Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
TORONTO — Premier Kathleen Wynne will issue a formal apology in the Ontario legislature today for a 1912 regulation that banned elementary school teachers from speaking French.
Wynne will apologize on behalf of the Ontario government for Regulation 17, which was enforced for 15 years before it fell into abeyance by 1944, a period she describes as a “wound” for the province’s francophone community.
The premier says it’s important to acknowledge that there was an unfair regulation that did not recognize the importance of the French language in Ontario or its contribution to the province’s culture.
However, Wynne dismissed the idea of reparations, and said the province was already making “concrete gestures” by providing French services and schools, and will keep working to strengthen the francophone community.
Sudbury Liberal backbencher Glenn Thibeault asked for the official apology to the Ontario’s French-speaking residents, saying it would demonstrate that the government recognizes its past error.
New Democrat France Gelinas says she welcomes the apology to correct what she says was “an historic wrong,” calling Regulation 17 “a misguided law that unfairly discriminated against vulnerable young Franco-Ontarians in schools.”
