[145]

ESSAIS SUR LE QUÉBEC CONTEMPORAIN.
Essays on Contemporary Quebec.

Symposium du centenaire de l’Université Laval, 6-7 juin 1952.

“Political Trends.”. H. Mason Wade

Commentaires. Lorenzo Paré.

French Canada's political history has always been oriented by the principles of cultural survival and recognition of its rights. But it is worthwhile to examine soberly the facile observation that « plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose », even when we find Errol Bouchette proclaiming at the opening of the period under discussion, « Emparons-nous de l’industrie ! » and we hear the same cry today. History never quite repeats itself, and it is analogies rather than exact parallels which lend interest to historical studies.

At the turn of the century, French Canada was involved in one of the crises which have periodically set it at odds with English Canada. The Boer War split wide open the cleft between French and English Canadians which had been developing for some years, and created a deep division which lasted until recent years. The ethnic division caused by the Riel Rising of 1885, and by the bitter disputes which ensued over the rights of the French language outside Quebec, was furthered by the interplay of two great and opposed forces, nationalism and imperialism. Though English Canadians were then aligned largely in the imperialist camp and French Canadians in the nationalist one, in fact Canadian nationalism in the post-Confederation period was English in origin, and in the last analysis ever since 1763 the French Canadians have placed a greater reliance on the British connection than their fellow-countrymen, since it affords a certain security to a minority group which has sometimes lacked confidence in the goodwill of the majority. Only in recent years have the French Canadians realized that all English Canadians are not imperialists, and that indeed many of them are as strong Canadian nationalists as any French Canadian.

When the agitation began for a Canadian contingent for South Africa, La Presse expressed the fundamental French-Canadian [p. 146] attitude toward foreign wars, which was later to cause two more major wartime crises in Canada's national life : « We French Canadians belong to one country, Canada ; Canada is for us the whole world ; but the English Canadians have two countries, one here and one across the sea. » The « pan-Anglo-Saxon » idea not only largely swallowed up early English-Canadian nationalism ; it stimulated French-Canadian nationalism, with its strong tendency toward isolationism, and thus largely defeated the chief purposes of its prophets. The situation was a perfect illustration of J. A. Hobson's observation that « aggressive imperialism is an artificial stimulant of nationalism in peoples too foreign to be absorbed and too compact to be permanently crushed. » Canada was singularly fortunate in being governed during fifteen crucial years of this conflict by a French-Canadian Prime Minister who possessed an equal devotion to the spirit of British political institutions and the ideal of Canadian nationhood, and who was able to rally most of his compatriots behind his leadership. But in the end he was driven from office on the eve of the far greater crisis of the First World War by a momentary combination of extreme nationalists and aggressive imperialists, political enemies on either side of the middle path he always favoured. For French Canada, with its devotion to the leader principle, the conflict between nationalism and imperialism is largely the story of Laurier and Henri Bourassa.

We know a good deal about Laurier, who has been studied both sympathetically and critically. But oddly enough no one has even written a biography of Bourassa, much less a careful study of his ideas. Yet in the last analysis, it was Bourassa who started his political life as one of Laurier's favourite bright young men, who brought about the downfall of one of Canada's greatest prime ministers by depriving him of Quebec’s support. Bourassa first broke with Laurier on the issue of Canadian participation in the Boer War, and he evolved a new French-Canadian nationalism in reaction to imperialist jingoism. This nationalism was largely a reiteration of the doctrines of the « Canada First » movement in French-Canadian terms. It was stimulated by waving of the Union Jack in school and press, by the swelling tide of British immigration, and the great influx of British capital between 1900 and 1913 ($1½ billion). It shared in the rapidly developing [p. 147] national consciousness brought about by the settlement of the West and by the industrial development of the East, which to some extent broke down the old provincialism. Laurier expressed this aspect of the new nationalism when he called Canada « the country of the twentieth century ». After an early inclination towards imperialism, to offset Conservative charges of Liberal annexationist leanings ; to meet English Canada, then in the full flood of imperialist sentiment, halfway ; and since British preference suited Canada's needs after the adoption of the McKinley and Dingley tariffs – Laurier reconciled in some measure the ideals of nationalism and imperialism, having learned the danger in Quebec of yielding too much to Ontario's sentiments, and having experienced the full measure of British imperial federation propaganda. He helped to evolve the modern theory of the British Commonwealth of Nations by stressing Canada's position as an autonomous nation within the Empire.

Bourassa's nationalism was not merely a reaction against imperialism ; it was a reaction against the attempt of certain English Canadians since 1885 to make Canada a land of one tongue and one culture, and to treat the French Canadians as foreigners in their own country. Unfortunately for Canadian national development, many of the leaders of the imperialist movement were also leaders in the anti-French movement ; their « Anglo-Saxon » racism and appeals to British traditions fostered the development of racist feeling in Quebec and a reassertation of Quebec's French traditions. Attacks on the privileges of the French-Canadian minorities outside Quebec developed a French-Canadian group consciousness, a sense of « racial and religious separateness ». The massive immigration directed by Clifford Sifton, whose anti-French sentiments had been made clear in the Manitoba school question, led the French Canadians to suspect a plot to swamp them in an English-speaking Canada in which Quebec would have little voice or importance. Each year the young men in the classical colleges became more intent upon stressing their Frenchness and their Catholicity ; even the infant labour movement developed national, that is, provincial syndicates as rivals to the national and international unions, while opposition arose to the development of Quebec's natural resources by English and American capital under English-Canadian auspices. For some, the new sense of separate-[p. 148] ness involved merely an effort to maintain the faith and culture of French Canada against « Anglo-Saxon » encroachment, while freely collaborating with English Canadians in building up a nation of dual culture. For a more narrow-minded group, it meant a withdrawal within the Chinese Wall of an exclusive and isolated French and Catholic province. For them nationalism was really provincialism, but the movement was not provincial in outlook at the start.

Like his grandfather Louis-Joseph Papineau, Bourassa combined an admiration for British institutions with a passionate devotion to French Canada. Thanks to his experience in negotiating the Laurier-Greenway Agreement in 1896 and as secretary of the Joint High Commission in 1898 and 1899, Bourassa had wider political horizons than most young Quebec politicians. He saw through and denounced the dangerous double game played by both traditional parties : « In the English-speaking provinces, both parties run for the prize of “loyalty” – each side claiming the credit of having done the most for Great Britain. Of sole devotion to Canadian interests, we hear no more ... The only point in real dispute is which will eat the biggest piece of the jingo pie. All this, of course, does not prevent them from selling Canada wholesale to American railway magnates. In Quebec ... it is no longer a question of which party has done more for Great Britain, but the less done, the greater credit claimed. » He feared that this double game would lead to a clash between French and English Canadians, which might end in annexation to the United States.

At the outset, Bourassa displayed an attitude towards imperialism which was at once Canadian and in accordance with the best traditions of English Liberalism. His ideas were not very different from those of Goldwyn Smith, except that he was much more reluctant to envisage the end of the British connection than the Toronto prophet of annexation. His opposition to imperialism made him the hero of the young anglophobe French-Canadian students, who envisaged the formation of a French-Canadian party which would make no concessions to imperialism, as both Conservatives and Liberals had done.

As Laurier's success gradually eclipsed the Conservative Party, Bourassa became the leader of those French Canadians, particularly the younger generation, who found the Liberal chief too willing to compromise with imperialists and the English Canadians.

[p. 149]

Bourassa's vanity was too great for him not to accept this role, and he did not strongly condemn his followers' anti-English excesses, with which he was not personally in sympathy. In Montreal, Louvigny de Montigny and Olivar Asselin launched a weekly called Les Débats in 1900 which publicized Bourassa's parliamentary skirmishes against imperialism ; in Quebec Armand Lavergne distributed Les Débats to Laval students ; in St. Jérome the Nantels published La Nation, with a programme of seeking independence through constitutional means and opposing imperialism. At Drummondville, in June 1902, Napoléon Garceau organized the first mass nationalist meeting, which adopted resolutions of fidelity to French-Canadian nationality and to its constituent elements of faith, language, laws, and traditions, and to the British Crown. Bourassa's ideas received the sanction of M^gr L.-A. Pâquet, the noted theologian and sacred orator, in his 1902 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day sermon at Quebec, which hymned the vocation of the French race in North America : « Our mission is less to manipulate capital than to change ideas ; it consists less in lighting the fires of factories than to maintain and to make shine afar the luminous fire of religion and thought. » This sermon was a classic example of the messianic nationalism derived from Bossuet and de Maistre, which was to become dominant in later years, tinged with more than a suspicion of sour grapes.

The group of young nationalists who had cut their teeth as contributors to Les Débats founded the Ligue Nationaliste in March 1903. The League's threefold programme, which had been drafted by Olivar Asselin and approved by Bourassa, read thus :

« 1. For Canada, in its relations with Great Britain, the largest measure of autonomy compatible with the maintenance of the colonial bond.

« 2. For the Canadian provinces, in their relations with the federal power, the largest measure of autonomy compatible with the maintenance of the federal bond.

« 3. Adoption by the federal and provincial governments of a policy of Canadian economic and intellectual development. »)

Meanwhile another nationalist group, fired by the spirit of M^gr Pâquet's messianic nationalism, had grown up since 1900 in the classical colleges of the Montreal region under the direction of Abbé Lionel Groulx, Abbé Émile Chartier and Père Hermas [p. 150] Lalande, s.j. What had begun as a religious movement soon acquired strong political overtones, and the Association catholique de la Jeunesse canadienne-française became the nursery of twentieth century French-Canadian nationalism. Its confusion of religion and patriotism was soon carried into every walk of Quebec life by the heady indoctrination which the young élite received in its ranks. Laurier took alarm at these developments and intervened with both Archbishop Bruchési and Bourassa. He got the former to moderate the A.C.J.C.'s enthusiasm for the Drapeau Carillon Sacré-Cœur, and he warned Bourassa of the danger of forming a French party in Quebec which would produce an anti-French-Canadian reaction in Ontario. Laurier was indulgent both towards Bourassa and Armand Lavergne, but he was very conscious of Lord Elgin's warning of the danger of racial or religious parties in Canada.

Asselin's Ligue founded a weekly, Le Nationaliste, in March 1904. The paper was to be absolutely independent of both traditional parties. Asselin's chief aid was Jules Fournier, a brilliant young journalist of A.C.J.C. background. While Bourassa disowned any responsibility for Le Nationaliste, it was clearly his organ. The paper was nationalist in a Canadian sense, not merely in a French-Canadian one, and as such its appearance was welcomed by two leading English-Canadian nationalists, Goldwin Smith and John S. Ewart.

The difference between Bourassa's nationalism and that previously known in Quebec was made evident by an exchange between him and Jules-Paul Tardivel, the ultramontane, anglophobe, and separatist editor of La Vérité. Tardivel described his nationalism thus : « Our own nationalism is French-Canadian nationalism. We have worked for twenty-three years for the development of French-Canadian national sentiment ; what we wish to see flourish is French-Canadian patriotism ; for us, our compatriots are the French Canadians ; for us, our fatherland is – we do not say precisely the Province of Quebec – but French Canada ; the nation we wish to see founded at the hour marked by Divine Providence is the French-Canadian nation. These gentlemen of the Ligue appear to take their stand on another point of view. One would say that they wish to work for the development of Canadian sentiment, independent of all questions or origin, language, and religion. »

[p. 151]

Bourassa replied with a definition of the nationalism for which the Ligue stood : « Our own nationalism is a Canadian nationalism founded upon the duality of races and on the particular traditions which this duality involves. We work for the development of a Canadian patriotism which is in our eyes the best guarantee of the existence of the two races and of the mutual respect they owe each other. For us, as for M. Tardivel, our compatriots are the French Canadians ; but the English Canadians are not foreigners, and we regard as allies all among them who respect us and who desire, like us, the maintenance of Canadian autonomy. For us, the fatherland is all Canada, that is, a federation of distinct races and autonomous provinces. The nation that we wish to see develop is the Canadian nation, composed of French Canadians and English Canadians, that is, of two elements separated by language and religion, and by the legal dispositions necessary to the preservation of their respective traditions, but united in a feeling of brotherhood, in a common attachment to the common fatherland. »

The A.C.J.C. was clearly much more in Tardivel's tradition than in Bourassa's ; but Le Nationaliste adopted a friendly attitude toward the group and Bourassa frequented their meetings. As time passed, the A.C.J.C. became less of a pious confraternity and more of a politico-religious movement, whose support was pledged to Bourassa. Though in 1904 no one rivaled Laurier or matched his hold upon the hearts of Canadians, English and French alike, a groundswell was arising in Quebec which threatened this dominance of his native province. The hero of the young nationalists was Henri Bourassa, not Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

Bourassa introduced a new element into French-Canadian nationalism when he expounded the programme of the Ligue to an audience of 6,000 at Quebec on December 8, 1903. In addition to dealing with Canada's situation in the Empire and with the federal-provincial relationship, he expounded an economic nationalism. He criticized the provincial Liberal administration for selling timber limits on too great a scale, and too frequently to speculators who stripped colonization lots of their wood and then abandoned them. He favoured a law compelling American lumbermen to convert wood into pulp in Quebec mills. He urged that waterpower rights should be leased rather than sold outright. This programme was not very much to the taste of the leading [p. 152] Liberals on the platform, but it was cheered by the students as heartily as Bourassa's political proposals Despite Bourassa's numerous subsequent appeals for more support for colonization, not until after the first World War did the economic element become dominant in nationalism ; for the battle against imperialism and in defence of French rights outside Quebec had first to be decided.

1905, the year which saw Joseph Chamberlain's retirement from politics, marked the ebb of the imperialist tide in Canada, while anti-imperialism grew ever stronger and reached its flood in 1911. Laurier had steered a clever course between imperialism and autonomy, but two other great achievements of his regime brought about the beginning of his decline. The massive polyglot immigration since 1897, which had peopled the West and added one-third to the nation's population, revived French Canada's fears for cultural survival, chronic ever since 1763. The rapid development of the West called for the creation of new provinces, and this raised once more the question of minority rights, with ethnic and religious difference whose power to disrupt Canadian national life Laurier already knew only too well. For all his political adroitness and his willingness to compromise, he could not avoid a bitter division of the nation and of his following, and with that division the eventual doom of his administration was assured. Bourassa, backed by the Ligue and the A.C.J.C., took an active part in opposing the government's stand on the North-West school question. In the end, a new French-Canadian grievance against the federal government was added to the lengthy list already familiar to the nationalists.

The nationalists were divided by differences in principle between the Ligue, which put nationalism before religion, and the A.C.J.C., which put religion before nationalism. La Vérité, now edited by Omer Héroux, Tardivel's son-in-law, quarreled with Le Nationaliste. With imperialism on the wane, Bourassa now found more frequent occasion to express his French-Canadian patriotism than the larger Canadianism which he had earlier advanced. He attacked an immigration policy which neglected prospective French and Belgian colonists in favour of Polish and Russian Jews. The rapid increase of the Jewish population of Montreal since 1901 had already roused anti-semitism among the French Canadians ; and Bourassa thus [p. 153] gave expression to what was to become a standard strand in French Canadian nationalism. His fight against the Sunday Bill, supported by the Lord's Day Alliance of Toronto, brought him new support from labour, for the prospect of the extension of the notably cheerless Toronto Sunday to Quebec aroused popular feeling. The great industrialists joined the opposition to the bill, and made their influence felt in the Senate, which imposed amendments embodying Bourassa's suggestions. His political influence increased, and he found himself for the first time in the great English-Canadian interests which were later to make a brief but effective political alliance with him.

Bourassa continued to be a thorn in the flesh of the Gouin administration, denouncing the mismanagement of the province's natural resources and calling for all manner of reforms. He made capital of the fact that he was prevented from addressing a crowd of 1,500 at St. Roch when Liberal stalwarts laid down a barrage of tomatoes, eggs, and stones. The country parishes gave him a fair hearing, and in September 1905 he called for the formation of a third party, « which ought necessarily absorb the best elements of the two old parties. » He accepted a challenge to resign from the federal House and to run against Turgeon. He lost his election, but decided to remain in the provincial field. Laurier summed up his ex-follower's character not too unkindly : « No one recognizes Bourassa's talent more than I do. He has one capital defect, he does not know how to keep within bounds ... he fights his friends with the same violence as his enemies ; he becomes intoxicated with his own words ; he grows irritated if contradicted ; in the end he overshoots his own mark and allows himself to be drawn along unconsciously from friendly criticism to open war. »

His movement gained new journalistic support when in December 1907 the first number of L'Action sociale appeared at Quebec, with Omer Héroux and Jules Dorion, two of his disciples, as editors. Lavergne upheld the nationalist cause in Bourassa's stead at Ottawa. Lavergne's call for bilingualism in the public services was vigorously supported by the A.C.J.C., which was becoming increasingly political. Bourassa's tumultuous young followers had a way of pushing his demands for equality to the point of provocation. To the dismay of Laurier, Gouin, and other prophets of the middle way, the rising generation was nationalist to a man, and (p. 154] increasingly provincial in its outlook. The Liberal press referred scathingly to « the choirboys of the new pontiff » ; but the Conservatives urged Bourassa to run against Lomer Gouin in Montreal, the provincial premier, with their support. After Gouin and Taschereau announced their intention of contesting two seats, Bourassa declared that he would also contest St. Hyacinthe. He succeeded in winning both elections, and derived great prestige from defeating the Liberal leader in his own home district.

The Nationalist-Conservative alliance against the Liberals grew closer, and it was from Conservative sources that Bourassa got some support for his independent journal, Le Devoir, which was launched in January 1910, after an 18-month campaign for funds. Le Devoir's staff included Georges Pelletier and Omer Héroux of L'Action sociale, and Olivar Asselin and Jules Fournier of Le Nationaliste. Both the ultramontane and liberal wings of the nationalist movement were thus reunited. The new paper opposed the Gouin government ; it referred to the « betrayals, weaknesses, and dangers » of Laurier's policy ; and it espoused the cause of the newly founded Ontario Association canadienne-française d'éducation which had undertaken the defence of bilingualism in that province. Bourassa promptly attacked Laurier's Navy Bill and his statement that Canada was at war when England was at war. Le Devoir organized a campaign for a plebiscite on the Navy question. While the Globe accused Laurier of trying to separate Canada from England, Le Devoir charged that he was sacrificing Canada to England.

The Navy Bill passed ; but the anti-imperialist agitation which had been roused in Quebec did not die down. The nationalists and Conservatives launched a joint campaign for repeal of the Navy Act. At St. Eustache in July, Bourassa denounced Laurier for betraying his followers into imperialism, and for denying the Catholics of half the country the right to have their children taught the religion and the language of their fathers. While Laurier campaigned in the West, Bourassa and his Conservative allies held meeting after meeting in Quebec, He won new prestige in September by his spontaneous reply to Archbishop Bourne at the Eucharistic Congress in Montreal, when the English prelate suggested that the English language was the destined vehicle of Catholicism in North America. A by-election in Arthabaska [p. 155] provided a test of strength between Laurier and Bourassa, and the victory of the Nationalist candidate after a bitterly contested election gave warning of Laurier's approaching downfall.

Somewhat surprisingly, Bourassa on the whole supported reciprocity when the issue was before the House early in 1911. But the issue in Quebec was not reciprocity but imperialism, and Bourassa and his followers conducted a vigorous anti-imperialist campaign while Laurier was in London at the Imperial Conference early that summer. In the face of Conservative opposition to the Reciprocity Bill, Laurier was forced to appeal to the country. In Quebec, politics made very strange bedfellows, with Bourassa joining the imperialists Herbert B. Ames and C. J. Doherty in the common cause of defeating Laurier. Protectionist and imperialist big business was willing to use the nationalist movement to defeat reciprocity. Funds began to flow into the nationalist war chest. One English Conservative in Montreal, who had attacked the nationalists as « rebels and disloyal traitors », took out 40 subscriptions to Le Devoir. The paper's capital tripled. Bourassa stressed that the main issue was imperialism, but when the Liberals sought to divert attention from the Navy question by concentrating on reciprocity as a benefit to the farmers of Quebec, Bourassa began to criticize reciprocity. Bourassa encountered Rodolphe Lemieux in an assemblée contradictoire at St. Hyacinthe, which ended with fights on the platform as well as in the crowd. Bourassa found himself eulogized by the Conservative Gazette and the Star, while Le Devoir had become a more influential organ than either the liberal La Presse or La Patrie, within a year and a half after its foundation. Its devotion to the cause of the French language won it the support of the clergy as well as the students. After the bitterest campaign in Quebec's memory, the Laurier regime went down to defeat in September 1911, with the loss of 32 seats in Quebec. The majority in the house was exactly reversed. The outcome was hailed in Quebec as a nationalist triumph ; in Ontario as an imperialist one. By his fight against Laurier the nationalist Bourassa had delivered Quebec into the hands of an administration committed to imperialism and unsympathetic to the French Canadians. Thanks to the unscrupulousness of the campaign, Canada was already split by bitter ethnic divisions as one of the great crises of its national life drew near.

[p. 156]

Bourassa soon had an opportunity to exercise his talent for opposition, for the Nationalist-Conservative alliance broke down when Robert Borden refused the nationalist programme of a plebiscite on the naval question, a revised immigration policy, and relief for the grievances of the French minority in the West. Bourassa pamphleteered against the Navy Act and against the government's refusal to guarantee minority educational rights when Keewatin was annexed to Manitoba. He protested vigorously against a bill introduced at Ottawa by an Ontario member which would invalidate any provincial or canonical law against mixed marriages. This bill was directed against application of the papal Ne Temere decree in Quebec. These were not successful campaign for the nationalists, and the Gouin government maintained its majority, thanks to a reaction in favour of Laurier when the Nationalist-Conservative alliance failed to realize his promises.

Bourassa regained much of his influence when he participated in the first Congrès de la Langue française in June, which had been organized by M^sgr Paul-Eugène Roy, the auxiliary bishop of Quebec, who was devoted to defence of the French language and of national traditions, and to the grouping in a single organization of all the Catholic social movements of the province. This was a national gathering with political implications, since delegations of all the out-lying French groups attended and argued their causes. Bourassa, just returned from travels in Europe, once again eloquently hymned the French tradition and the French language, maintaining the moral right of the French Canadians to use their mother tongue from Halifax to Vancouver. Though the Congress took no significant action, it supplied evidence of the vitality of French Canada by a vast rally of its forces.

Bourassa carried on his war against all the various naval proposals ; and he succeeded in defeating the schemes for Canadian contribution of three dreadnaughts or a money contribution, as be had defeated the plan for a Canadian Navy. But increasingly his energy went into the conflict over education rights in Manitoba and Ontario. His followers in Montreal formed the Ligue des droits du Français, which was a more nationalist version of the Société du Parler français. Their programme received support from both the hierarchy and the lower clergy. Though Bourassa kept in touch with the rest of Canada by frequent speaking trips [p. 157] and study of the English-Canadian press, his followers became more and more provincial and self-centered in their outlook. As the First World War drew near, Quebec looked westward to its persecuted compatriots rather than towards Europe, while a narrow nationalism predominated in French Canada.

At the outset, sympathy for French and Belgium swept French Canada into unity with English Canada on the war. Laurier and Archbishop Bruchési issued appeals for patriotism, and there was little questioning of their stand, except by Armand Lavergne. But few in Quebec except the French-Canadian leaders were really concerned about world affairs. The anti-imperialist agitation had aroused the traditional folk-hatred of England. Quebec's rank and file failed to share the authentic, feeling for France felt by their leaders who knew and loved France. The people had been exposed too long to ecclesiastical warnings against irreligious and anti-clerical modern France, particularly stressed by the French religious congregations which had taken refuge in Quebec from the anti-clerical laws of 1900-01. The people of Quebec were more concerned with the struggle for educational rights in Ontario than the struggle in Europe. There was no real French leader at Ottawa to offset Sir Sam Hughes' blindness to French-Canadian susceptibilities. The old local militia units were broken up, and the authorities refused to approve proposals to form separate French-Canadian units. Because of the strong French-Canadian group consciousness, the prospect of being thrown into an English-speaking environment had more terrors than the dreadful fates conjured up by patriotic orators as apt to befall Quebec if French Canada failed to do its part.

Bourassa, who had been in Europe at the outbreak of the War, soon objected to the uncritical pro-war enthusiasm which swept Canada, particularly since so much of it came from his traditional rivals. He called for limited participation, based upon a sober estimate of Canada's capacities. In an examination of the English « White Book » on the origins of the War, he stressed that self-interest had guided Britain, and should guide Canada in its course. He was called a traitor by the English press for his stand, and the organs of the hierarchy refuted his thesis in fervently loyalist style. But on the whole, popular French-Canadian opinion tended to support him, as the early patriotic enthusiasm wore off and English [p 158] Canadian scorn for Quebec's enlistment record and Quebec's indignation about the Ontario school question had their effect. Bourassa was mobbed in Ottawa when he attempted to address a public meeting in December 1914. Handbills were circulated calling him the « arch traitor of Canada » and urging that « the skull of rebellion must be smashed ». His own language was not much calmer, for at this period he wrote in Le Devoir : « In the name of religion, liberty, and faithfulness to the British flag, the French Canadians are enjoined to go fight the Prussians of Europe. Shall we let the Prussians of Ontario impose their domination like masters, in the very heart of the Canadian Confederation, under the shelter of the British flag and British institutions ? »

By the beginning of 1915 Quebec was far more concerned with Ontario than with Europe. Political scandals in the Militia Department, discrimination against French-Canadian officers, and the bugbear of conscription, which Bourassa had already predicted by December 1914, had cooled off French Canada's interest in the War. As Canada's limited supply of manpower felt the pinch, between the increasing need for recruits and the demands of a rapidly expanding munitions industry, conscription was frequently urged. The Nationalists were infuriated when two leading English-Canadian industrialists in Montreal announced that they would not employ men of military age, who should be at the front. Napoléon Garceau protested against such intimidation : « If military service should be obligatory, let it be so for all, rich as well as poor, but under laws passed by the parliament of the country, and not because of the authority or power that money may give to certain personages. » The situation grew steadily more bitter, with anti-conscription demonstrations ; the application of censorship ; and calls for the internment of « von Bourassa. » Borden was too wise to make a martyr of Bourassa ; and Laurier, Rodolphe Lemieux, and other Liberal leaders vigorously urged voluntary enlistment as the best means to avoid conscription. Bourassa supported Pope Benedict XV's call for peace. The hierarchy became alarmed by the evident conversion of the lower clergy to Bourassa-ism and by its opposition to conscription. Olivar Asselin, after quarreling violently with the loyalist hierarchy on their pro-war stand and participating in anti-conscription movements, finally decided to enlist in 1916. Sir Sam Hughes [p. 159] finally gave some French-Canadian leaders an opportunity to raise French units, but the decision came too late. Quebec was at swordspoints with Ontario, rather than with Germany. Under pressure from both camps, the political truce accepted by Liberals and Conservatives at the outbreak of the War broke down.

As losses mounted in Europe in 1916, the political temperature mounted at home. Bourassa's reasoned attacks on government policy were echoed in far more emotional and uncritical fashion by an ever-wider circle in French Canada. National Registration was followed by conscription in July 1917. It cost the government the support of French Canada, which was left without any representation in the new Union government. Following the « Khaki Election » late in 1917, the Quebec legislature debated a motion by J.-N. Francœur that Quebec would be disposed to accept the breaking of the Confederation Pact of 1867, if in the other provinces it is believed that she is an obstacle to the union, progress, and development of Canada. » The debate provided a safety valve for Quebec's pent-up resentment at English-Canadian attacks. It was clear that Quebec had no serious desire to quit Confederation, but had been driven to consider it by English Canada's intransigent and insulting attitude.

Bourassa, depressed by the breakdown of Confederation and his wife's death, took little part in public life in the early months of 1918. The new idol of the young French-Canadian nationalists was Abbé Lionel Groulx, the founder of the A.C.J.C., who was expounding Canadian history in new and fervidly French-Canadian terms at the Université de Montréal. Passive resistance to national registration and conscription prevailed until the anti-draft riots at the end of March 1918 in Quebec City, which most unfortunately, were put down by Toronto troops. A Quebec which had a deep respect for law and order despite its tendency to verbal violence was horrified by the blood then shed, and the public temperature dropped notably. The government adopted a policy of conciliation rather than coercion until the end of the war. English Canada lost most of its bitterness against French Canada as time passed, but French Canada never forgot the troubles of 1917-18, which nourished a new nationalist movement which was distinctly provincial and sometimes separatist, as Bourassa's nationalism had never been.

[p. 160]

Sir Robert Borden was conscious of the necessity of winning Quebec from its isolation by French-Canadian representation in the cabinet, and made overture to Sir Lomer Gouin, who was the titular leader of French Canada after Laurier's death in 1919. These failed at first, despite Borden's offer to resign if that step would ease the situation. Later in the year Borden's decision to resign because of his health was announced, but he was induced to remain in office until July 1920. In the years that followed Borden came to occupy the position of Canada's elder statesman, and by his lectures and writings on constitutional problems did much to formulate the new English-Canadian nationalism which he had helped to crystallize during the War years, despite his imperialist beginnings. In the end, he led in the realization of many of Bourassa's ideals for Canada. With the slow post-war development of English-Canadian nationalism, French Canadians were left less isolated politically, if the cleavage between the races still remained deep.

Quebec's wartime retreat into a narrow provincialism predisposed French Canada towards a more rigid isolationism in the post-war world than otherwise probably would have prevailed. The years between 1920 and 1939 were characterized by Canada's increasing involvement in international affairs, and its gradual shift from economic and political dependence upon Britain to a greater economic but lesser political dependence upon the United States. Both historical processes represented a threat to French-Canadian cultural survival, and hence reinforced Quebec's tendency to turn inward upon itself, which did not yield to the new internationalism until the late 1930's. French Canada's long conditioning against imperialism resulted in some years of post-war battling against a British political imperialism that was fast dying, while the lack of an economic point of view among most of the humanistically educated élite long blinded French-Canadian spokesmen to the new American economic influences which offered perhaps an even greater challenge to a minority determined to maintain its separate way of life. The threat was finally recognized as a result of the simultaneous American cultural penetration of Quebec, which was vigorously fought by the élite and generally welcomed by the people, to whom industrialization brought a higher standard of living than they had previously known. Towards the end of the period, American isolationism reinforced traditional French [p. 161] Canadian isolationism, as the younger nationalist leaders adopted Bourassa's tactics of quoting British and American public figures to the embarrassment of Canada's own leaders. These figures were themselves torn between the pull of a new English-Canadian nationalism which went largely unrecognized in a Quebec turned in upon itself, and the sometimes conflicting pressures from London and Washington.

Sir Lomer Gouin retired as premier in 1920, and his successor, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, announced that he would follow the same policy as his predecessor had done for fifteen years : continued development of Quebec's natural resources and wealth, and the maintenance of the province as a « sanctuary of tolerance ». In the following year Gouin accepted a federal nomination, and received Conservative as well as Liberal support. Arthur Meighen's government was roundly defeated, with all his French-Canadian ministers losing their seats, while the Laurier Liberals Gouin, Lemieux, Lapointe, Béland, and Bureau won large majorities. With the new Mackenzie King Liberal Government dependent upon a bloc of 65 Quebec seats, Quebec received a lion's share, after her virtual exclusion from the federal cabinet since 1917. King's instance on Canadian autonomy in various post-war questions continued the reconciliation of Quebec to Confederation. From time to time, as wartime industrial expansion in Quebec resumed after the post-war depression, Premier Taschereau was attacked for administering the province for the benefit of « foreign trusts. » Over $300 million of English-Canadian and American capital was invested in the province from 1925-37, mostly in pulp and power developments. Taschereau stated his policy thus in 1927 : « The way of success in this province lies in keeping our material resources at home, so that we can develop them here. The key of success is electrical power, so that those who wish to create industries will come here. Such a policy is eminently Canadian and national. »

This policy encountered growing opposition as the belated arrival of the industrial revolution upset Quebec's traditional way of life. With capital and management largely in English-speaking hands, the ethnic feeling aroused by the conscription crisis was heightened by post-war economic developments. The French Canadians were left behind in business and industry, for they lacked both capital, [p. 162] and training in economics, engineering, and the physical sciences. They found themselves no longer masters in their own house, and they blamed their situation on ethnic discrimination rather than on lack of qualifications. The newly industrialized and urbanized habitant blamed the trials of his new life not on the industrial system, but on the fact that is was controlled and imposed by aliens. This economic invasion by cultural aliens produced an economic nationalism. After 1920 the nationalist press came to be characterized more and more by protests against « foreign exploitation of our resources », and agitation in favour of French-Canadian support of French-Canadian business and industry. The old opposition to English Canadians was heightened, while a new anti-Americanism grew up. Anti-semitism also increased. French Canada was searching for scapegoats as a result of radical changes which had been imposed upon it from outside, rather than developed from within. A host of irritations arising from the friction of two very different mentalities served to keep ethnic feeling alive.

The French Canadians found their minority status intensified, for they were now arrayed not only against an English-Canadian majority which had imposed its will upon the French Canadians during the war years, but also in opposition to the industrial way of life which prevailed in English-speaking North America. The French Canadians sought to maintain their own « Latin » way of life against an « Anglo-Saxon » materialist one which was favoured by great odds. This situation furthered the development of the racism involved in nationalist theories imported from Europe by Abbé Lionel Groulx and other nationalist leaders. Nationalist thinking was increasingly economic rather than political, though the dream of a separate French-Canadian state, « Laurentia », haunted some hot-headed minds. On the other hand, a group of deeply patriotic French Canadians sought to meet the challenge of the times, not by dissent or rejection, but by modifying their traditional culture to meet the new conditions brought about by the industrialization of Quebec. From 1917 to 1928 Quebec turned in upon itself ; from 1932 onwards it looked more abroad, still deeply isolationist, though more and more conscious that its difficulties were not unique. The great depression of 1929, from which Canada did not really rally until the war boom began in 1939, increased the economic emphasis of French-Canadian [p. 163] nationalism and sharpened the ethnic friction. Depression, like war, has always set French and English Canadians at odds, and since French labour and indeed capital, was harder hit than English management and capital after 1929, and the French standard of living had a smaller margin, the result was the development of movements of social discontent in the 1930's, though the vigorous nationalism of the early twenties had melted away as prosperity increased during the boomdays of the 1920's.

Unemployment reached its peak in Quebec in 1932. It was not surprising that early the following year the L'Action française movement was revived as L'Action nationale, with an aggressive rather than a defensive programme. Young French-Canadians adhered to it enthusiastically, for political action was still open to them, though the depression barred them from normal careers and economic opportunities. They were concerned that the French Canadians were becoming a proletarian people. They demanded that the natural resources of the province should not be administered so as to compromise the French-Canadian heritage, while « foreign capitalists » imposed upon them « the worst of dictatorships » and ostracized their engineers and technicians, leaving open to French Canadians only the roles of labourers and servants. They echoed the traditional nationalist positions on the rights of the French language and against discrimination in federal government service. Their Manifesto of the young generation warned : « We ask today what we shall exact tomorrow. » The Jeune-Canada movement gained impetus during the winters of 1932-33 and 1933-34. It was contemptuous of most of the elder statesmen, with the exception of Édouard Montpetit and Abbé Groulx. It was particularly bitter about the politicians, whom it called « the eternal enemies of our race. » The leaders of Les Jeune-Canada succeeded to posts of command in the nationalist movement. They campaigned against the trusts, against communism ; they called for a chef to make a new French Canada, as Mussolini had remade Italy and Dolfuss had remade Austria. They were more or less openly separatists. Thus efforts at political action ended with experienced politicians exploiting youthful idealism quite as cynically as the most socially irresponsible trustard might have done natural resources. The movement probably reached its height in 1937, when Abbé Groulx proclaimed at the second Congrès de la Langue [p. 164] française : « Our sole legitimate and imperative destiny can only be this : to constitute in America, in the greatest autonomy possible, this political and spiritual reality ... a Catholic and French State », to which he added, « Whether or not one wishes it, we shall have our French State. This brought about a split between separatists and anti-separatists ; and Bishop Yelle, speaking of the French Canadians of the West on the same occasion, said : « We hear separatism for the Province of Quebec seriously spoken of, we see in it not words of salvation but words of discouragement and defeatism. »

When André Laurendeau became director of L'Action nationale in September 1937, after two years' first-hand contact with the rising tide of Fascism in Europe, he condemned the racism he found upon his return to Canada. He observed with justice – « French Canadians always applaud more willingly anathemas against the extreme left than anethemas against the extreme right. We are too often among those who think, according to the harsh formula of La Vie intellectuelle, that God is on the right. » He warned of the dangerous alliances that might be made in the name of anti-Communism, arguing that anti-Communism and anti-Fascism were mere distractions from the real problems of Quebec, since only a handful really supported Communism and Fascism. He blamed the fascistoid groups in Quebec, which had aroused so much outside comment, on a decreasing lack of faith in popular government. Archbishop Gauthier of Montreal, in condemning Communism in March 1938, also warned that Adrien Arcand's National Social Christian party advanced a watered German Nazism. Then, as the war clouds piled up in Europe, nationalism turned into the traditional channel of anti-imperialism and isolationism, leaving these theoretical problems unsettled.

One result of the second World War, which stepped up the industrialization of Quebec, was to give nationalism a social bent, which marked quite as much of a development as the shift from the political to the economic field after the first World War. That evolution has not yet ended, but it may be far more fruitful, since another effect of the War was to restore to French-Canadian nationalism the internationalism it had had lacked since Bourassa's heyday.

H. Mason WADE

[p. 165]

L'essai de M. Wade récapitule de façon à la fois objective et impressionnante les courants et les événements politiques qui ont marqué la vie du Canada français durant les quarante premières années de ce siècle. Une telle synthèse reconstitue, dans l'intégrité de son ensemble, le casse-tête chinois dont nous sommes les observateurs distraits, sinon souvent inconscients. Mais comme cette synthèse pose des problèmes particulièrement aigus pour notre conscience nationale, il est essentiel de vérifier les prémisses qui lui donnent son sens et sa valeur.

Une des principales questions que soulève l'étude de M. Wade est de nous faire demander s'il est bien vrai que « French Canada's political history has always been oriented by the principles of cultural survival and recognition of its rights » ? Sans aucun doute. Mais on peut en dire autant de n'importe quel peuple de la terre. Est-il bien exact d'affirmer que notre évolution politique se concrétise dans ce qu'on appelle « le nationalisme », avec des phases anti-impérialistes, politiques, économiques et puis sociales ? À cet énoncé du problème, je me permets de répondre à la fois « oui » et « non ».

« Oui », si l'on s'en tient au contenu anecdotique de l'histoire. « Non », si on pèse sa substance. Le fracas des mouvements de jeunesse peut apparaître, à la faveur de chaque crise, comme une explosion nationaliste ou séparatiste. M. Wade en a cité des exemples. Mais ceux qu'on a appelés les « Jeunes Canada » ou même « fascistes » dans le Québec, s'appelleraient ailleurs des America Firsters, des affidés de l'Order of Orange ou des Klans. L'antisémitisme d'un Arcand, dont M. Wade a parlé, va rejoindre celui d'un McCarthy. Mais un Arcand n'a jamais été élu sénateur par le peuple du Québec ! Des minorités vocales dans la masse d'un peuple ! Le racisme n'a jamais été importé chez les Canadiens français.

En fait, les Canadiens français ne constituent pas un phénomène unique. Sans doute, la rapidité de l'industrialisation dans une société cohérente comme la nôtre offre un champ d'expériences remarquablement circonscrit qui se prête naturellement à des analyses d'ensemble comme celles du présent volume. Mais les effets de cette industrialisation et les problèmes qui en découlent [p. 166] ne sont pas particuliers aux Canadiens français : ils sont les mêmes dans l'univers entier. Il en résulte que ce qu'on appelle le « nationalisme canadien-français » n'est que la lutte commune à tous les citoyens du monde pour l'individualité et pour leurs intérêts collectifs. Ce qu'on appelle « nationalisme » chez une minorité entourée de dangers n'est que l'exercice normal de la conscience politique chez les citoyens de n'importe quel autre pays du monde.

Sinon, comment pourrait-on expliquer qu'aucun parti « nationaliste » n'ait jamais réussi à survivre chez les Canadiens français, demeurés plus entêtés que tout autre Canadien peut-être dans le « rouge » ou le « bleu » ? Les pétarades isolées ne peuvent pas avoir soutenu le moteur de notre évolution politique. Car s'il est vrai que le nationalisme fut le moteur de la vie politique chez nous, notre évolution se résorbe dans une série d'échecs.

Or, M. Wade a admirablement illustré lui-même que la politique canadienne-française fut loin d'être un échec, en analysant l'histoire aussi bien que les anecdotes de notre évolution politique. Avec une générosité que nous aimons à qualifier de clairvoyante, il a signalé l'influence canadienne-française qui, à travers Laurier, a formulé le nouvel idéal du Commonwealth et qui, à travers l'ancien impérialiste Borden, a précipité l'exercice d'une souveraineté canadienne avant d'oser, sous le premier ministre actuel, le rêve d'une communauté de l'Atlantique-nord. Pendant deux siècles, les Canadiens français ont été le ferment qui a précipité la maturité de l'Empire britannique jusqu'à l'association libre du Commonwealth, qui pousse aujourd'hui à l'extension de son idéal dans la communauté de l'Atlantique afin de reconstituer par ces progrès fragmentaire l'unité elle-même de l'humanité.

Le nationalisme canadien-français n'a donc été un repliement sur soi et un isolationnisme que sous une menace extérieure et accidentelle. Le nationalisme chez nous est un réflexe de défense. Ce n'est pas un mode de vie. C'est un véhicule qui sert, à l'occasion, pour contenir et répandre la pensée canadienne-française. Il ne faut pas confondre le véhicule avec son contenu. C'est un filet d'eau, un ruisseau, – humble mais tenace –, qui se confond toujours dans le grand fleuve de la politique canadienne et désormais, dans l'océan humain.

Selon la thèse de M. Wade, les Canadiens français en seraient arrivés aujourd'hui à la phase du nationalisme social. Encore [p. 167] là, il faut distinguer et répondre à la fois « oui » et « non » Oui, peut-être, si l'on considère les éclats sans lendemains que pourrait provoquer une situation comme celle de Montréal, par exemple, ce monstre industriel qui pompe un tiers du sang français et qui réduit les fils des pionniers à la servitude des prolétaires. Non, certes, si on envisage le problème dans l'ensemble de sa réalité, dans les buts à atteindre et dans les moyens d'y parvenir. La prolétarisation des travailleurs dans une ville comme Montréal n'est pas, non plus, un phénomène particulier au Québec. Elle se retrouve aussi bien à Toronto qu'à Détroit. Nos Syndicats catholiques et nationaux le comprennent. Leur collaboration avec les autres groupements de travailleurs est commencée. La solution qu'ils proposent est celle de l'intégration des classes, et non leur lutte ; celle de la dignité individuelle et non sa mécanisation. Et cette solution, parce qu'elle est humaine, c'est-à-dire universelle, finira par triompher.

M. Wade a trouvé chez nous une autre sorte de nationalisme qu'il appelle le nationalisme « messianique » et il cite à ce sujet une déclaration de M^gr L.-A. Pâquet, à la fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste, en 1902. Voici cette citation de M^gr Pâquet : « Our mission is less to manipulate capital than to change ideas ; it consists less in lighting the fires of factories than to maintain and to make shine afar the luminous fire of religion and thought. » Le commentaire du conférencier fut le suivant : « This sermon was a classic example of the messianic nationalism derived from Bossuet and de Maistre, which was to become dominant in later years, tinged with more than a suspicion of sour grapes. » Cet idéal demeure ! Quand on dit, comme M. Wade, que c'est l'expression d'un « messianisme nationaliste », ce n'est pas dans un sens péjoratif. Ce messianisme n'est-il pas l'obligation formelle de tous les chrétiens ?

Les Canadiens français, avec leurs faiblesses et leurs fautes, font tout simplement de leur mieux pour ne pas enfouir le « talent » qui leur a été confié. Ils sont parmi les premiers peuples missionnaires de la terre. Ils ont le droit de communiquer eux aussi, sans violence mais avec ténacité, leur conception de la vie. Car cette conception de la vie qu'ils ont n'est pas, après tout, tellement différente de celles qu'entretiennent tous les autres hommes.

Lorenzo PARÉ