Includes notes, bibliographical references and index.

"In an appraisal of official bilingualism, Matthew Hayday demonstrates that the language programs and policies initiated by the Trudeau government supported French-Canadian and Acadian minority communities. He argues that these policies enabled the development of minority language education systems and laid the foundations for the language rights contained in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Bilingual Today, United Tomorrow also examines how the dynamics of Canadian federalism shaped language policies in six Canadian provinces and how advocates of these programs - politicians, bureaucrats, parents, lobbyists, and teachers - worked to guarantee minority language education rights, dramatically increasing access to French second language instruction, particularly through innovative immersion programs." (Book Cover)

CONTENTS

Introduction: A Linguistic Divide, a Crisis of Canadian Unity

1. A Century of Language Conflict in Canada

2. From Royal Commission to Government Policy, 1963-1970

3. Growing Pains and Intergovernmental Squabbles, 1970-1976

4. Lévesque's Gambit Fails: A New English Canadian Consensus, 1976-1979

5. The Constitutional Debâcle and the Rise of Language Rights, 1979-1983

6. A New Equilibrium: Offical-Languages Discourse and Canadian National Identity

Appendix: Federal Funding of the Official Languages in Education Program