant impact on the Canadian constitution, government policy and law, and national identity, in many ways exceeding what anyone could have anticipated. For some the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission (named after its two lead commissioners) proved a quintessential compromise in establishing a template for Canada-building. Not only did the national project known as “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework” establish the “unilingual” principles of a bilingual state through its recommendation of French and English as official languages; it also secured the basis for the eventual formulation of a multiculturalism policy. Others, however, prefer a less salutary assessment of the commission. Under its aegis, the politics of language and culture displaced race and ethnicity as acceptable sites of exclusion when references to a racialized hierarchy could no longer serve as “comforting fictions.”

These themes of historical erasure and hegemonic Canada-building are put to the test in this fascinating and precise book by Eve Haque. Based primarily on archival materials such as memos, minutes, and transcripts of Canada-wide hearings, this book explores the cleavages and conflicts that informed the genesis of both bilingualism and multiculturalism against the backdrop of transformative changes related to the politics of immigration, Aboriginality, and Quebec nationalism. Haque painstakingly explores how language policies and rights evolved into acceptable proxies for managing diversities based on the asymmetries of language and culture that reflected, reinforced, and advanced the dominant groups’ prerogative to define what differences count and what counts as difference. Haque also demonstrates how the mandate of the commission may have been relatively straightforward, namely, to foster a Canadian confederation as an equal partnership between the two founding “races” (sic) while taking into account the cultural contributions of the other ethnic groups. Yet the deliberations and submissions proved both oppositional and contradictory, not only in the muting and suppression of Aboriginal peoples’ voices and those of “the other ethnics” (both resented the commission’s limited mandate of making Quebec more unilingual or Canada more bilingual), but also in articulating a coherent working partnership for co-operative coexistence.

The book sets out to explore the roots of Canada’s commitment to multiculturalism within a bilingual framework by refracting this Canada-building framework through the prism of the B & B Commission. The organization of the book follows accordingly: an introduction explores the politics of language vis-à-vis nationalism, belonging, and race; the first chapter frames the terms of reference that established the commission; chapter 2 creates a historical context for the commission; chapter 3 provides insight into preliminary hearings and reports; chapter 4 reviews public hearings and research; chapter 5 looks at Book I, which gave rise to the Official Language Act (1969), while chapter 6 expands on Book IV and the cultural contribution of the other ethnic groups that ultimately segued into an official multiculturalism in 1971; and the final chapter delves into some of the paradoxes, promises, and perils undergirding the politics of living together multiculturally.

This book is intelligent and thought-provoking without resorting to the kind of turgidity that often mars scholarly works. Haque’s analysis of the B & B Commission – from its mandate to its dissolution – is masterful in capitalizing on what critical scholars have long known: both official bilingualism and Canada’s multicultural policy originated primarily as a political act to achieve political goals in a politically acceptable manner. The writing style is tight yet lucid in coaxing patterns from a welter of detail, while excellent introductions and summaries/conclusions render each chapter easy to navigate. This is a rewarding book that does not flinch from setting a new bar for analyzing...