Mark Carney publicly defended Canada’s French language rights against Donald Trump’s trade war, but he has been instituting policies at home that are causing immense damage to Canada’s bilingualism. The Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE) is launching a public campaign calling on Mark Carney to end his doublespeak on the importance of bilingualism and commit to ensuring that all Canadians have equal access to services in the language of their choice.
The campaign kicked off on October 19, the week that federal language experts head to the bargaining table. The campaign will blanket Quebec and the National Capital Region with online and bus stop advertisements demanding that Carney stop paying lip service to the Official Languages Act as he quietly dismantles the linguistic services that keep French language rights alive.
CAPE is calling for the government to build a properly resourced Translation Bureau that sets government-wide standards, drives innovation, and protects Canada’s bilingualism. Central to that is investing in the experts that guarantee Canadians have access to reliable information in both official languages. Carney’s policies have instead been weakening their capacity through massive cuts, enforced use of unreliable AI, crushing workloads, and unhealthy work conditions.
“Federal language professionals are the foundation of our national bilingualism, but Mark Carney treats them as expendable,” said Antoine Hersberger, CAPE TR Vice-President. “Carney’s ongoing degradation of the French language means that French-speaking Canadians are at risk of losing equal access to the public services they have a right to. French cannot be a shield Carney raises against Trump, only to lower it when no one is looking.”
The Translation Bureau’s plan to cut 25 per cent of its workforce over five years is already creating a vicious cycle: translators are being forced to cut corners in the name of “good enough”, undermining their professional integrity and causing burnout, which further harms linguistic services capacity and quality standards needed to ensure equal access to services in both official languages.
In her Annual Report 2025-2026, Official Languages Commissioner Kelly Burke recognizes the English bias of AI tools and calls for official languages to be integrated into all the federal government’s AI strategies, policies and resources.
“Although this technology can help to reduce certain administrative burdens and costs within the federal government, it should never come at the expense of ensuring services of equal quality in both official languages. Artificial intelligence must be used to advance, not hinder, individual bilingualism and cannot replace efforts to provide access to high-quality language resources, services and training,” states the annual report.
More than 90 per cent of translations in the federal government are done from English to French. This means that undermining linguistic services quality could create a two-tier system where francophones are treated as second-class citizens, because when the quality of translations is impacted, French speakers are disproportionately impacted. With these cuts, the government is essentially saying it doesn’t matter whether francophones have the same information – as long as they have something.
On October 21, the TR group – comprised of approximately 800 federal translators, interpreters and terminologists represented by CAPE – began negotiations for their new collective agreement. CAPE held a press conference on October 20, the day before negotiations began, alongside partners and supporters who back the call for the government to protect – not degrade – Canada’s official languages.
The previous TR contract expired in April 2026. Securing a strong agreement will ensure these workers can keep doing their crucial work to preserve Canada’s bilingualism.
