University of Ottawa students have voted unanimously to make the City of Ottawa officially bilingual, reports the Ottawa Citizen. The university’s board of directors has reportedly supported the initiative as well. The Student Federation of the University of Ottawa has also said that it plans to ask Ottawa’s mayor to support the move to make Canada’s capital city officially bilingual. To date, Mayor Jim Watson has reportedly stated that the city is already essentially bilingual, yet proponents of the new movement want to amend the City of Ottawa Act “to explicitly recognize the equal status of the French and English languages.” They are also asking the mayor to include the bylaw in the act to guarantee that future city councils are not able eliminate the bylaw.
Ottawa Citizen