Language Barrier

When I was in high school in the late 1970s, someone lent my father a copy of Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow. The book is now mostly forgotten, but at the time it circulated widely in English Canada. The author, a retired naval officer named Jock V. Andrew, argued that Pierre Trudeau’s policy to increase bilingualism in the federal civil service was simply the first step in a larger plan to turn Canada into a completely French-speaking country. The prominent aeronautical engineer Winnett Boyd, who believed that Andrew’s thesis was “difficult to refute,” provided the foreword.

The slim volume, with a giant blue fleur‑de‑lys on its cover dominating a red map of the country, sat on my father’s chest of drawers for about six months before it disappeared. Either he returned it to its lender or my mother, who was born and raised in Quebec City, found a way to dispose of it. I don’t think my father ever looked at it. He was not much of a reader, and he was not a...