UPDATED - CensusWatch: Don't mess with the francophonie. (Or the Acadians)

The first concession was almost certainly motivated by his desire to avoid what could have turned out to be a distinctly awkward day in court this fall, arriving as it did, just hours after the federal court granted a request from the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities to hold an expedited hearing on the constitutionality of the proposed changes, which could have resulted in an injunction against the new survey, and forced the government to revive the long form for the 2011 census. By preemptively adding the questions to the short form, the government has almost certainly sidestepped that potential hurdle, as the FFAC will no longer have any cause of action on which to proceed. 

As far as the second, well, considering that all three opposition parties have previously suggested doing precisely that, the required amendment could be passed in the House at all stages in a day. (All it takes is unanimous consent, remember.) 

So, will this bring the battle over the long form to an end? That seems like a dubious proposition -- after all, the proposed remedy will do nothing to address the concerns of all those other groups that have been fretting so publicly about the imminent loss of all that long-form-elicited data. Given the likelihood that the FFAC would ultimately prevail in its action, it really was the only decision that the government could make that wouldn't carry with it the very real risk that it would be hit with a particularly ill-timed judicial edict. 

UPDATE: Given the minister's assertion on Power&Politics that this change had "nothing to do" with today's court ruling, I thought I'd repost the Census Document Dump correspondence on official languages: