Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p> The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages is an important element to Canada's national language policy implementation and development (available online at <jats:ext-link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://www.ocol_clo.gc.ca/html/index_e.php">http://www.ocol_clo.gc.ca/html/index_e.php</jats:ext-link> ). In 1963, when tensions between French and English Canada challenged the very future of its Federation (1867), the federal government launched the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism to investigate the realities of bilingualism in Canada and make recommendations to strengthen the confederation based on the principles of two equal founding peoples, the English and the French. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages was created in 1969 as part of the first <jats:italic>Official Languages Act</jats:italic> adopted by the Canadian Parliament, based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages provides policy makers with a mechanism to oversee the implementation of and compliance with a far‐reaching language policy meant to bridge two divided linguistics groups, the Anglophones and the Francophones, and their respective minorities. </jats:p>