Since 1835, the civil administration, courts, and education systems in Western Canada had been conducted in both English and French. And after 1877, the Northwest Territories Act recognized French as one of their official languages. In 1888, opposition to the official recognition of French became very vocal in favour of recognizing English as the only language of the Canadian nation, and of the Northwest. In 1892, despite the presence of a very strong Francophone minority throughout the Northwest, the territorial assembly changed its rules to abolish the use of French as the language of government, the courts and education. From the creation of the province until the 1960s, there was no significant change to the legal status of French in Alberta.
