CONVEN DION DE LUNION TYPOGRAPGIQUE INTERNATIONALE, EN ROUTE POUR CARILLON

The year 1867 already saw many militant struggles by Canadian wor-
kers for the 8-hour day and better conditions. One of the earliest
illustrations of Canadian trade unionists (above) appeared in L’Opi-
nion Publique of July 3, 1873. It shows a social gathering of dele-
gates to the International Typographical Union convention. Below:
On Nov. 7, 1885, workers of Craigellachie, B.C. drive in the last
spike, marking the completion of the transcontinental railway.

A century

eT wee Be ee!
Re ane a
Sat i a Sa 3

ee ie

The years immediately after
World War | saw a wave
of strikes spread across
Canada, culminating in the
great Winnipeg General
Strike in 1919 (above). The
Ottawa government arrest-
ed the strike. leaders and
rushed in special fegisla-
tion to crush the strike.

Ten years later came the
Great Depression, during
which the workers: had to
fight for jobs and govern-
ment relief. Right: Parti-
cipants on the trek of un-
employed to Ottawa are
attacked in downdown Re-

gina on July 1, 1935.

T WOULD be hard to find a more
vivid illustration of the existence
of two distinct nations within Can-

ada than is provided by the sharp con-
trast in attitudes to the centennial in
the two national communities. For
English Canada this is the milestone
marking “Canada’s 100th birthday”
and inaugurating her “second century
of existence.” French Canadians re-
mind us that it is 350 years since Louis
Hébert settled at Quebec, 325 years
since the founding of Montreal, over
two centuries since the British Con-
quest, and the “centrentenaire’”. (130th
anniversary) of the Rebellions of 1837.

Two angles of vision, in conflicting
focus: the mere fact of two national
histories would be enough to pose a
problem. But there is something else.

Canada is two peoples, sharing a
half-continent under arrangements that
were fixed in the era of colonialism.
They have yet to work out freely and
on an equal footing the terms of their
relationship. What makes this need im-
perative is the fact that the old pattern
inherited from history is one of many-
sided inequality.

To a far greater degree than most
English Canadians realize, the British
North America Act was shaped by
Anglo-Canadian economic and political
dominance backed by British capital
and imperial authority. The three pro-
vinces that entered into the 1867 Con-
federation did not include a_ distinct
(much less, an autonomous) Quebec:
they were the provinces of Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick—and Canada.
The effacement of a Quebec identity,
dissolved by the 1840 Act of Union in
the “United Province of Canada” was
the direct outcome of a _ counter-
revolution (1837-38) which was in turn
a re-enactment of the British conquest
of the French-Canadian nation. The

“sreat coalition” of 1864 that made
Confederation possible was above all a
coming-together of Montreal and Tor-
onto Anglo-Canadian businessmen and
their political spokesmen: Macdonald,
Brown and Galt. The kind of “business
democracy” for which they stood allow-
ed the participation of Cartier and the
clergy, indeed required it, and even
conceded (under pressure) a federal
form of union and therewith restora-
tion of a Quebec province: but the
relationship between the peoples was
marked unmistakably by British domi-
nance. It is this subordinate status of
a ‘cultural minority” confined to a
provincial existence that French Can-
ada today, after “two centuries of
patience,” in a changed world finds al-
together unsatisfactory and insufficient.
* * *

Who are we? What are we? Where
are we going? Controversy rages on
these questions in this centennial year.
Donald Creighton, biographer of Mac-
donald and historian of the Commercial
Empire of the St. Lawrence, blasts at
what he calls “the myth of bicultural-
ism.” At the Confederation conferen-
ces, he argues, “there was nothing that
remotely approached a general declara-
tion of principle that Canada was to
be a bilingual or bicultural nation”;

moreover, “none of the delegates...
showed much concern for ethnic or cul-
tural values.” Finally, “the idea of-a
bi-cultural compact, implicit in the BNA
Act ... is a myth.” Creighton here
manages to be at once wrong and
right. Wrong, in that there was indeed

by
STANLEY RYERSON

Historian and author

a “compact”, an understanding with
the French-Canadian conservative
spokesmen, to which Macdonald him-
self referred publicly in unmistakable
terms. Right, in this respect: while
there was a “deal” that did ensure a
measure of acquiescence (if not quies-
cence!) in French Canada, it by no
means extended to inclusion in the new
Dominion constitution of recognition of
the bi-national character of Canada.
The protests of Dorion and the Parti
rouge were not enough to impose such
recognition.

While Creighton’
“bi-culturalism” is O€
of the French-Canadia? S
another version iS
is depressing to note
leading researcher of
Labor Congress who
shrillest opponent of T° 4
existence of two nae
Forsey’s most recent
matter (at the June
Learned Societies 17 ra
to denounce the idea °
for Quebec as “uttef she
sense”, to declare tne of.
component in the sil" th
irrelevant”, and to reas anil
charged insistence th4” ine 7B
up of the Dominion a 5
not’ of French i “ :
nations or nationa at i

Creighton and Forse» tH ¢
their “national nihil ‘ jue
Elliott Trudeau. For big pal? n
ter, nationalism is 4 ng
be exorcised by deny u
of the conditions of ip Ang
gender it. But it
nationalism that relyy Kine
reality of a French gins He
nation” in rebellion 28 wy
tutionalized colonial. 90
North America Act-

June 30, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 6