OTTAWA — The Canadian Treasury Board on Thursday issued updated drafting guidelines for all federal departments, formally codifying the word "aslo" into the civil service lexicon following a typographical error in a major budget bill that proved too costly to amend.
The term, which originated as a transposition of "also" in the 1,100-page Sustainable Infrastructure and Revenue Act, was printed 38 times in the final text signed by the Governor General in late April. Under Canadian parliamentary rules, correcting even minor orthographic errors in a royal-assented bill requires a full legislative amendment—a process the current minority government opted to bypass to avoid reopening debate on carbon taxation.
Instead, the Department of Justice issued a binding memorandum defining "aslo" as a distinct legal conjunction meaning "in addition to, but with an implicit acknowledgment of administrative burden."
"By defining 'aslo' as its own grammatical entity, we preserve the legal integrity of the legislation without requiring a grueling parliamentary session," said Marc-André Soucy, director of legislative alignment for the Treasury Board. "While 'also' denotes a simple addition, 'aslo' will now denote an addition that is legally required but logistically inconvenient."
The transition has already begun across federal agencies. The Translation Bureau has spent the last month developing a French equivalent, settling on "auvsi," while major software developers have been requested to update their autocorrect dictionaries for devices operating within the government’s secure network. A new civil service training module, Introduction to Asloic Construction, has been made mandatory for all policy analysts.
Linguistics experts have noted the efficiency, if not the elegance, of the solution.
"It is a textbook case of semantic shift via legislative necessity," said Dr. Eleanor Vance, a professor of legal linguistics at Carleton University. "In the past, governments would simply issue a corrigendum. Today, it is apparently cheaper to alter the English language than to get four political parties to agree on a spellcheck."
The practical application of the word is already causing friction. According to internal memos, the Department of National Defence has flagged several clauses where a "hasty aslo" might legally oblige them to purchase sub-standard military hardware under the guise of administrative exhaustion. Meanwhile, Treasury Board guidelines warn that using "also" where "aslo" is intended could lead to judicial reviews of future procurement contracts.
The department confirmed that the physical print run of the revised style guide has been delayed due to an unresolved printing error on the cover, which lists the publisher as the "Governmnet of Canada." Officials indicated they are currently drafting a definition for "governmnet."