8) FRANK BRENTON

Hq
does the ordinary
; Ch Canadian want?
ip edits eet Gzowski, -manag-
We on ite of Macleans, report-
' Conversations With
be Sent 7*volutionaries” in
fi 5 1963 issue of that
» put it this way:
F

Tp
fej that iret Canadians, the
"i to ‘ €se questions have
% a5 the asked is as frustrat-
, Somee parent lack of -an-
them, ees seems to us.
‘inple. th. answer is eminent-
le Nation €y want to run their

MS Then to decide their own
Starity A Want to be, not a
ws th ut partners in Can-
Mich the” Want a country in
we Y Can be th j

@ major-

They :

Ww. &

witada a to win recognition

tec op nation state,

| Tight to S of their inalien-
er equality, and the
ny, “Slermine their own

Mer 1867 failed

‘gen far

i dig ¢° Confederation in
Mt Can, «tablish an indepen-
5 ing) 2N state, recogniz-
© degree the special
1€bec, it was an ad-
French ts failure to recog-
Brant ~anada as a nation
Ye Minatig 't full national self-
iy, Pung and democracy
» Precis to have repercus-

‘ ely because of this
*betweae Wing contradic-
j 3 the terms of Con-
ae present-day real-
e ee ihe crisis in
r
| Actuan Selves.

atteratigtt® very form of

hata. obscured the two-
viet th Cter of Canada by
t oe separate col-
. ‘ € new Cana-
*. Wi ‘Ook the form of prov-
gs ; Ne exception, these

enter
tat ‘ering

ion ecadian nation. The
French. S Quebec — the
“Speaking province.

aa Provinces merg-
ee Nation with a
On age, English, and
Culture, Anglo-Sax-
» On the other hand,

a nays °
i
beater. But the constitu-
Mtially aS a province, on
i of * € same terms as
Nes © English-speaking
un

C
e paederation did not
y ? fun ®nch Canadian peo-
they anents. That is why
‘tish © demanding that
Ppeq ts America Act
Provide, a new consti-
» fuaranteeing

them their right to economic,
social and cultural self-determin-
ation.

Despite overt measures taken
by a few narrow-minded extrem-
ists, the majority of French
Canadians want to work active-
ly for such a new Canadian con-
stitution. However, they make
it abundantly clear, that failure
to obtain a satisfactory guaran-
tee of their requirements could
result in their separation from
English Canada so that French
Canada might live.

End of an era

After the death of Duplessis

and the defeat of the Union Na-

tionale government in 1960, it
became apparent that the people
of French Canada were going to
make demands for fuller recog-
nition of their rights. They were
now beginning to express cer-
tain beliefs which had been lat-
ent for a long, long time.

Even prior to the election of
the Liberal Lesage government
in Quebec, replacing the reac-
tionary Union Nationale admin-
istration, many French Cana-
dians were beginning to stir and
become restive. New democra-
tic measures were being fought
for by some labor leaders, intel-
lectuals and university profes-
sors which finally culminated in
a general struggle for real equal-
ity. It was apparent that French
Canadians were no longer pre-
pared to tolerate practices of
the old regime, because these
were quite irrelevant to the
goals that they had in mind.

Young French Can
late to express their des
against all evidences of Ang
handle a young participant i
stration,

‘

In this setting, the federal
government’s proposal and sub-
sequent setting up of the Royal
Commission on Bilingualism and
Biculturalism was considered a
presumption by the French Can-
adian people that once again
they were to be kept victims of
an outdated constitution which
doés not fit in at all with the
realities of today.

Granting that it would be de-
sirable to study and acquire an
appreciation of the two cultures
and languages, the proposal falls
pitifully short of solving the
problems confronting the French
Canadian nation. It was ludi-
crous on the part of the federal
government to expect this na-
tion to accept the naive assur-
ance that learning to speak one
another’s language was a seri-
ous approach to achieving the
radical reforms that were need-

ed.

Language and jobs

Quebec’s experience exposes
the shallowness of this propo-
sal. Behind the question of lan-
guage lies the fact of economic
control. French Canadians in
their homeland have to learn
English to earn their daily bread.
This outrages their national
pride, as well as reducing their
capacity to advance their stand-
ard of living.

It is the actual English or
American ownership of the
large business corporations in
Montreal that requires the
French Canadians to speak Eng-
lish to get a job. But this is true
not only of Montreal. The city
of Sherbrooke in the Eastern

BES: ARR

adians have been using every opportunity of
ire for national equality and their resentment
lo-Saxon domination. Above, police man-
in last month's anti-Victoria Day demon-

~~ ———— EE

A country where live two
nations, the minority group
having not the liberty to
separate from the majority,
and the latter not being
strong enough to absorb the
former. Together facing the
most powerful and most dy-
namic nation of the Western
world. That is Canada.

—MICHEL BRUNET, histo-
rian, University of Mont-
real.

Townships is predominantly
French-speaking, only three per-
cent of its people being English,
yet French Canadians, the over-
whelming majority, lack oppor-
tunities for promotion in local
industries. In other words, Eng-
lish is the. working language in
Quebec. Extreme _ separatists,
taking exception to this, raise
the question of “unilingualism”
in Quebec as the only way to
save their language and culture.

Cooperative federalism, a de-
vice encouraged by the Liberals
and supported by the federal
and provincial governments, is
another attempt to deny the
necessity for any radical revi-
sion of the constitution.

To call federal-provincial con-
ferences under the existing con-
stitution is entirely inadequate,
especially for Quebec. Quebec’s
special problem is to protect and
develop a way of life that is dif-
ferent from that of the English-
speaking provinces.

Forms inadequate

And here must be recognized
a truth of Canadian history: it
is precisely the inadequacy of
the present constitutional, legal-
istic and juridical forms in Can-
ada that prevents French Can-
ada from realizing the level of
political, economic and cultural
life to which it has a right.

Fundamental to the attitude
of French Canada vis-a-vis Eng-
lish Canada is the economic
situation in Quebec. Over the
years and up to the present Que-
bec has had a chronic state of
unemployment. Its personal in-
come per capita is lower than
the Canadian average—37 per-
cent less than that of Ontario.
In addition French Canadians
control an insignificant propor-
tion of private capital in the
province. Recognition of certain
rights for French Canada in the
form of “provincial rights” as
under the present constitution.
in no way provides for the con-
trol implied in the Lesage slogan
of ‘“‘maitres chez nous.”

Confederation confirmed the
Roman Catholic clergy’s-almost
exclusive administration of the
schools and universities, result-

‘The grievances of French Canada

ing in the idea that the entire
mission to educate Catholic
youth belongs preeminently to
the Church. The stress thus laid
on religious instruction in Que-
bec schools is responsible for
backwardness in the whole sys-
tem, and particularly for the lag
In science.

The criminal indifference of
the Duplessis government to the
needs of secondary and univer-
sity educational institutions af-
fected the youth, and at the
same time maintained the French
universities and classical col-
leges in a state of perpetual cris-
is. Duplessis’ refusal to accept
federal subsidies for education
under the guise of a fight for
autonomy starved education fin-
ancially. Priests who were col-
lege professors were paid the
ridiculous sum of $200 to $400
a year. Lay teachers were ex-
cluded from making secondary
education a career because of
this low salary level, the inse-
curity of employment, and the
absence of advancement in col-
leges run entirely by the clergy.

The whole system ended in
catastrophe when the rapid in-
dustrialization of the province
found the people totally unpre-
pared to fill the jobs.

Industrialization

In a province where less than
50 percent of the 16-year-old
children attended school and 76
percent of the young unemploy-
ed had not even completed
Grade 8, sudden _industrializa-
tion precipitated a revolutionary
demand for education. The seri-
ousness of this problem led Pre-
mier Lesage, when stating the
three goals of his government
(development of natura] resour-
ces, increase in social assistance,
raising of the general level of
education and culture), to say,
“if circumstances had forced us
to choose only one of the three
objectives, I think we should
have limited ourselves to the
one concerning education.” Bill
60, the measure designed to es-
tablish a ministry of education
in Quebec, became one of the
main legislative acts.

While there are positive ele-
ments in the reforms brought
about by Bill 60, French Canada
still is faced with the fundamen-
tal problem of finding vast sums
of money to modernize the edu-
cational system. This will re-
quire a complete redivision of
the taxable wealth produced by
the people of Quebec; and raises
the constitutional question on
another front.

Thus all the deep-going eco-
nomic, educational and social
problems of French Canada are
not exclusively matters for a
new constitution but they are
inextricably bound up with it.

June 26, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5