Language rights are not only central to the cultural identity of Canada's two founding language communities, they are central to both Canada's constitutional traditions, with group freedoms & denominational schools initially guaranteed under the British North America Act, & individual rights entrenched in the Charter. "In considering the Charter," writes Canada's new Commissioner of Official Languages, "it is easy to think that rights & freedoms are almost synonyms. They aren't." Graham Fraser considers the BNA Act versus Charter status of language rights, & recounts the modern context, from the B&B Commission of the 1960s, to the Official Languages Act of 1969, to the entrenchment of minority language rights in the Charter. Adapted from the source document.