Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-2013: Acting for the Future

Summary

The Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-2013: Acting for the Future reaffirms the Government of Canada's commitment to linguistic duality and our two official languages. It charts the course the Government intends to follow over the next five years to build on Canada's solid foundations.

The Roadmap reflects the results of the Government of Canada's consultations, as well as the work of other key stakeholders such as official-language minority communities, parliamentary committees and the Commissioner of Official Languages.

The Roadmap is an unprecedented government-wide investment of $1.1 billion over five years, based on two pillars: the participation of all Canadians in linguistic duality, and the support for official-language minority communities.

It invests in priority sectors, including:

• health;
• justice;
• immigration;
• economic development; and
• arts and culture.

The Roadmap targets five areas for government action to strengthen these pillars:

• emphasizing the value of linguistic duality among all Canadians;
• building the future by investing in youth;
• improving access to services for official-language minority communities;
• capitalizing on economic benefits; and
• ensuring efficient governance to better serve Canadians.

Through the Roadmap, the Government will increase its support in the areas of health, immigration, justice, economic development, and arts and culture. In this last area, the Government will establish a Cultural Development Fund and will launch a new program; Music Showcases for Artists from Official Language Minority Communities.

The Roadmap also calls for additional funding to enable all Canadians to benefit from linguistic duality. For example, the Government will provide all Canadians with free access to the Government of Canada language portal. A National Translation Program for Book Publishing will also be put in place to increase the availability of books in both official languages.

These new initiatives are in addition to resources already allocated by the Government of Canada to support the cultural dynamism of communities and improve access for all Canadians to English- and French-language culture.

The Government of Canada will work with key partners and stakeholders including the provincial and territorial governments, the communities and all Canadians to implement the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality so that people throughout the country can benefit from it.

[ Previous Page | Table of Contents | Next Page ]