“Bonjour-hi!” The bilingual welcome spoken by the sales clerk at ByWard Market in Ottawa has by now become second nature to her. Canada’s capital lies in the south-east of the English-speaking province of Ontario, but French-speaking Quebec begins barely a stone’s throw away. Ottawa and its sister city Gatineau on the other side of the Ottawa River have long evolved into a metropolitan region. In the process, the Anglo-Saxon and French cultures have merged together in Ottawa as scarcely in any other Canadian city. Of the 63% of residents who give English as their native tongue, many also speak…