Section Seventeen of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Section 17 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of the provisions of the Charter that addresses rights relating to Canada's two official languages, English and French. While the section 17 right to use either language within the Parliament of Canada repeats a right already anchored in section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, section 17 also guarantees the right to use both languages in the legislature of New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province under section 16 of the Charter.

Section 17 reads,

(2) Everyone has the right to use English or French in any debates and other proceedings of the legislature of New Brunswick.

As noted in the Supreme Court decision New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. v. Nova Scotia (1993), the stated application of section 17 is to "Parliament." This wording is an anomaly because technically Parliament is just an institution that enacts statutes. The rights held under section 17, in contrast, presumably are not held against the statutes of Parliament but rather apply to the debates that occur within Parliamentary institutions, such as the Canadian House of Commons and Canadian Senate.

This section, as it applies to Parliament, extends to Parliamentary committees, and thus any witness has a right to use either English or French if he or she appears before a committee. Justice Michel Bastarache and his fellow-writers agree that section 17 applies to "other activities of Parliament," including Parliamentary committees, but argue that bilingualism in Parliamentary committees had been allowed for years prior to the Charter and interpreters had been provided.

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