a Draft Constitution for the Commonwealth of Canada
We republicans of today are the heirs of St. Augustine, of Italy’s Florentine Renaissance, and of the great Erasmian movements of sixteenth century England and France, typified for France by Henri IV, Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert and the Oratorian teaching-order. It is only by avowing the unity of that Erasmian heritage that the Commonwealth of Canada finds a basis for a unity that may endure.
O, Canada, let the common use of a literate English and French for national affairs be the rule, but this can be durably accomplished only if the noblest form of the English and the French languages are the standard of popular literacy, and if the rich contributions of your immigrants from numerous parts of the world are lovingly assimilated as the shared heritage of all of your people. Where two languages exist as they do in Canada, the differences arising from language must be bridged by a powerful unity in conscious perception of shared moral principles, and in which each of the languages is raised to the highest degree of literacy of which it is capable.
(section 5.2 Natural Law)