Dismanteling the Clock

“It was certainly not intended to be two political nations. This is unmistakably plain. Over and over again, the ‘Canadian’ Fathers of Confederation, French, English, Irish and Scots, declare emphatically that they were creating a new nation.” – Eugene Forsey

I saw this quote for the first time in a brief prepared by Ron Leitch, who was the time head of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada. The brief was published in J.V. Andrew’s book, Enough! The same quote later appeared in a book by William Gairdner called The Trouble With Canada, where I took this quote along with the emphasis as it appears in that book.

I don’t have access to Eugene Forsey’s original speech so I can’t comment on its meaning or whether this quote was taken out of context. But it’s interesting that people who want only one official language in Canada, and want that language to be English, would use this quote to denigrate the idea of two founding nations, or two founding peoples. The idea is that nothing that happened before 1867 matters, and we’ll all live together in this nice new English nation that, all the same, continues to bow to the British Crown.

When the first four British colonies decided to unite into a country called Canada, the presence of an almost homogeneously French-speaking territory commonly called Lower Canada could hardly be missed. In fact, from the start, certain allowances were made, such as section 133 of the British North America Act which allows for French to be used in the Canadian Parliament as well as in Quebec’s government institutions.

Therefore, from the start, efforts were made to accommodate the French. These weren’t foreigners or immigrants. They were there from the start and already constituted a People. This fact could not be ignored. And this fact is part of our common history.

The initial goodwill was limited and, in some cases, quite temporary. To my knowledge, there was nothing in the Constitution that mandated an English-speaking public service. It just seemed to happen naturally. Unfortunately, the natural course of events also tended to shut out French Canadians who couldn’t speak English, and sometimes even those who could. In Sorry, I Don’t Speak French, former Prime Minister Paul Martin tells author Graham Fraser about the father of one of his friends, a man who couldn’t rise any further in the public service for the simple reason that he was French. What should have been nothing more than an inconvenience was instead a hindrance, one that many people who are against bilingualism would like to see again.

We ignore history at our own peril. The French nation we now call Quebec already existed in 1867. As time went on, French developed further in New Brunswick as well thanks to the Acadians, so much so that the province is now the only province in Canada to be officially bilingual. French people have also existed in the rest of Canada, and certainly as far back as 1867. Their numbers are few, too few for any real political significance, but their presence cannot be denied.

Even in Ontario, French was already present in 1867. When French education in Ontario was outlawed in 1912, it was purportedly to prevent other “immigrant” groups from demanding public education in their own languages as well. Yet, the French in Ontario weren’t immigrants. To say their rights to public education in French was merely a privilege afforded by the English majority is, to say the least, disingenuous.

And we certainly can’t forget the Red River uprising in Manitoba and the subsequent hanging of Métis leader Louis Riel. Whether he’s a hero or a scoundrel depends a lot on where you stand on the language issue.

If Quebec ever left Canada, English Canada could not turn back the clock by declaring English to be the only official language. Without Quebec, the clock would be effectively dismantled.