I lived for three months in an atmosphere of nationally mandated bilingualism. It was ubiquitous, in everything from signage to package labels... and it made very little sense to me in BC, when Quebec was a couple of thousand miles away. Then again, there's an economy of scale: if you have to use two languages on everything in one part of a country, you might as well standardize for the entire country.

Now I live where Spanish is the dominant non-English language. It also appears on signs (for instance, in the JC Penney's I went to last weekend) and product labels, but it's not mandatory. I wish I knew more Spanish than the tiny amount I've absorbed so far... but that, too, is voluntary, a personal desire combined with my general love of languages. I also know a neighborhood in far north Dallas where Korean is at least as prevalent as Spanish, at least on the storefronts, many of which are trilingual.

So here's where I stand: official multi-lingualism ought to remain "local option", based on the needs of the community. To mandate something like that any higher than the county level seems silly to me... and so does taking the option away from local officials.