Within the Canadian and, by extension, North-American environment, legal and politico-legal translation from French to English and vice versa gives rise to confusion and ambiguity. But because of the high-profile attention attracted by the prolonged bouts of squabbling between Quebec and Ottawa, it is, understandably, the politico-legal language, in both French and English, that has become most familiar to observers. This paper aims to outline how important translation becomes when trying to present the same politico-legal reality to two different linguistic groups.