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Is the United States headed toward a future of linguistic tension à la Canada? If so, are we in any kind of position to offer advice?

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times by Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland (Toronto Centre) got me thinking. Entitled “Bilingual Nationhood, Canadian-Style,” Freeland reflects on the upcoming immigration debates in the U.S. which she suggests will be partly defined by the fear that “English-speaking Americans will be culturally and linguistically overwhelmed by newcomers, many of them Spanish-speaking.”

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Relating the American conversation to her experiences as an anglophone Canadian working in the House of Commons and striving to master the French language, she writes that “We (Canadians) are far from perfect … but when it comes to living in a multilingual, multicultural world, we get a lot right.”

True enough. But I’m curious: if American policy-makers are being encouraged to look North, what lessons could they draw from our experiences? Certainly, as the global economy, migration and new information technologies continue to redefine both Canada and Canadians, bilingualism and multiculturalism are as much a topic of national public debate today as they’ve ever been.