For over 157 years, the Canadian federation has derived its legitimacy from a written constitution made up of 31 documents, the majority of which have no legal force in the French language, among them the foundational Constitution Act of 1867, formerly referred to as the British North America Act. While the Constitution Act of 1982 was written and adopted in both official languages, the remaining 71% of the documents, though translated, have yet to be promulgated. 42 years and counting. How did we get here? And what are the consequences of a 71% unilingual constitution? 

Professor François Larocque, holder of the first Canadian Francophonie Research Chair in Language Rights since 2018, is one of Canada’s top experts on language rights and is currently involved in litigation aimed at solving this issue once and for all.

The French version of this episode is available here: Canadian Bar Association - Juriste branché (cba.org).

Constitution bilingue / Bilingual Constitution (youtube.com)