By NELSON CLARKE

a WIDL.PREAD confusion
ae exists with respect to
a 2 between French
te anada is being
ce by the current series
in var €ences being conducted

lous parts of the country
ee Royal Commission on
alism and Biculturalism.

I

Mie oe Many instances, it is
Confusion just a problem of
axon n. There is crass Anglo-
Kamp Chauvinism shown, for
Frank 4 In the statements of
Coverno, Bastedo, ex-Lieutenant
is quoted of Saskatchewan. He
a sayj by the Canadian Press
bee p78 in Regina that “Que-
ono fallen far behind in
decay l€ and educational terms

a
Set eerench Canadians ‘have

Biling

This

ismisgi Tory (who considered

5 ng the Saskatechewan
ticare vernment during the Me-
that his needs to be told
ears eo duering English fore-
a tried to enforce such
| 8 a and were defeated by
| ligne e8!eS Of the French Can-
Over many decades.

U
| Deo ortunately, there are other
Spreaq e €sides Bastedo who
Otherwise. idea, deliberately or
ate clings that the Quebecois
J Utm, Rave to an old-fashioned,

of backward agrarian

h
; Quebec Tuth of the matter is that
rf ed ie how the most urban-
} Dssescee Ce in Canada, that it
J) that at modern industries,
s| Tlous y,° the death of the noto-
maurice Duplessis many
ee: been instituted in
< €r the pressure of a
i Psurge in progressive

han
'S nerve gas,

» | nuclear weapons.

oe Why

y ‘hell efi

€stination secret.”

| tthacys” 888 is

TAS sien
‘ trangles its Vital orga

ns.

, Ay she A

Cho, OF
Neg me

ca
weary?

aS

English , ace against learning

the bow and arrow.

ye

thinking. For example, at a time.

when provinces like Ontario,
Manitoba and Saskatchewan are
moving away from the great
demoncratic principle of the sep-
aration of church and _ state,
Quebec for the first time is
establishing a department of ed-
ucation, and moving away from
religious control of the schools.

But the most serious and
widespread problem being re-
vealed by the present series of
conferences flows from the
angry rejection by large numbers
of people of the term “‘bi-cultur-
alism”, and ti.e contention that
Canada is a land made up of
many cultures—German, Ukrai-
nian, Scandinavian, Italian, Jew-
ish — as well as French and
English.

The blame for this confusion
must first of all be placed up-n
Lester B. Pearson and his gov-
ernment who invented the wo:d
“bi-cultural” and wrote it into
the terms of reference and the
official title of their Royal Com-
mission.

The cunning Liberals saw in
this term a fine red herring to
drag across the roa.’ to solution
of our national problems.

Reactionary nationalists
among various national groups
have been quick to seize upon
this opportun::y to foment more
divisions in our country. Behind
the scenes they serve the big

’ monopolies of Canada who are

quite prepared to use such na-
tionalism just as they use chau-
vinism in order to divide and
thereby ‘o rule.

These despicable tactics are
effective precisely because they
bring forth such questions as:

“Is it not being suggested that

Minute Death

. AN
ii Wo
I AB ULD fill Jules Verne with awe and disbelief. It makes the

a ent a dropped on Hiroshima seem only one step more pot-

Fe fently, cording to an article which appeared in the daily press re-

} # the OD, breathed or soaked into the skin, can kill.”

a Bas ae refers to a U.S. Army handbook which states that
Sct of SO potent its delivery on a small scale approaches the

i h
; | Year, "#8 been manufactured on a 24-hour-a-day basis for three
Palsy
; miele Riot. ahead of any aggressor so he won't be tempted,” the
, ant, €s Lt. Col. William J. Tisdale, officer in charge of the
‘St
; t « ee isn’t the word. The article says:
“| a" liquers; Cn Of the assembly line laced with 40 miles of pipes,

ed gas igs poured into rockets, land mines and artillery

dispersed in a spray when its carrier explodes. It
= body’s cholinesterase, a substance which transmits
S for muscles to expand, The muscles constrict till the

"my handbook says that the process takes four minutes.

°Ngressional report says it takes less than a minute.
Sang the gas’s victims will not be bothered by its pres-
is odorless, tasteless and virtually invisible.
tie aes top of it all the writer reminds us:
ties pour’ .t© Popular thought, the U.S, is not bound by any
"bidding the use of nerve gas.”

there are two classes of Canadi-
ans, that people of origins other
than French and English are
‘lesser breeds without the law’,
that the only cultural heritage
th.‘ matters is that which sprai 3
from France or the British
Isles?” And the more honest
Canadians are led into posing
such questions, the more they
are led away from the search
for the fundamental answers to
the present crisis of Confedera-
tion.

The point is that we are not
confronted with a problem of
bilingualism and biculturalism, a
problem of two languages and
two nations. We are confronted
with a problem of two nations
living together in a single state.

They each have a common
language, one French, one Eng-
lish. They each have a common
territory, one centered upon the
present province of Quebec, the
other centered in the nine pro-
vinces where English is spoken

as the main language. They eac:1

possess a distinct “psychological
make-up manifested in a com-
munity of culture.”

These are the two nations of
Canada. All other national
groups within our co: ntry are
in the proces: of merging into
one or the other of these nations
and in that process contributing
to their development.

In the main, the process of
merging has been into the nation
which speaks English. Of this
nation, Leslie Morris in his key-
note address to the 18th Na::on-
al Convention of the Communist
Party said:

“The chief and dominant char-
acteristic of this process is the
emergence of a clearly defined
national consciousness in Eng-
lish-speaking Canada. The des-
cendants of forebears who came
to this country through the
years, from many different coun-
tries, are Canadians, merged in
that Canadian nation whose lan-
guage is English. This is a char-
acteristic of modern times in
relatively newly - settled coun-
tries like ours. The rapid urbani-
zation of Canadian life acceler-
ates such a merging. It is a
progressive process, which must
not and need not proceed
through forced assimilation. It
must be, and indeed is, a volun-
tary merging out of which is
formed a specific nation, with its
own psychology and features to
which all the peoples who form
the nation contribute.”

Anyone who doubts the truth
of this statement should begin
to subject his ideas to re-exam-
ination by facing up to this
incontrovertible fact: Two cen-
turies after the British conquest,
one out of every five Canadians
continues to speak French, with
another 12 percent (mostly
French) who speak both English
and French. But on the other
hand, despite extensive immi-
gration from many other coun-
tries only about one Canadian

‘out of a 100 speaks neither

English or French.

There has to be a reason for
this, and the reason is that the
French Canadians constitute a

Confusion, chauvinism and division

: Frank Maricle, well-known spokesman of the Communist Party
in Alberta, is shown voicing his views at the hearings of the Com-
mission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in Edmonton.

nation within Canada, whereas
Canadians of Ukrainian or Ger-
man origin, for example, do not.

Once this reality is grasped,
once the problem is stood on its
feet instead of its head, it be-
comes clear why “biculturalism”
is a false and diverse issue.

The problem is rather to make
sure that every Canadian is
treated as the equal of every
other Canadian whether his an-
cestors came in the 17th century
from Brittany or in the 18th
century as United Empire Loyal-
ists of British stock, or whether
he himself or his father was
born in a village near Lvov in
the 20th century.

Although French and English-
speaking Canada were originally
extensions of their respective
mother countries, the culture of
French Canada is not just that
of old France; and most certainly
the culture of English-speaking
Canada is not just that of old
England. Through many years
we have been forging a new
national consciousness in this
new land which has drawn upon
the cultural backgrounds of
many peoples.

We treasure this rich inherit-

ance. To quote from the keynote
address to the 18th National
Convention of the Communist
Party again:

“Our stand here is one of
Communist principle; we recog-
nize it as a progressive historical
development which must always
be accompanied by the utmost
freedom for all groups to pre-
serve their language and ancient
cultures as long as the spiritual
need for such preservation
lasts.”

The objective of all progres-
sive Canadians must be to foster
the unity of the Canadian people.
Otherwise our country will be
torn apart. and fall completely
under United -States political,
‘economic and cultural domina-
tion.

That unity can be. preserved
only through a new constitution
which recognizes the comple 2
equality of our two _ nations,
based on their right to self de-
termination, and which at the
same time affords all Canadians
irrespective of national origins
the opportunity to freely con-
tribute, without discrimination,
to the development of our coun-
try in the true interests of its
p-ople.

May 29, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5