Ubuntu – Spell Checker not working in Libre Office 6.0

I am using Libre Office 6.0.7.3 on Ubuntu 18.04 and I cannot get spellchecking to work. When I follow the suggestions for earlier releases of Libre Office they do not work. Specifically I click on Tools/Language/For All Text in Writer it does not show any language as selected. So I click on English Canada and the menu item closes immediately. When I click on For All Text again the menu item still does not show English Canada as selected. I would show a screenshot but libreoffice interferes with the keyboard shortcuts for taking a screenshot. I NEED to select the language in order for spellcheck to work so how do I convince LibreOffice to use the language I am trying to select?

Manage languages under system settings shows both English Canada and English US as installed

I have tried to follow the suggestion to select a bit of text and then go to Tools/Language. This discussion does not permit including images in comments so I am putting the resulting image here:

I cannot select ANY of the languages in the selection list for Text Language. When I do the dialog immediately re-displays [None].

And the System Language management dialog says:

I am getting desperate. I really need to know how to get spell checking working on this system. How do I attract the attention of somebody who has actually worked on this code?

I am looking deeper into the hierarchy of dialogs: At Tools/ Language/ More I see:

Note that I am so desperate to get any kind of spellcheck that I have switched the default system language to Amurikan. UND IT STIL WIL NOUGHT CHEQUE MI SPELIN.

I am also annoyed that the date acceptance pattern is invalid for Canada. Outside of the Excited States of America nobody on the entire planet uses M/D/Y! In Canada we prefer D/M/Y because that is the order used both in British English "4th of July 1776" (Since GW and his friends all spoke British not American) and in French "le 4 Juillet 1776".