Introduction: Reflections on Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework

This review dossier focuses on Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race, and Belonging in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012) by Eve Haque, an associate professor of Applied Linguistics in the Departments of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at York University. It began as an "Author Meets Critics" session at the Association of Canadian Studies and Canadian Ethnic Studies Association joint annual conference in October 2012. The session provoked some heated debate about the nature of Canadian and Québécois nationalisms, Canada-Indigenous relations, and racism and forms of belonging under settler colonialism. The many unfinished conversations ultimately led us to collaborate on this dossier of critical commentaries in order to reflect further on Multiculturalism in a Bilingual Framework’s many broad themes. We are pleased that Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada has provided us with a venue to continue these important discussions.

Eve Haque’s scholarship has coalesced around four intersecting and overlapping research clusters over the years. First, she focuses on the ways in which the binary framing and institutionalization of "multiculturalism within a bilingual framework" effectively obscure racial hierarchies and secure white settler colonialism (Haque 2010). Second, she explores language rights, and the ways in which language policy and planning territorializes identity (Patrick and Haque 2010). Third, she grapples with the role that language plays in the formation of social and national identities, ethnolinguistic nationalisms, and cosmopolitanisms (Haque 2007). Fourth and finally, she considers the roles that teacher education and language training play in the socialization of newcomers (Haque et al. 2007). There are traces of each of these diverse research clusters in her first published monograph, which makes for a rich interdisciplinary tapestry of data and analysis.

Haque’s book is among the most authoritative studies of multiculturalism and bilingualism in Canada and, arguably, among the most important scholarly contributions on royal commissions or commissions of inquiry. The book takes as its point of departure two formulations – "two founding races" and "multiculturalism within a bilingual framework" – that emerged out of the final report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (B and B Commission). "Canadian commissions of inquiry in some measure mirror the concerns of history; and part of the national story is found in the reports … [such as] bilingualism and biculturalism" (Muldoon et al. 1979, 1-2). In her path-breaking genealogy of the B and B Commission, Haque deftly traces how this particular royal commission not only mirrored historical concerns; it, like other commissions, produced history and, indeed, constituted hegemonic national narratives. Whether in her attention to the minute details of Book IV of the B and B Commission (The Cultural Contribution of the Other Ethnic Groups) or in her meticulous treatment of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s triumphant announcement of "multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework," Haque sustains her passion for detailed archival research with careful erudition.

The government of Liberal Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson established the B and B Commission in 1963 to "inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution" (Haque 2012, 5). The Commission itself evolved during a post-World War II era in which biological racism "had become verboten" (Haque, this dossier) and the spectre of Québécois state-based nationalisms evoked trepidation throughout the rest of Canada. Haque makes strong use of relevant historical studies of this period, solidifying her eventual claims.

Haque’s carefully-researched genealogy of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism reveals its many intimate connections with an array of language and cultural policies and institutional practices developed by both Liberal and Conservative governments, which further attest to the hegemonic status of the concepts and policies that emerged from the commission. Further, drawing on Ernest Renan’s early work on...