Section Twenty-two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Section 22 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of several sections of the Charter relating to the official languages of Canada. The official languages, under section 16, are English and French. Section 22 is specifically concerned with political rights relating to languages besides English and French.

It reads,

Section 22 ensures that political rights regarding the use of other languages besides English and French are not limited by the fact that English and French are the only languages recognized as being official by the other provisions of the Charter. The political rights regarding other languages may exist by virtue of statute or simply custom, and the rights may predate the Charter or may be created after its enactment in 1982. As author Walter Tarnopolsky noted in 1982, the Aboriginal peoples in Canada were the most likely people, and perhaps the only people, to have customary language rights. The section may allow other languages to become official languages in the future, and demonstrates that having constitutional law regarding languages does not mean the law is fixed forever.

That same year, Professor André Tremblay wrote that section 22 would apply to "government services." He also points out that the Charter offers no assurances that these language rights "will be provided indefinitely." If those rights are not constitutionalized, the government in question can presumably abolish them at any time.

Professor Leslie Green has argued that section 22 also justifies the English and French language rights. The rights regarding English and French in the Charter are special rights, which raises the question of whether such rights can be justified in a democracy. However, Green writes that the special rights can be justified if this "leaves speakers of other languages no worse off than they would have been" if the special rights for English and French did not exist. Green points to section 22 as evidence that other languages are not harmed by the rights regarding English and French. Indeed, the fact that the Charter allows for English and French to be used in the government does not harm other languages, because the numbers of English and French Canadians mean that those languages would be used in the government anyway. Still, Green acknowledged that "tolerance" of languages besides English and French could be improved. Justice Bastarache and fellow-experts also relate section 22 to upholding Canadian multiculturalism.

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