An objective of the federal government's action plan for official languages is to double the number of high school graduates who have functional knowledge of the second official language. Yet without a clear definition of what constitutes bilingualism, or a consistent approach to assessing language proficiency, how will we know if that goal has been reached? In this article, the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is defined and presented as a means to describe and measure language proficiency in a way that reflects how language is learned and used, and to create a coherent system for language education across the country. Two projects are highlighted to show how the CEFR or "framework" is a valuable tool that has useful implications for second-language education across Canada and thus also for reaching the goal of increasing the number of bilingual graduates. (Contains 1 endnote.)