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The Roots of French-Canadian Discontent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

D. Kwavnick
D. Kwavnick*
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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It is possible that the current “crisis” in French-English relations in Canada has been helped to its present pitch through a simple lack of understanding of the roots of French-Canadian discontent on the part of English Canadians, rather than as the result of a clash between irreconcilable ends. Two of the most common manifestations of this lack of understanding are to be seen in the lines of argument so often employed by English Canadians in discussing constitutional questions. The first has a long and honourable history, going back at least as far as 1887. Moreover, it enjoys the distinction of having seen active service down through the years on both sides in the various English-French and Dominion-provincial disputes.

The error in question is that of basing constitutional arguments upon an interpretation of the intentions of the Fathers of Confederation. This basis of argument has been invoked by both the compact theorists, among the upholders of provincial rights, and the “Judicial Committee ruined our Constitution” school among the centralists. (This word is used in a non-pejorative sense, although it seems to have acquired pejorative overtones in recent years.) The Fathers of Confederation were practical politicians attempting to deal with the practical political problems of the mid-nineteenth century, and it was with reference to these problems and to the contemporary value systems of the various communities of British North America that they conceived the series of compromises embodied in the British North America Act. To credit the Confederation settlement of a century ago with eternal validity is to credit the Fathers with a prescience which they simply did not possess.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , November 1965 , pp. 509 - 523
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1965

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References

1 A Preliminary Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (Ottawa, 1965), 133.Google Scholar

2 See the report of the interprovincial conference of 1887 in Dominion Provincial and lnterprovindal Conferences 1887–1926 (Ottawa, 1951), 10–27.Google Scholar

3 A most outstanding example of this line of reasoning is provided by SJ, Richard Arès, “La Confédération : pacte ou loi,” L'Action Nationale, XXXIV (1949), 194–230 and 243–77.Google Scholar For further examples see statements made by Duplessis, Premier in Dominion-Provincial Conference (1945) (Ottawa, 1946), 339–40 and 409–10Google Scholar; Proceedings of the Conference of Federal and Provincial Governments 1950 (Ottawa, 1953), 26 Google Scholar; Proceedings of the Federal-frovincial Conference 1955 (Ottawa, 1955), 31 Google Scholar; and Dominion Provincial Conference 1957 (Ottawa, 1958), 20 and 24–5.Google Scholar

4 The monument of this school of thought is, of course, the Report Pursuant to Resolution of the Senate to the Honourable The Speaker by the Parliamentary Counsel relating to the Enactment of the British North America Act, 1867 (Ottawa, 1939)Google Scholar, commonly called the O'Connor Report. Another outstanding example of this line of thought, containing an especially bitter denunciation of the Judicial Committee, is provided by Kennedy, W. P. M., “The British North America Act: Past and Future,” Canadian Bar Review, XV (1937), 393–400.Google Scholar

5 sReport of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Ottawa, 1954), I, 36.Google Scholar

6 “The Two Themes of Canadian Federalism,” this Journal, XXXI, no. 1 (02 1965), 80–97.Google Scholar

7 “Those who have concerned themselves with Canadian federalism have usually believed, explicitly or implicitly, that either the cultural or the economic problem was the major challenge which the federal system faced. … This essay is an attempt to view Canadian federalism as both an economic and a cultural device and to analyse the past and present interrelationships of the two sets of factors.”

8 Ibid., 94.

9 Ibid., 96.

10 Ibid., 94.

11 Ibid., 97.

12 See, for example, Le Fédéralisme, l'Acte de l'Amérique du Nord britannique et les Canadiens français. Mémoire de la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal au Comité Parlementaire de la Constitution de Gouvernement du Québec (Montreal, 1964).Google Scholar Cited hereafter as Le Fédéralisme. See also the statements made by Lévesque, M. and quoted by ProfessorSmiley, , “The Two Themes of Canadian Federalism,” 95 and 96.Google Scholar

13 Pourquoi je suis sépariste (Montreal, 1961), 152–3.Google Scholar

14 English-speaking persons tend to use the terms “nation” and “state” as synonyms, Throughout the remainder of this paper, the term “nation” will be used in the sense of the French nation or the German Volk, while the term “state” will be used in the sense of the French état or the German Staat.

15 If this catalogue was to make any mention at all of religion it would be to note the desire for emancipation from religion, and from the outlook and value system of the past, both of which had their basis in religion.

16 For a very interesting account of the place of the state in the thinking of young French Canadians see Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, “Les Séparistes: des contre-révolutionnaires,” Cité Libre (mai 1964), 2–6.Google Scholar

17 Report of a speech delivered at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Montreal. Montreal Star, 02 27, 1965, 3.Google Scholar Italics added.

18 Le Fédéralisme, 71.

19 Compare, for example, the traditional view of the compact theorists and the view taken by La Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Le Fédéralisme. Only the “facts” are the same.

20 Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems (Quebec, 1956), II, 36.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., 34.

22 Ibid., 33.

23 See his remarks in Dominion Provincial Conference (1945), 356–7.

24 Noted by Smith, Goldwin in Canada and the Canadian Question (London and New York, 1891), 12.Google Scholar

25 Siegfried, André, The Race Question in Canada (New York. 1907).Google Scholar The theme recurs throughout the book.

26 For a recent example of this line of thinking see the symposium on the subject of Bill 60 in L'Action Nationale, LIII (09 1963).Google Scholar

27 Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems, II, 33.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., 36.

29 Ibid., 21. English Canadians have tended to lavish far too much attention upon Parts I, II, and IV of the Tremblay Report, those parts dealing with the mechanics of Canadian federalism, to the neglect of Part III which deals with the philosophical basis of the French-Canadian attitude. Part III (Volume II, pages 3–90), contains, in capsule form, an excellent exposition of the value system of French Canada under the ancien régime.

30 Two typical examples are provided by: Brunet, Michel, Canadians et Canadiens (Montreal, 1954), 86ff and 109ffGoogle Scholar; Rumilly, Robert, Le Problème national des Canadiens français (Montreal, 1961), 49–80.Google Scholar

31 “Le Fédéralisme, 71–2.

32 See n. 16.

33 In a speech delivered at St. Catharines, Ontario, and reported in the Montreal Star, March 13, 1965, on page 1, Premier Lesage said (italics added): “I must state it very clearly–Canadians must either adapt to this new fact or else accept that French Canada will evolve alone. … At the present time there is little likelihood that Quebec should succumb to this temptation in the immediate future.”