The aim of this paper will be to shed light on the evolution of the rights of the Francophone minority communities (FMCs) of Canada - that is, the Francophones communities outside of the province of Québec - since the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. More precisely, we will measure how they have mobilized the courts to have their claims for autonomy heard and recognized since 1982.
The adoption of the Charter, in 1982, has had a decisive impact on the Canadian civil society, as it modified the actions of many minority groups, including the LGBT groups (Smith 2005) and women’s rights groups (Lajoie 2002), who turned to the courts to have their rights upheld. However, the FMCs’ Charter claims have yet to be studied and included in these debates. Moreover, they are most interesting in that, unlike most other Charter group claims, some of them are collective, rather than individual, claims. Their plea, before the courts, for collective autonomy, has taken the form of the right to self-manage their own institutions in areas such as education, economy, health care, justice and social services.
Through a series of court cases brought forward by the FMCs in the last 30 years, we will demonstrate how FMCs have succeeded in getting the judges to effect a “reading in” of their rights, gradually turning individual rights into collective rights, and having their claims for autonomy in certain areas effectively recognized.
