Reproducing the French-Canadian Settler Collective in Ontario through French Language rights

Abstract

Much of settler colonial theory and studies in Canada has focused on the dominant British settler colonial power, with an emerging spotlight on Quebec. Little attention has been paid to French-Canadian settler colonialism in French-Canadian minority provinces such as Ontario. This research aims to make visible this gap in attention and begin to fill in its contours by understanding how the French-Canadian settler colonial project operates in Ontario through law. Through the application of Indigenous, settler colonial, socio-legal and critical feminist and race theories to a review of narrative themes in the jurisprudence of courts and tribunals interpreting Ontario’s French Language Services Act, including the purposes of the Act, the vulnerability of Francophones and the role of Francophone institutions, the author endeavors to explore the unique ways in which settler colonial consciousness is deployed, reproduced and reinforced in law.