A group of language experts has written to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney asking him to stop using British spellings in official documents in order to preserve national pride.
In an open letter published last week, six linguists and editors warned that the use of spellings such as "utilisation" and "catalyse" in recent government communications risked creating "confusion" and undermining the country's fighting spirit at a time of diplomatic disruption.
Canadian English, which has been standard in official missives for decades, uses a mixture of British-style spellings and American-style spellings, depending on the word, plus terms from Quebecois French and indigenous languages.
But the letter said Carney’s government had recently used specific British spellings that aren’t the norm in Canada, putting it out of step with ordinary usage.
"Canadian spelling is used widely and fairly consistently in Canada — in book and magazine publishing, in newspapers and other media, and in the federal and provincial governments and their legislatures," the letter says.
"If governments start to use other systems for spelling, this could lead to confusion about which spelling is Canadian....
"Canadian English spelling must continue to be used in all communications and publications in the federal government. It’s a matter of our national history, identity and pride. These days, it’s the simplest way to take an 'elbows up' stance."
Since January, "elbows up" has become the rallying cry of Canadians hoping to resist President Donald Trump's diplomatic and economic threats against a country that was long considered among the staunchest of U.S. allies.
The phrase has cropped up in protests, on social media, and in politicians’ speeches, while the Canadian government has moved to reduce its reliance on the U.S. for trade and military procurement.
On Friday, the Canadian English Dictionary named “elbows up” its runner-up for the word of the year. It was only beaten by “maplewashing” — that is, making something (such as a consumer product) seem more Canadian than it is.
Last week's letter was signed by Kaitlin Littlechild, president of the editors' trade association Editors Canada, and John Chew, editor in chief of the Canadian English Dictionary, as well as leading academic linguists such as the University of Toronto's J.K. Chambers and the Memorial University of Newfoundland's Sandra Clarke.
Carney, who grew up in Alberta, Canada, has spent his career working at financial institutions across the world, including seven years in the U.K. as the governor of the Bank of England, Britain's equivalent of the Federal Reserve.
After taking over as prime minister from Justin Trudeau in March 2025, he won a shock election victory on the back of widespread anger over Trump's threats to annex Canada.
Stefan Dollinger, a professor of linguistics at the University of British Columbia who signed the letter, told The Independent that he did not know why Carney's administration had recently started to use British spellings.
"There seems to have been a misunderstanding or a knowledge gap with some in the Prime Minister's Office. We do not know, but we witness their linguistic output," he said.
"Canadian government institutions have for decades used Canadian usage conventions, and all we ask is to return to that practice."
The Independent has reached out to the Prime Minister’s Office for comment.
The letter explains: "Canadian English evolved through loyalist settlement after the American Revolutionary War, subsequent waves of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish immigration, and from European and global contexts...
"[It] is unique among the varieties of English around the world because it is historically influenced by its geographic proximity to the U.S. but has features distinctive from U.S. English and U.K. English."
Prof J.K. Chambers told The Independent that there is "some leeway" in Canadian spelling, but described Carney's Anglicisms as "pretentious" and "non-Canadian".
"As you know, the Prime Minister spent seven years as governor of the Bank of England. He obviously picked up some pretensions while he was there," Chambers said.
"I suspect Carney became acutely aware of the spelling discrepancies in his England days. He apparently thinks they are ‘upper class’, and if so that is the attitude that came into Canada with the influx of two million Brits from 1815 to about 1865.
"That is when we Canadians learned to say 'zed' for the last letter of the alphabet instead of 'zee,' the North American standard until then. Now ['zed' is] a shibboleth in Canadian pronunciation."
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