The Marxist Quarterly Autumn 1965: 2014

96 THE MARXIST QUARTERLY

AMONG BOOKS RECEIVED

Inclusion in this list does not preclude review in a subsequent issue,
Marxism & Existentialism by Walter Odajnyk, Anchor Books, Doubleday Canada Ltd., 221 pp. $0.95.
An A.B.C. of Color by W. E. B. Du Bois, Seven Seas Publishers, Berlin, $1.25.
Black Thunder by Arna Bontemps, Seven Seas Publishers, Berlin, $1.25.
The Shocking History of Advertising by E. S. Turner, Penguin, $1.25.
Penguin Survey of Business & Industry 1965 ed. by Rex Malik, $0.95.
Penguin Survey of the Social Sciences—1965 ed. by Julius Gould, $0.95.
Die Wissenschaftliche Definition by Gyorgy Tamas, Studia Philosophical 5, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
England in the 20th Century by David Thomson, Pelican History of England: 9, 1965, 304 pp. $1.25.
The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by Alistair Home, 1964, 364 pp. $1.25.
The Real World of Democracy by C. B. Macpherson, The Massey Lectures, 4th Series, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1965, 67 pp., $1.25.
Existentialism and Alienation in American Literature by Sidney Finkelstein, New World Paperback. International Publishers, N.Y. 320 pp., cloth $6.95, paper $2.70.
Limited War in the Nuclear Age by Morton H. Halperin, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. N.Y. 191 pp., $3.65 paper; $5.95 cloth.
Dreiser by W. A. Swanberg, Saunders of Toronto Ltd., 140 pp., $11.95.
Einstein by B. Kuznetsov, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, 377 pp., cloth $2.00.
Electronic Computers by S. H. Hollingdale & G. C. Tootill, Pelican Original, 336 pp., 1965, $1.65.
The Freedom of Art by Honor Arundel, Lawrence & Wishart, 1965, 104 pp., $1.75.
Teaching About Communism in American Public Schools by Annette Zehnan. Published for American Institute of Marxist Studies by Humanities Press, N.Y., 74 pp. $2.40.
The Crisis of India by Ronald Segal, Penguin.$1.25.
Dark Strangers, A Study of West Indians in London by Sheila Patterson, $1.35.
Marxism and Democracy, ed. by Herbert Aptheker, Humanities Press, Inc. N.Y., $4.20.

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Quebec States Her Caseed. by Frank Scott and Michael OliverUne Politique Sociale Au Lieu d'Une Politique Bourgeoise

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QUEBEC STATES HER CASE ed. by Frank Scott and Michael Oliver, Macmillan of Canada, Toronto 1964, 165 pp. $5.00.

UNE POLITIQUE SOCIALE AU LIEU DUNE POLITIQUE BOURGEOISIE Le Parti Communiste Canadien, Comite du Quebec. Progress Books, Toronto, October 1964, $0.25.

THE DIFFICULTY with books about Canada is that they are out of date as soon as they are published. This is the first problem that confronts one in leafing through the pages of Quebec States Her Case. The second is that this particular book, subtitled "Speeches and articles from Quebec in the years of unrest," necessarily reflects the bias of its editors in the selection of items.

In the choice of material there is a predilection for André Laurendeau, editor of Le Devoir and co-chairman of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. He is the only contributor who merits five items in the small volume. Most of the others get a single appearance.

However, the book marks an advance compared with some others published recently on the same subject. Thus we have the article by André Major which appeared in the March-April 1963 issue of Liberté. Major is now associated with a number of others publishing the magazine Parti Pris which enjoys great influence among young French Canadians who seek a thorough-going revolution in the national and social life of Quebec.

Major's article firmly declares that "Marxism gave us a method of understanding human reality, and a more precise and accurate insight into the world... No longer will we go along with concessions to Capital, with expedient alliances that put us on the side of the oppressors, with mere exchange of views, or with any form of conciliation. We have made our choice of sides."

Parti Pris (literally "position taken") was thus a natural title for their journal. In its September 1964 edition, incidentally there is a further development of the major theses in "Manifesto 1964-65," the full text of which appears in English translation in Viewpoint Vol. 2. No. 1, January 1965, the information and discussion bulletin of the Communist Party.

Since the appearance of the uncompromisingly socialist Parti Pris, Révolution Québécoise has come forward. They are a breakaway from the liberal-democratic Cité Libre magazine, and declare themselves to be Marxist and Leninist in outlook. Another important new journal is Socialisme 65. The Scott-Oliver book did not and perhaps could not keep pace with all these expressions of the New Left in Quebec. They do carry an article on the PSQ position. Of historic interest is the flaming manifesto of the terrorist Front de Libération Québécois (FLQ).

There are contributions by Jean Lesage, Marcel Chaput, Gérard Pelletier (also a contributor favored by the editors, no doubt for his moderate views), René Lévesque, Jean Marchand (former head of the Confederation of National Trade Unions) and others.
Despite the Communist Party's long history of outstanding contributions to the struggle for French-Canadian equality and liberation (one has only to mention Stanley Ryerson's pioneer historical work on French Canada) the editors have seen fit to exclude even the barest mention of the party's existence.

To correct this evident bias it should be noted that in addition to many public statements, articles in the newspaper Combat, Canadian Tribune, The Marxist Quarterly and public appearances before various commissions, the views of the Communist Party are ably outlined in a modest new pamphlet Une Politique Sociale au lieu d'une Politique Bourgeoise.

A subtitle explains that the pamphlet seeks "a minimum common program for a front of all movements of the left in Quebec."

A welcome analysis of the various class forces at work in Quebec and forming the background of the erupting separatist and socialist movements, the policies of the Lesage government, and those of the Union Nationale and the Créditistes are contained in the pamphlet.

It declares that in order to carry through the task of uniting the left on a minimum program, it is necessary to recognize that

The industrial working class in French Canada is not only the most numerous class today, but constitutes an absolute majority of the adult population. If the workers decide to unite their forces to present a political alternative to the bourgeois parties, they would receive great electoral support from the farmers, students, women, teachers, and many small business men, as well as many nationalists who are seeking social justice.

Only the working class can become the solid, necessary core in a coalition of the popular, democratic and national forces. An end to raiding inside the labor movement is a critical condition for the unity of the working class, if there is to be unity in political action in the wider arena. Jean Gregoire

BOOKS IN REVIEW 95

In addressing those who seek socialism, the pamphlet declares: "We Communists believe that the final solution to all the problems of exploitation of the workers and farmers by monopoly; of one nation by another; of women by men; for the conquest of unemployment, war and sickness, is socialism -- the common ownership of the means of production.

"But we do not believe that we must confine ourselves simply to ultimate aims... we believe that in the course of a determined struggle and greater unity to obtain (such) great reforms the people will themselves come to the conclusion that it is necessary not simply to take political power out of the hands of the monopolies, but to change the system as well."

The call for a great national and democratic coalition around a minimum program would include the two central trade union bodies, the Union of Catholic Farmers, the students and teachers organizations, the democratic nationalists who seek social justice. In the first place it would include the socialist groups, like the NDP, the PSQ, those who follow the separatist-socialist school around Partis Pris, the followers of Révolution Québécoise and those of Socialisme 65 -- not excluding the Communist Party.

The Communist Party advances three central points as a basis for discussion of such a minimum program:

1. An end to national inequality as expressed in the BNA Art. The right to self-determination for French and English Canada. The guaranteeing of the democratic right to language and culture for all ethnic groups.

2. Breaking the control of monopoly in industry and agriculture. Public democratic control of automation and export of power. Nationalization of key industries controlled by the U.S., like pulp and paper, the mining industry and nationalization of the Bell Telephone. Trade with all socialist and newly-independent countries and Latin America. An overall new economic policy.

3. Make French Canada a powerful voice for world peace and universal disarmament by demanding the dismantlement of all nuclear bases in Quebec and converting Canada into a denuclearized zone. An independent foreign policy based on peaceful coexistence with socialist countries.

Jean Martin

-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --

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Two Nations, One Country by Nelson Clarke

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Current Studies of Quebec

TWO NATIONS, ONE COUNTRY by Nelson Clarke, Progress Books, Toronto, a pamphlet, $0.05.

WHAT DO French Canadians want? Is Quebec really going to leave Confederation? These are the questions which open this modest tract by a leading spokesman of the Communist Party. It sets out the Communist proposals for a democratic solution of the crisis of Confederation.

Such a solution hinges on the necessity of facing up to the fact that Quebec is the homeland of a nation -- not simply a province like each of the other nine political units in the country.

Another set of facts shows that Canada as a whole is dominated by huge American and Canadian monopolies, only a tiny fraction of this vast corporate wealth being in French-Canadian hands. Less than 20 per cent of Quebec's industry is controlled by French Canadians. Personal income per head of population in Quebec is still 27 per cent below that of Ontario. Some 40 per cent of unemployment in Canada is in Quebec. French Canadians would like to decide for themselves on their own flag, the wars they will fight in, the language they can speak on the job as well as in the neighborhood.

The author writes, in reply to this imposing list of shortcomings suffered under Confederation:

We will have to recognize the right of French Canadians to run their own affairs, including their right to separate from us if they so decide.

However to accept separation as inevitable would be wrong. Such separation would make the two parted nations weaker and more easily susceptible to U.S. domination, writes Clarke. The answer lies in working out a new, completely voluntary partnership based on full equality of the two nations, English and French.

This will mean scrapping of the BNA Act, and the writing of a new Constitution.

The best way to write such a new constitution would be by the election of a special constituent assembly in which the people of French and English Canada would be equally represented and in which, through a process of negotiation and discussion they would reach agreement on the best way to organize the government of the country.

The suggestion is made that parliament consist of two houses -- one elected on the basis of population and the other made up equally of members from English and French Canada.

The pamphlet spells out many other details, dealing with the powers of the respective governments of both nations and outlines a democratic people's path towards solution of the crisis of Confederation.

S.Y.D.

-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --

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The Quebec Revolution by Hugh Bingham Myers

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Current Studies of Quebec

THE QUEBEC REVOLUTION by Hugh Bingham Myers, Harvest House, Montreal, 109 pp., cloth $4.00, paper $2.00.

THIS IS ONE of the French-Canadian Renaissance Series in English, which includes volumes like The True Face of Duplessis by Pierre Laporte, The Impertinences of Brother Anonymous by Père Jérôme and The Nationalization of Electric Power by Paul Sauriol. Appearing originally in French and published by either Les Editions de l*Homme or Les Editions du Joury Harvest House is performing a unique service to non-French-speaking Canada in providing the English editions.

The book is based mainly on newspaper accounts and reports of the events of 1958 up to and including 1963. The author dates the start of the "revolution" as 1959 with the death of Somebody -- the late and unlamented Maurice Duplessis. His sole incursion into the "pre-revolutionary" years is restricted to 1958, which necessarily limits his ability to portray fully the significance of events today. The revolution per se is defined as "a reaction against the Establishment," one that goes beyond separatism to a declaration of war against the established French-Canadian, Quebec order of things.

The year-by-year chronicle is a useful, although eclectic, summary of the main features of contemporary life in Quebec, clearly of informative value to the non-reader of the French press. However it does fall short of providing a sufficiently deep-going account of the turbulent developments in Quebec, the complex social movements at work, the possible direction of events there, and in particular the solutions being urged by the labor and socialist movements.

The author's personal bias in favor of André Laurendeau, co-chairman of the Royal Commission on Biculturalism, and his uncritical approach to this latter body contribute to the inadequacy of the book.

One would have hoped that in a book entitled The Quebec Revolution some further words about the work of actual practising social revolutionaries would be forthcoming -- but scant attention is paid the role of labor and the people in toppling Duplessis from power. Also one notes the absence of significant commentary on the heroism of those devoted thousands of ordinary people -- including many who were neither English nor French-Canadian, but Quebec citizens all -- who did so much throughout the '30s, '40s and '50s to prepare the ground for the great movements now under way in Quebec.

It would not have been amiss to have mentioned the trailblazing writings, speeches and activities of Marxists and members of the Communist Party, those who gathered the great petitions against the Padlock Law, the sweeping labor struggles (only barely dealt with) -- and the current attitude of labor and socialist spokesmen. Surely, a volume dealing with just this aspect of the problem is indicated.

M. Frank

-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --

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Canada And Imperialism

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Turning-Point In Bourgeois Nationalism

CANADA AND IMPERIALISM by Norman Penlington. University of Toronto Press, 263 pp.

THIS WORK by a professor at Michigan State University is a thoroughly documented, detailed study of four years (1896-99) of the lengthy triangular diplomatic struggle in which Canada was involved as "the odd man," first, in between and then along with the rival imperialisms of Britain and the United States. The book received the Distinguished Manuscript Award of 1959 from University College of Michigan State University. It will be valuable to students of Canadian history because some of its detailed recording of events illustrates, albeit by implication, the profound contradiction between United States policies based upon the expansionists' claim to a "Manifest Destiny" in North America, and Canadian independence.

Within the limits set by himself the author has done an excellent job. The book describes Canadian resentment against United States arrogance during that period and shows plenty of reason for it. It shows how anti-U.S. sentiment was fostered concurrently with the campaign for Canadian participation in Britain's colonial war against the Boers in South Africa. The shortcoming is that he restricts his analysis of the forces involved almost entirely to those of pressure by or for the British government and Canadian resentment against the United States; which, carelessly, he terms "Anti-Americanism." He misses the vitally important objective developments and forces, which were and have been ultimately decisive.

It is almost as though the author deliberately eschewed any conclusions which might distract attention from his main argument, which he states in the preface: ". . . it is the major thesis of this study that the importance of Anglo-Canadian relations, which in that day sailed under the euphemistic phrase of 'Imperial unity,' was largely that of a counter-poise of Canadian-American relations; that imperial unity contained much anti-Americanism; and that the latter constituted the significant underlying reason for Canada's participation in the South African war." (My emphasis -- T.B.)

Even violently pro-U.S. readers of the book must recognize that such a thesis is but the obverse of the jingoistic British Empire League propaganda, to the effect that Canadians were "whelps of the British Lion" whose participation in the war expressed solely their pride in the Queen, the Empire, and "the old flag."

Both theses reflect subjective factors. Each of them exerted

BOOKS IN REVIEW 87

powerful influence at that time but neither of them was the "significant underlying" force which determined Canada's actions. By restricting his study to those subjective, derivative factors, the author by-passed the significance of the fact that, very largely, it was in the course of the four years upon which he concentrated his detailed study that the capitalists
of English Canada turned definitely, as a class, to the policy of systematic assertion of their determination to be "masters in their own house." Evidence of this is in the book; what is lacking is recognition of its importance in the growth of capitalism in Canada and the consequent changes in Canada's role. The author's failure in this respect is more notable because he points out in the preface that research showed the premise upon which he had started to write the book to be incorrect and, "gradually as the study was periodically pursued" he discarded his initial premise. It is regrettable that he failed to follow through on the facts that his research revealed.

His treatment of the Joint International Commission set up to deal with the Alaska-Yukon Boundary dispute illustrates the effect of restricting the scope of the work. In terms of the factual record he deals with that Commission and its frustrations very well. He indicates the relationship of United States expansionism to its unilateral enforcement of what its government described as "the open door policy" in the Yukon Territory. He proves with unanswerable evidence that the U.S. government agreed to the setting up of a Joint International Commission with unconcealed determination to maintain its sovereignty over the Panhandle, and to prevent Canada from acquiring a port to provide direct Canadian access to the Yukon, regardless of what the Commission might recommend. He shows that it was only Canadian refusal to accept any settlement that did not give her direct access, that prevented the British government from arriving at an accommodation with the United States. These facts are brought out clearly.

He fails however to draw the correct conclusions from the relationship, between Canada's intransigeance and the decision that, of the five Commisisoners appointed by Britain, four should be Canadians, chosen by the Canadian government. The relationship between these two facts is the key to the real "significant underlying reason" for a whole series of developments, including the manner and the aims of Canadian participation in the South African war. Exploitation of resentment against the U.S. was an accompaniment of participation; not its cause.

The form in which Canadian self-government was asserted in relation to the Alaska-Yukon border dispute was distinct. But the essential political process was consistent with, even typical of, the manner in which the capitalists of English Canada acquired a national Canadian consciousness in place of their pre-Confederation image of themselves as separate groups of colonials entirely dependent upon

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Britain. Naming prominent Canadians to four of the five British places on the Joint U.S.-British Commission was not simply a diplomatic gimmick to place on Canada the onus for failure, it was part of the retreat by successive British governments before the growing assertion of Canadian self-government—first in domestic then in international affairs.

Through the long drawn out and carefully masked retreat of British imperialism before the bellicose and growing power of United States imperialism, the interests of Canada and her people were sacrificed, all too often, on the altar of "the larger interests" of the Empire. Canadians suffered that for more than a century; they paid that price for dependence upon Britain rather than take the risk of being gobbled up by the United States. But from Confederation onward the rising capitalist class of Canada sought to secure advantage whenever possible from the contradictions between the rival British and U.S. imperialisms -- even when Canada was the victim of Britain's weakness. For eighty years they sought, alternately, Reciprocity with the United States or Preferential Tariffs within the Empire. In no case did they pursue those policies because of pique or resentment against either Britain or the U.S. The law of motion which has impelled them, always, is their compulsion to the expansion of capitalism in Canada. This and not "anti-Americanism" was "the significant underlying reason" for Canada's participation in the South African war. It was this and not anti-British sentiment which misled Canadian capitalists in 1947, to choose voluntary subordination to U.S. imperialism through Louis St. Laurent's policy, misnamed Integration. It is not what the author calls "anti-Americanism" but love of our own country which moves patriotic Canadians, now, to demand that the policy of integration be replaced by policies of Canadian independence in domestic and foreign affairs.

T.B.

-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --

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The State of Quebec by Peter Desbarats

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Current Studies of Quebec

THE STATE OF QUEBEC by Peter Desbarats, McClelland & Stewart, 188 pp., $4.95.

TO THOSE WHO approach Quebec gingerly or hot with prejudice, this "journalist's view of the Quiet Revolution" is meant as a partial catalogue of grievances suffered by Canadians who speak French and reside in Quebec. It will be an eye-opener for fanatic Franco-phobes who have tended to arbitrarily dismiss the French fact in our midst.

A signal service by the author is to avoid the current penchant for describing Quebec's status either as a "society," a twin "culture," or one of "two majorities" that inhabit Canada. M. Desbarats says:

Quebec is not, like the other provinces, a part of a greater Canada, at least not in the eyes of its French-speaking citizens. It is a nation unto itself, a nation which has never acquired the exterior trappings of nationhood.... Other provinces are part of a larger nation.

There are some interesting statistics provided underlining the problem. Thus of 700,000 Quebec citizens whose mother tongue is English, more than 436,000 live on Montreal Island and its adjacent Ile Jesus.

Three out of every four English-speaking Quebec citizens live in Metropolitan Montreal.Thc English make up 13 per cent of the population but they are 25 per cent of the population on the Island of Montreal.

These facts, when linked to the ever-present English domination of the financial and commercial world, with the best jobs going to English-speaking people, and the necessity of French Canadians being bilingual to get a job, while such a requirement is not essential for English-speaking persons -- all add up to a considerable and tangible oppression, particularly-felt in Montreal.

Setting out Quebec's complaints, the author reveals the role of the Anglostocracy in the world of industry and finance. Although French Canadians make up one-third of Canada's population, only 6.7 per cent make up its economic elite, a fact drawn from Professor John Porter's studies (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 1957). There follow interviews with unnamed industrialists and Montreal Anglocrats whose backward views on the roots of the French problem are bared.

Those few French-Canadian capitalists who made a place in the sun for themselves, after Wall St. and the English-Canadian capitalists helped themselves to the

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lion's share, are quoted as being ill at ease with the Anglocrats' indifference to the explosive power of separatist and national feeling. One of them says: "They (the English) have to join with the moderate French Canadians and try to curb the revolution."

What these status quo French Canadians fear like the very plague is the mixture of national sentiment with socialist thinking. One observer of this development comments:

It is hard for a French Canadian over forty to understand that the typical young French Canadian wants to free himself from foreign economic control, from capitalist control, and from Church control—all at the same time.

The State of Quebec is a warning to English Canada. It seems to say: seek out the "responsible French-Canadian element, make the necessary concessions, or you will lose everything -- your vested economic interests, as well as your political power." Some people are dismissing this type of warning as exaggerated. Note the reaction to the preliminary report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which was described as "alarmist" in some English-Canadian quarters.

Peter Desbarats is in reality one of those important liaison men for the English capitalists -- with one foot in Quebec and the other in English Canada. In his chapter on politics and Quebec-Ottawa relations, the men around Lesage, etc., he illustrates how the principle of "cooperative federalism" is applied in the daily Pearson-Lesage relationship, for example on the pensions issue. These are revealing chapters of the book and worth reading.

M. Desbarats is a great admirer of the new flock of politicians, civil servants and officials at the helm of state in Quebec:

Responsible French Canadians are speaking in the plainest terms today, expressing aspirations which are not only contemporary but shared by all Canadians. English Canada should not delude itself with fears of "surrender" to Quebec's demands. It should not listen to the extremists but to the men who are actually running the province and who represent a Quebec that is more pragmatic and reasonable -- with all the Anglo-Saxon connotations that can be given to these words -- than at any time since the Conquest.

And later, he writes:

...the stability of the province depends in part on the new class of politicians, civil servants and businessmen who have risen, despite great obstacles, to positions of power in Quebec today.

Much as M. Desbarats fears being classified as one of the vendus or those selling Quebec down the river, his words will certainly earn him such a label among those who consider Premier Lesage to be "le roi nègre" of French Canada. In his thankless pursuit of middle ground M. Desbarats re-

BOOKS IN REVIEW 91

fers to the moderates (presumably including himself in this category):

One of the major tragedies of the split social structure in Quebec is that people who attempt to take an independent line, differing from their own group's commonly accepted policy, are suspected immediately of being traitors. There is no neutral ground...

But of course, mais oui. M. Desbarats was given four months off his regular job on the Montreal Star (a Conservative Anglostocratic journal) and as columnist for the Southam newspaper chain to write his book -- the better to enlist support in English Canada for those who are working out new and better devices to continue the subjugation of French Canada, be they a repatriated BNA Act in lieu of a new Constitution, partial bilingual or economic concessions, or a fictitious independence in the name of "cooperative federalism" instead of the real thing.

M. A. DUVERNAY

-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --

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A New Constitution for Canada

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Excerpt from the Brief submitted by the Communist Party of Canada to the Laurendeau-Dunton Royal Commission.

WE DO NOT BELIEVE that our country's problems can be solved by amendment of the British North America Act. The B.N.A. Act, as we have pointed out, does not recognize the equality of the two nations of Canada, and the right of each to self-determination. The structural crisis of the Canadian state has now developed too far to be resolved by any mere tinkering with the old constitution.

Such a new constitution must be an instrument of the people of both Canadian nations. The vestigial remnant of British authority over Canadian affairs, which finds expression in the fact that the B.N.A. Act is a statute of the parliament at Westminster, must be eliminated.

Because its essential character must be that of a pact between two Canadian nations, and not between nine English-speaking and one French-speaking province, a conference of the present federal and provincial governments, or of the provincial governments meeting without the federal government, could not be the means for negotiating a new constitution.

Therefore, we have put forward in our resolution submitted at the beginning of this brief, the proposal for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly to be elected on the basis of equal representation from French and English Canada. In such an assembly, the representatives of the two nations would negotiate a new constitution on a completely equal footing, with the principle of unanimity prevailing as between the delegations from French and English Canada.

The people of French and English Canada should then each adopt or reject the proposed new Constitution in a plebiscite. The constitution could only be endorsed if it was supported by a majority in each of the two nations. If the people of either nation rejected the confederal constitution it would be voided for both of them by that action.

To those who would question the possibility of achieving agreement on a new constitution in this way, we will reply that this

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represents the only practical possibility for the continuing existence of Canada as we have known it for almost 100 years. We say that the effort must be made, in the interests of the people of both nations, and we have confidence that once the matter is approached on the basis of recognition of complete equality between the two nations, that effort can be successful.

This is the basic recommendation which we make to this Royal Commission, and which we urge it to include in its findings.

At the present time, we hold the view that those who put forward proposals for such a new Confederal pact, embodied in a new constitution (and we are by no means alone in advancing such ideas) have a responsibility to indicate at least the broad outlines of the constitution which they are visualizing.

Otherwise the danger is that the movement for a new constitution will be lost in mutual misunderstanding and distrust.

We therefore put forward the following views with respect to the possible outlines of a new constitution while emphasizing our keen desire to enter into discussion with and to hear the views of all other patriotic and democratic Canadians on this matter.

A. The new constitution must first of all spell out in clear and unmistakable language that the union between French and English Canada is a voluntary union, based on complete equality. It must contain explicit guarantees of the right of each nation to self-determination up to and including separation from the other nation.

B. The new constitution should have embedded in it a new Bill of Rights which should include firm guarantees of the rights of freedom of speech, assembly organization and the practice of religious belief. This Bill of Rights should outlaw all forms of discrimination on the basis of national or ethnic origin, and should protect the right of every national group to maintain the cultural tradition and language of its forefathers, including the right to establish organizations and institutions on a voluntary basis for this purpose.

The rights of members of the English-Canadian community in French Canada, and of the French-Canadian community in English Canada freely to conduct their affairs in their own language should be clearly established in the new constitution.

These communities should be placed in a position of constitutional equality -- that is to say French-speaking communities in English Canada should have the privilege of asserting the same rights as are enjoyed by the English-speaking communities in French Canada.

Special provision should be made for the Indian and Eskimo peoples. In addition to outlawing all forms of discrimination against these peoples, these provisions should include explicit recognition of their identity, should reaffirm their rights as embodied in the

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original treaties, and proclaim their right of self-government in all areas where they comprise a majority of the local population.

C. The new constitution would have to set out those powers which would be delegated to the confederal government, and those which would be retained by the governments of the two nations.

The powers of the confederal government would include responsibility for those all-Canadian affairs which concern both Canadas in their relationship with foreign states such as diplomatic representatives and treaties, citizenship and passports, defense and the armed forces, external trade and its regulation. In all likelihood it would be possible for the Constituent Assembly to agree on Confederal administration over other matters of a distinctly all-Canada character such as the postal service, and navigation and shipping. The Confederal parliament would have the power to levy such taxes on incomes and corporate wealth as would be necessary for the discharge of its responsibilities.

In our opinion, the interests of both Canadas would be well served if the constitution were to contain provisions that natural resources are the inalienable possession of the people, and that none but citizens of Canada can own the land and its mineral rights; that the exploitation of natural resources is under the strictest control of each of the two nations -- or of the Confederal government where mutually agreed upon; and that all ownership of natural resources must contribute to the wealth and employment of the people of the two Canadas.

We hold the further view that an explicit guarantee should be made in the constitution of the right of the representatives of the people of each nation to nationalize public utilities or industries, including foreign owned properties.

D. The new constitution should allow for the assignment on the basis of mutual agreement between the representatives of the two nations of other responsibilities to the confederal government. In a modern state such as Canada there are many matters having to do with the development of the economy, with social and health services and so on which can be advantageously financed and administered centrally. But the point in relation to Canada is that for this to be done, there must be in each case a mutually satisfactory, voluntary agreement negotiated between the two nations.

E. A new constitution established on the above principles would necessitate significant alterations in our existing governmental structure.

The matters which it is proposed to assign to the confederal parliament including questions of foreign policy, defense -- ultimately of peace or war -- are matters of the most vital concern to all Canadians. The whole principle of a confederal pact would he

DOCUMENTS 81

violated if a situation were allowed to continue in which questions of such import could be decided in the confederal parliament by a majority based upon the English-speaking majority in the population and thus imposed upon the French-speaking minority.

We see as the most satisfactory solution to this problem, the establishment of a bi-cameral confederal parliament, one house based upon representation by population as is the present House of Commons, the other house, also elective (unlike the present Senate), but composed of an equal number of representatives from each of the two nations. Each house should have equal authority, and all legislation would require the endorsement of both.

With respect to the organization of the government of each of the two nations, one can envisage for French Canada the establishment of a national legislature replacing the present provincial legislature of Quebec. This would become the legislative authority for the French-Canadian nation. The question is frequently raised as to whether the borders of the territory of this nation might be somewhat extended beyond the present provincial borders of Quebec in view of the large numbers of French Canadian people living in parts of Ontario and New Brunswick contiguous to Quebec.

Such a redefinition of the border would of course, have to be a matter for negotiation between the representatives of the two nations, with close heed being paid to the wishes of the people living in the areas concerned.

We would not of course visualize that this legislature would have any authority with respect to French-Canadian communities in other parts of Canada. This would not be in keeping with the concept of a nation as possessing a common territory.

The organization of the government of the English-Canadian nation presents a much more complex problem.

Since the new constitution would represent a pact between two nations, and not between ten provinces, it would clearly not be in the interests of the English-Canadian nation to leave the administration of its national affairs solely in the hands of nine provincial legislatures and governments.

This leads us to believe that the English-Canadian nation would find it necessary and to its advantage to establish a national legislature to deal with all those matters pertaining to its national economy and the well-being of its people which would be assigned to it by the new constitution. It would be necessary to work out a division of responsibility between such a national legislature which would concern itself with those matters of national interest which best lend themselves to a policy of centralization, leaving other matters which best lend themselves to regional or local administration in the hands of the provinces and municipalities. No doubt

82 THE MARXIST QUARTERLY

such arrangements would undergo considerable evolvement over a period of time to meet the demands of changing economic and social conditions. Without attempting to forecast the course of that evolution, we would emphasize that, in our view, the authority of local municipal governments in the administration of those affairs closest to the people must be preserved and strengthened. Without this there can be no healthy, viable and dynamic democracy for the people.

We are aware of the fact that this concept of a national legislature for English Canada opens up questions to which little thought has yet been given, and which undoubtedly need a great deal of further discussion and study.

Other proposals for meeting the problem of government in English Canada may be considered as for example the idea that the Confederal parliament might itself continue to act as the central authority for English Canada. The difficulty with this proposal however, is that it would be hardly in keeping with the right of English Canada to equality and self-determination if matters of its special national concern were to be vested in a bi-cameral parliament in which the French-Canadian nation would have the representation we have suggested.

It would serve no good purpose, and would indeed be most harmful if in wiping out the inequalities under which French Canada has suffered so long, new inequalities were to be set up to the disadvantage of the English-Canadian nation.

F. Finally, in respect to provisions for amendment of the new constitution, it is our opinion that in view of the need to firmly fix the principle of equality between the two nations, the constitution should be subject to amendment only by a reconvened constituent assembly, with the principle of unanimity maintained as between the representatives of the two nations. Interpretation of the Constitution should be in the hands of an All-Canadian Supreme Court composed equally of representatives of the two nations, again with the principle of unanimity prevailing.

What Is to be Gained?

We are far from saying that a new constitution such as we have suggested would solve all the political, economic and social problems of the peoples of either French or English Canada. But we do say that this new constitution will make it possible for the peoples of both nations to unite and work for the solution of those problems, each within their own nation, and together.

For the people of French Canada, this new constitution will enable them once and for all to be masters in their own house, to

DOCUMENTS 83

end the position of inferiority which has been imposed upon them through all the decades since the Conquest.

At the same time, it will make it possible for them to derive all the benefits they choose to derive from fruitful co-operation with the people of English Canada in the development of this rich country as a whole.

Our party is strongly of the opinion that such advantages exist, but in arguing for them we reject the suggestion that French Canada does not possess the human and material resources necessary for it to maintain an economically viable existence as an independent state. No such arguments are going to deter the French-Canadian people from their determination to chart for themselves the course of their national destiny.

And here it should be added that because of the long years of relative economic backwardness under which the French-Canadian people lived, it is entirely possible that they like other nations which have newly won their freedom from outside domination, may choose a course of development which involves wide and far reaching intervention by the state in the economy in the interest oi the people. This may well include extensive measures of nationalization moving in the direction of socialism rather more quickly than the people of English Canada will be prepared to move. The new constitution which we visualize should and must allow for such a course of development if this should prove to be the desire of the French-Canadian people.

For the people of English Canada, this new constitution will create the most favorable conditions for the final ending of a situation in which wage levels and living standards in English Canada have been held down because of the economic inequalities to which French Canadians have been subjected.

In the famous words of Karl Marx, "a people which oppresses another cannot itself be free." To the extent that elements of oppression have existed in the relations of English Canada to French Canada, to that extent the democratic progress of English Canada has been retarded.

Furthermore, the new constitution will make possible a sorting out of questions of federal and provincial rights which is long overdue in English Canada, and which is taking on the proportions of a major immediate political problem. Indeed, future history may well record that in raising so strongly in these times the demand for new constitutional arrangements, the French Canadians have rendered a signal service to the English Canadians.

Dwelling on this point briefly, we would draw attention to the following familiar pattern of political development which is being

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dressed up and obscured under the high-sounding phrase "co-operative federalism":

Proposals arise and win wide acceptance for certain measures of reform to be implemented at the federal level. Quebec through its government asserts its unquestionable right to determine in what form such measures should be developed in French Canada. But these rights are not asserted as the right of a nation, but as the right of a province.

Hence, other provincial governments in English Canada possessing no national rights, nevertheless feel free under the B.N.A. Act to assert as provinces the same rights as those possessed by Quebec.

As a result the federal government encounters serious difficulties in mobilizing the necessary resources for the implementation of the national program, and the program itself is thereby jeopardized.

The consequent weakening of the federal authority, tends to leave the provinces in English Canada with responsibilities which only the richer ones are able to cope with (assuming that their governments are willing to take on such responsibilities). Thus, economic and social equalities as between one section and another of the English Canadian nation are heightened.

One can discern this pattern in the troubled evolvement of the Canada Pension Plan, the agreement on which was only reached after it was linked to heavy financial concessions by Ottawa to all the provinces.

Or to take another example: There is an urgent need for greatly increased contributions by the federal government to education to relieve the growing and increasingly unbearable load now carried by real property in the municipalities.

Obviously, Quebec cannot accept under the present constitution a new relationship with the federal government in a matter such as education because in a situation where there is no recognition or guarantee of French-Canadian national rights, the Quebec government must at least preserve its full provincial authority in such a vital field.

But why should this prevent the nine English provinces from agreeing to a new deal in education under which their national government, possessing the widest tax base and hence the greatest resources, can contribute substantially to the cost of education? Such a sensible arrangement which now encounters the most forbidding difficulties under the present constitutional arrangements wherein Quebec is treated as a province like any other province would become relatively simple of solution under the new constitution which we envisage.

So-called "co-operative federalism" which perpetuates the old relations of inequality can neither open the way for much needed

DOCUMENTS 85

economic and social reform in English Canada, nor can it provide the basis for genuine co-operation in reform programs between the two nations within a framework of equality and mutual agreement.

For the people of both Canadas this new constitution provides, first of all the basis for a peaceful solution to a conflict in which the possibility of violence and civil war cannot be ruled out.

Surely, it behooves all Canadians of good will in each nation to give deep thought to the means of avoiding such a tragic and disastrous outcome of the present crisis.

This new constitution provides the possibility of a united effort by the Canadians of both nations for the betterment of our country as a whole, and for effective resistance to the loss of our independent existence, through total domination by the United States.

Finally, this new constitution, this concept of a new confederal pact resting upon full equality, provides the basis for the consolidation of the friendship of the peoples of our two nations.

For while we have of necessity spoken much of the old, deep problems of inequality and the grave mounting difficulties to which if uncorrected, they will lead, let it also be said that our history is proof of the possibilities of our two nations living side by side in harmony.

Together the people of French and English Canada have labored to open up this vast new land, and to build out of the wilderness of only a few decades ago the modern, technically advanced country in which we live today.

Together French and English Canadians have fought and died for their homeland, at Chateauguay and Lundy's Lane in Italy and Normandy.

Through all our history the best representatives of both our nations have stood and struggled together for democracy and social progress -- from the Patriotes and Reformers of 1837, Papineau and Mackenzie, Lafontaine and Baldwin, to the men and women who have together organized and marched on the picket lines to build the labor movement in our own time.

Out of the labor and the struggles of yesteryear and of today has grown an abiding love for, and faith in this rich and beautiful country in which our two peoples dwell together, and with this has emerged a sense of common identity as Canadians.

Remembering all this, and believing as we do in the brotherhood of man, and the common interests of the working people of all nations, we Communists have no doubt that on the basis of complete national equality, the peoples of our two nations can forge the bonds of unity and friendship that will preserve our country, and make it truly "a land of hope for all who toil." June 24, 1964

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Sunday, August 24, 2014

Constitutional Proposals ForA Free State Of Quebec And A NewPact Between The Two Nations

11:51 PM | Posted by HABEAS CORPUS CANADA | Edit Post

Prepared by a sub-committee on constitutional questions and published by the Parti Socialiste du Quebec, this document is presented in translation as a contribution to discussion.—THE EDITORS

PREAMBLE

1. The French-Canadian Nation
The French Canadians of Quebec define themselves as a Nation. That is to say as a natural collectivity, historically constituted with its own language, culture, psychological background and economic activity, having its roots and centre of gravity in Quebec and tending to endow Quebec with all the political institutions necessary to its complete fulfilment.

2. The federal constitution, an inheritance from the colonial period
Quebec possessed already its own state institutions, but, in the colonial period, was obliged to subscribe to a federative constitution which refused it the essential powers in the economic field and thereby reduced it to a state of dependency.

3. The necessity for a Free State of Quebec
Threatened in their collective being, and invoking the principle of self-determination of peoples, the French Canadians of Quebec, neglecting in no way thereby their Acadian compatriots or the French-speaking emigrants to the other parts of Canada, are determined hereafter to make of Quebec a Free State which may constitute a strong political framework for the Nation.

4. Socialism and self-determination of peoples.
The right of peoples to self-determination is a principle of the most genuine contemporary socialist thinking. The conditions of a

DOCUMENTS 71

colonized people, threatened in its collective personality, prevail in Quebec, thereby justifying a desire for emancipation, all the more that this people possesses all the attributes of a Nation. There has always existed in this people a manifest will to claim its collective liberty. This liberty can express itself only through a national state, having all the powers necessary to the development of the nation.

5. The establishment of a Free State in Quebec is not incompatible with the principle of an association with English-speaking Canada.
This manner of viewing the future of Quebec is not irreconcilable with the existence of a new Canada whose institutions would be binational and of a confederal type; that is to say, the central government would exercise only those powers delegated to it by Quebec, in the interest of the French-Canadian Nation and of the whole of Canada, on the basis of equality between the two Nations.

6. Federalism, "cooperative federalism" and "special, particular or different status".
It follows from the above statement of principle that federalism in its stricter meaning, "cooperative federalism" or any form of special status that would have for effect to submit Quebec's destiny to the will of the English-speaking majority is inadmissible as a regime to be applied to French Canada.

7. English Canada and the minorities
English Canada could, of course, for its part set up its own political institutions. It would be necessary, however, for it to possess a government distinct from the new confederal government which will have to take into account the right of the Acadians to self-determination and the particular situation of the French-speaking minorities.

8. The constitution of Canada no longer meets the needs of Quebec and the minorities.
The present constitution of Canada meets the needs of neither the French-Canadian Nation nor the State of Quebec, no more than it provides for the respect of the French-speaking minorities. In addition to the establishment of an economic and social democracy, the total fulfilment of French Canada requires new political structures.

72 THE MARXIST QUARTERLY

9. A Quebec Constitution
The powers which the State of Quebec is recognized to have must allow its government and legislature to become the centre of decision bearing on the socialist organization of the economy and social security. Quebec will give itself a constitution that will promote the over-all development of French Canada.

10. A new confederal constitution
A new confederal constitution must be adopted, therefore, founded on an agreement between the two Nations, so as to define confederal powers precisely and limitcdly and to establish the institutions required for the exercise of these powers.

CHAPTER I

Organization and powers of the Free State of Quebec

Art. I — Quebec Bill of Rights
The Quebec Constitution will include a Bill of Human Rights based on the Universal Declaration and adapted to the requirements of our society. The Bill will ensure equal rights to all citizens, particularly in the economic and social fields.

Art. 2 — The Constituent Assembly
The first Legislature of the Free State of Quebec will convoke a constituent assembly in order to adopt the Constitution and the Bill of Human Rights. Thus the Constituent Assembly will define the form of government and determine the role and functions of the President of the State; the position of Lieutenant-Governor and the Legislative Council will be abolished.

Art. 3 — Official language

The French language will be the only official language of
Free State of Quebec.

The Quebec Bill of Human Rights will protect the individual rights of persons whose mother tongue is not French.

Art. 4 — Fiscal powers
All taxes will be collected by Free State of Quebec, thus placing at its disposal the revenues required to build a socialist state and exercise its powers.

DOCUMENTS 73

Art. 5 — Education
Jurisdiction in the field of education at all levels will belong exclusively to Quebec. The Quebec Bill of Human Rights will set out the respective rights and obligations of the State and citizens in this matter.

Art. 6 — Social security
I. No doubt can be raised as to the jurisdiction of Quebec in the field of social security. A social security system must reflect the mentality and particular needs of the population of which it is the instrument.

Art. 7 — Labor
As far as labor laws and industrial legislation are concerned, Quebec will have exclusive jurisdiction. The government will collaborate, however, with the other Member-States and with the Confederation with a view to establishing common standards, taking into account the international labor conventions.

Art. 8 — Agriculture and fisheries
In the field of agriculture and fisheries, Quebec will have exclusive jurisdiction, taking into account the requirements of economic planning, however, Quebec may conclude special agreements if necessary.

Art. 9 — Natural resources
The jurisdiction of Quebec is already well established by law in the field of natural resources, whether it be mines, forests or sources of energy. Any new constitution must reaffirm this essential principle.

Art. 10 — Commerce
Quebec will have exclusive jurisdiction in the field of commerce and markets within its territorial limits. It may conclude agreements with the confederation relating to commerce between the Member-States.

Art. 11 — Banking and credit
Quebec will possess legislative competence with respect to chartered banks; it will establish a State bank and will enact laws relating to consumer, commercial and industrial credit within its territory. This bank will facilitate the short-term financial operations

74 THE MARXIST QUARTERLY

of the government and its subordinate administration. In addition, the State will set up the necessary agencies to collect and orientate the savings required to finance the public debt and long-term operations in accordance with the purposes of economic planning. Quebec will, in this manner, possess the necessary instruments to carry out its plan and put an end to usurious and fraudulent practices.

Art. 12 — Transport and Communications
With respect to transport and communications within its territory, there should be no doubt as to Quebec's jurisdiction, whether it concern railways, canals, air or road networks or telecommunications. However, where transport and communications are of a definitely confederal nature, Quebec may, if necessary, conclude special agreements.

Art. 13 — Immigration
Immigration policy will be the responsibility of each Member-State.

Art. 14 — Judicial Power
Judicial power in civil, criminal and other domains will come under the jurisdiction of the Free State of Quebec. The appointment of judges will also be an exclusive responsibility of Quebec.

Art. 15 — Radio, Television, Motion Pictures, Press, Publishing
The instruments of culture and information, such as radio, television, motion pictures, press and publishing belong exclusively to Quebec jurisdiction. In all these fields, the State will ensure the respect of liberty of expression and opinion.

CHAPTER II

Organization and powers of Confederation

Art. 16 — The Fundamental Principle
The structure of the confederal institutions will be founded on the existence of two States equal in rights.

The Confederal Council will be composed of delegates from the Member-States, half from the State of Quebec and the other half

DOCUMENTS 75

from English Canada. The Confederation will possess limited and specific powers as set out below.

Art. 17 — The Confederal Bill of Rights

In certain fields, as in the protection of personal liberties (in case of arrest, indictment, detention, judgment), of the rights of individuals before the confederal administrative authorities, and of public liberties (of opinion, assembly, association, religion), the Confederation will enact a Bill guaranteeing these liberties and rights.

The Confederal Bill will protect the rights of the French and English collectivities within the Member-States, particularly with respect to education.

It will guarantee these collectivities the rights to establish radio and television stations in their own language or to affiliate themselves with networks located in another Member-State.

Art. 18 — The High Constitutional Court
There will be set up a confederal tribunal in order to settle constitutional disputes which may arise between the Confederation and one or the other of the Member-States.

Art. 19 — Confederal fiscal powers
All taxes will be collected by each of the Member-States of the Confederation. The Member-States will determine periodically the budget required for confederal purposes, as well as the means of financing the Confederal State, in accordance with the responsibilities which have been delegated to it.

The Confederal Budget will include the funds required for the equalization of the standard of living between the wealthy and the less developed regions of the Confederation.

Art. 20 — Trade, Commerce and Customs

Commerce between Member-States will be regulated by a periodic general agreement concluded at the Confederal level.

The agreement will be revised periodically and will promote the movement of workers, capital and goods within the Confederation.

The commerce of the Member-States with foreign States will be subject to a common policy with respect to tariffs and quotas.

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4. The implementation of trade agreements will be the responsibility of a Standing Trade Council, made up of representatives of the two States in equal number.

Art. 21 — Banking and currency
The issue and control of currency will be the responsibility of a Bank directed by a Council composed of representatives of the two States in equal number.

Art. 22 — The Confederal Civil Service

The Confederal Civil Service must reflect the binational character of Canada. All higher civil servants of each Department and of all commissions or corporations wholly or partly under the control of confederal institutions must be perfectly bilingual.

There will be set up within all Departments and confederal agencies unilingual French and English sections, in order that all civil servants may be able to work efficiently in his own culture and language. The important departments of the confederal institutions will be divided in equitable manner between the unilingual sections.

Every citizen of the Confederation will have the right to address the confederal public service in either English or French.

CHAPTER III

Powers with respect to International Affairs

Art. 23 — External affairs and representation

The Member-States of the Confederation may establish their own Ministry of External Affairs.

A standing confederal committee on external affairs will serve as a link between the various Ministries of External Affairs of the Member-States.

The Member-States may conclude international agreements in all fields falling within their legislative competence.

Art. 24 — United Nations Organization
Each Member-State may delegate its own representatives to the United Nations and to all the agencies affiliated with this organization.

DOCUMENTS 77

Art. 25 — Confederal defense and police

Each Member-State will have a Ministry of Defense.

With respect to defense of the Confederation, a Standing Defense Committee will be set up, on the lines of the Customs Committee, whose functions will be to define and orientate confederal policy in this field.

The Standing Defense Committee must continually work to achieve international peace.

Armaments will be reduced to the greatest extent possible, in order to relieve the budget in favor of aid to developing countries and to the benefit of the social security programs of the Member-States.

The Canadian army will be completely decentralized. The Free State of Quebec will have full jurisdiction over its own forces and over the contingents furnished to the Confederal government in accordance with the needs of Canadian defense programs.

The jurisdiction of the confederal police will be limited to confederal territory.

AMONG BOOKS RECEIVED

Inclusion in this list does not preclude review in a subsequent issue.

Some Essential Features of Nkrumaism, by the Editors of "The Spark,1 Accra, Little New World Paperback, International Publishers, N.Y. 128 pp., $1.15.

Stand on Guard by Andrew Brewin, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., pp., $3.95.

The Geography of African Affairs by Paul Fordham, a Pelican Original. 244 pp. $1.25.

An Account of Confinement and Interrogation under the South African Ninety Day Detention Law by Ruth First, a Pelican Special. 142 pp. $0.85.

(See also Page 96)

-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --

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Questions In Dispute

9:12 PM | Posted by HABEAS CORPUS CANADA | Edit Post

Stanley Ryerson

the national-democratic revolution in French Canada poses thorny questions of theory as well as of policy. For some time now there has been under way a wide-ranging debate on its root causes, driving forces and prospects.* Recently the discussion has acquired new depth as a result of two not entirely unrelated developments. Canadian sociologists are beginning to face up to and probe the long-evaded question of class and class-structure in society; and the emergence in Quebec of a highly articulate, nationally conscious "new left" has infused theoretical debate within and beyond the labor movement there with new freshness and intensity.

Among matters in dispute are these:

The connection (if any) between the industrialization of Quebec and the contemporary upsurge of French-Canadian nationalism;

The character and causes of the relative lag in some aspects of Quebec's development; and the argument to the effect that "Quebec is a colony of English Canada";

Class and national factors in French Canada; the relationship between the struggles for national self-determination and for socialism.
_____

*Some of the works referred to in what follows are:
ANDRE RAYNAULD: Croissance et Structures econotniques de la Province de Quebec. 657 pp. Ministere de l'lndustrie et du Commerce, Province de Quebec, n.d.
JOHN PORTER: The Vertical Mosaic: an Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada. 558 pp. University of Toronto Press, 1965. $15.
MARCEL RIOUX and YVES MARTIN: French Canadian Society, vol. I, sociological studies. 407 pp. Carleton Library, No. 18: McClelland and Stewart, 1964. paper-back: $3.95.
BENJAMIN AKZIN: State and Nation. 214 pp. Hutchinson University Library, London, 1964.

56

QUESTIONS IN DISPUTE 57

These questions may seem a shade abstract and academic; yet all of ihem bear on the shaping of democratic and working-class policy.

In this article no more is attempted than to indicate some of the lines of argument that are being pursued, and to suggest an approach to further study and exploration.

* * *

A frequently-encountered explanation of the "Quiet Revolution" invokes what is described as the recent and relatively sudden surge of industrialization in Quebec. Here, it is suggested, we face a pattern of development radically at variance with that of Ontario or of the rest of Canada. Andre Raynauld's impressive study of Quebec's economic development casts considerable doubt on this hypothesis.

His examination of the long-term growth rate of manufacturing shows that it has been practically the same in Quebec and Ontario at least since 1870. The average annual percentage rate of growth has been 5.48 in Ontario, 5.53 in Quebec, with the two graphs following an almost identical upward curve (p. 45). The margin of difference remained constant for the whole period, with Quebec's level standing at about two-thirds that of Ontario.

Far from having only recently and abruptly emerged from a state of "underdevelopment," Quebec crossed the threshold of industrialization between 1896 and 1913. This was also the pattern in Canada as a whole. Even before the First World War, Quebec possessed a considerable and diversified industry: in 1910, iron and steel products industries accounted for 14 per cent of value added in manufacturing in Quebec, and 18 per cent in Ontario (p. 29).

Thus, emergence of a developed industrial economy in Quebec has been neither recent nor sudden, but a gradual process extending over sixty years or more. Invoking the image of a "suddenly disrupted pastoral symphony" just won't do.

Nevertheless, there can be no doubt as to the massive impact of industrialization in recent years. Between 1935 and 1960, while the number of manufacturing establishments in Quebec grew from 7,727 to 11,961, the number of employees rose from 183,000 to

58 THE MARXIST QUARTERLY

434,000. The number of persons engaged in agriculture declined, from about 280,000 to 150,000. Thus there occurred during this period a basic shift in the proportions of the labor force employed in factory and farm.

It would seem, then, that while the industrialization of Quebec has been no sudden, abrupt occurrence of the most recent past, and while its course appears to have roughly paralleled that of Ontario, it nevertheless has in the last few decades taken on a decisive dimension. What has this to do with the rebirth of French-Canadian nationalism?

Could it be that particular significance attaches to the fact that Quebec's "parallel" industrial development has been at a level about one-third lower than Ontario's? Is the "national" (or so-called "cultural") component relevant here? Some investigators have argued that it is not. The authors of a pioneering study (published in 1953) of industrial development in Quebec reject the idea "that Quebec's relative economic backwardness is chiefly related to the influence of specific cultural factors." In their opinion, the historic lag in economic development in Quebec is to be explained essentially in terms of geography, technological change and resource allocation: "a mere regional manifestation of the over-all economic evolution of the North American continent." (A. Faucher and M. Lamontagne: in French-Canadian Society, pp. 258, 268.)

Whatever weight may be accorded to the factors cited by these authors, (and they merit further study) it is still necessary to reckon with two major peculiarities in the political economy of Quebec which their argument tends to ignore: namely, the income differential as compared with that of English Canada, and the pattern of industrial ownership.

Andre Raynauld devotes a sizeable part of his book to an examination of the former, but (as we shall sec) excludes the latter from his field of vision. He amply documents the income differential, demonstrating the consistently lower level of per capita income and wages in Quebec: since 1926 average personal income has been 27.5 per cent lower for the Quobecker than for the On-tarian. Industrial wages arc roughly 15 per cent lower. These differentials the author considers to be "a structural phenomenon

QUESTIONS IN DISPUTE 59

that dates back probably a century" [p. 03). He notes a number of factors that are involved:

—The labor force forms a lower proportion of the total population: 35 per cent in Quebec, 39.5 per cent in Ontario. (This has some bearing on the per capita income picture, as it is equivalent to some 200,000 less in the work force, proportionate to population.)

—At the same time, there is in Quebec a chronic excess of supply over demand on the labor market: one factor here is that "demand for labor is more restricted because the level of economic development is lower in Quebec than in Ontario" (p. 211).

—The internal market is more limited, and the scale of industrial establishments is less: 24 per cent smaller in average number of employees, 35 per cent smaller in net output per establishment); the size of iron and steel industry plants in Quebec is only 17 per cent of those in Ontario. Capital per employee in Quebec manufacturing as a whole is 77 per cent of that in Ontario.

—Relatively greater dispersal of the labor force in Ontario: Montreal accounts for 41 per cent of ils province's manufacturing labor force, Toronto for 21 per cent. Sixty per cent of the work force is located in 30 towns in Ontario, in ten in Quebec.

—The level of education of the work force likewise reflects the differential; on the average, Ontario workers have had a year more schooling than those in Quebec. On the other hand, technical school enrolment in Quebec is double that of Ontario. There is also an age differential: the "under twenty" group account for 6.5 per cent of the male work force in Ontario, 9.5 per cent in Quebec; corresponding percentages of the female work force are 15 and 20 in the two provinces.

—A study of thirteen industries in the two provinces shows a connection between level of trade-union organization and the overcoming of the wage differential: they range from tobacco, where Quebec has only 47 per cent of Ontario's level of unionization and a 25 per cent lower wage rate, to pulp and paper, where the percentage level of organization compared with Ontario is 79 per cent and the wage differential only 3 per cent.*
"his documented enumeration of factors helps to provide us
_____

*The data in this and the preceding paragraphs are cited by Raynauld, op. cit., pp. 220, 233, 242-3, 245-6, 260-7.

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with something of a picture of what goes to make up the "Quebec differential"; but it stops short of an organic analysis. If what confronts us is indeed a "structural phenomenon* (Raynauld's expression), then we need to grasp it as such: to see it as structure, in terms of class and nation. Here there enters the question of the pattern of ownership of the economy, in national as well as in class terms. How does the author of this major study of economic growth and structure in Quebec handle the problem? In his Introduction, Raynauld does mention, in relation to the process of industrialization in Quebec, "the minor role played by French Canadians in this development, particularly as regards the exercise of the essential function of entrepreneur." But after telling us that this is "a question whose bearing on the economic development of the Province of Quebec is immense," he proceeds to exclude it lrom his field of investigation! Pleading that it lies outside his range of competence, he argues that this is the kind of question about which economists "can tell us little": as a problem of "social climate," it should be left to the sociologists to worry over . . . Quite a commentary, this, on academic political economy!

* * *

In their study, "History of Economic Development," Faucher and Lamontagne argued that in Quebec's pattern of industrialization the national or "cultural" factor was essentially irrelevant. Yet in their conclusion they themselves draw attention to the fact "industrialization has not been a realization of the main ethnic group in this province . . . this is a very important feature of Quebec's economic development . . . economic development in Quebec has been financed, directed and controlled from outside."
What their study suffers from—like Raynauld's—is a reluctance to situate the problem "within the broader context of the structure of political and economic power in Canada." This point is made strongly by Jacques Dofny and Marcel Rioux ("Social Class in French Canada"), who argue further: ". . . If the geographical and ecological* factors have determined the industrial structure, how can we explain the preponderance of the English-Canadian element in Quebec industry in the years following
_____

•ecology: science dealing with the relation of living things to their environment.—Ed.

QUESTIONS IN DISPUTE 61

1911?" By bringing into the picture "the variable of economic and political power" one gains a fresh insight into the presence, in Quebec, of "a unique stratification which is profoundly different from the stratification of Canadian society taken as a whole." (French-Canadian Society, pp. 268-70, 316-317)

The question. "Who owns Quebec?" and the demand, "Soyons maitres chez nous!" involve both the national and the class question. A significant advance in the contemporary debate is dawning recognition of the importance of studying class structure as a key to undemanding the forces involved in the "national" as well as the "social" question. Criticizing the lack of "a sociology of social classes in French Canada," Guy Rocher argues that "a more precise knowledge of the division of our society into classes and social strata would provide a central framework for almost all our sociological studies." (ibid, pp. 328, 340) The Rioux-Martin anthology provides a fascinating glimpse of stirrings in the direction of a class approach and class analysis (as well as of resistances to any such radical turn).

But it is only very recently indeed that non-Marxist scholars in English Canada have begun to approach this hitherto "forbidden ground." The pioneering Marxist work of Frank and Libbic Park —The Anatomy of Big Business (1962)— now has been joined and extended by the monumental exploration of Professor John Porter of Carleton University: The Vertical Mosaic: an Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada* Of particular interest to us here is the author's treatment of the relationship between the national question and that of class and power, particularly the chapter entitled "Ethnicity and Social Class."

Alluding to the mythology of race, and its role as an instru-
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*The fact that the book's argument is presented as an "alternative to the Marxian model of class conflict" (the whole introductory chapter is an extended polemic with the Marxist theory of class and social structure) bears witness to the vitality of the latter as a current of thought and action, as the main challenge to academic sociology. The book is at the same time a vigorous invitation to the upholders of the "Marxian model" to seriously study John Porter's position and debate it with him. An extended review of this book will appear in a forthcoming issue; here we touch only on one facet of it: the "reciprocal relationships between ethnicity and social class."

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ment of social, economic and political dominance, the author deals with the "hierarchy of superiority" that is implied in the designation of Anglo-Saxon and French "founding races" (he refers to them as "charter groups in the mythology of race"). He speaks of "these ideas of race and inherited biological qualities, so important in the building up of a class system"; and observes that the "conservative tradition in Canadian life . . . gives ideological support to the continued high status of the British charter group. . . ."

As regards relations between the "charter groups," Porter observes that "economic relations are not ones of equality, for by and large the British run the industrial life of Quebec. . . . The higher up the authority structure of industry that one proceeds the greater is the proportion of British personnel. The French are predominantly workers at the lower end of the class system with, on the average, lower levels of skill than the British." Contrary to some rather widespread illusions, this situation has not been changing in the direction of eliminating the relative disadvantage of the French Canadians. In the period covered by the study (1931-1951)) while in both communities industrialization led to about the same proportionate reduction of the work force in agriculture,

In the non-agricultural part of the labor force the most significant change in the relationship between ethnic groups and occupational class level during the twenty years was the lower level of the French . . . The French have gained the least from the transition to industrialization, (pp. 84, 81)

A study of the trend in the two ethnic groups, extending over two generations, showed that "for both fathers and sons, the British were concentrated in the white-collar occupations and the French at the 'workers' level." A further important finding was that this concentration of the British at the white-collar level was almost double for sons what it had been for their fathers. At the same time the proportion of the younger generation of British in the 'workers' class' was less than the proportion of the older generation. . . . The proportion of younger generation of French in the "workers' class' has scarcely changed." Some jfy of British "sons" were at the unskilled level, compared to 26% of the French. (pp. 96-7)

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At the other pole of the social hierarchy, Porter's estimated "power elite" of 700 persons includes only 51 French Canadians, or 6.7% of the total. In the upper levels of public administration French Canadians account for 13.4% (in the population as a whole, 30%.)

* * *

What, in the light of the foregoing, is one to say of the claim that "Quebec is a colony of English Canada"?

First of all, it would seem indispensable to make a clear distinction between the territorial, political-administrative entity that is the Province of Quebec, on the one hand, and the people who constitute the French-Canadian nation, on the other. All the percentages that have been cited, in global terms of "Quebec" as compared with "Ontario," for instance, obscure the real contrast as between conditions of the French Canadians and those of English-speaking Canadians: for these figures mask the privileged economic position of the latter group in Quebec. (To which the position of the French-Canadian minority in Ontario is not exactly analogous!)

Second: Quebec, which possesses a highly industrialized, urbanized, monopoly-capitalist structure, is certainly not "a colony" in the sense of an economically underdeveloped, raw-materials-producing dependency such as the colonies of the European imperial metropolis tended to be. To the extent that there has been a major distortion in Quebec's capitalist development, it is one shared with Canada as a whole, and it derives from the effects of United States domination.

Third: the French-Canadian nation, however, does find itself in a position of economic, social and political inequality and inferiority, expressed (a) in the fact that (as Porter puts it) "the British run the industrial life of Quebec"; (b) in the "differential" in terms of income and social conditions, which the figures on "Quebec" do no more than indicate in a most incomplete way; and (c) in the denial of recognition of French-Canadian identity as a nation and of its right to national self-determination.

Far from eliminating these oppressive conditions, the accelerated industrialization and the growth of U.S.-Anglo-Canadian corporate monopoly have intensified them—and, therewith, the sense

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of inequality, the frustration of the French-Canadian national community.

It is in this context that the imperfect analogy of a French Canada that is "a colony of English Canada" finds its basis. The French Canadians' demand for independence, for their own national state, derives encouragement from the historic fact of the establishment in the last few years of some three-score new independent states by formerly colonial or dependent peoples. The demand for national equality and, to that end, a re-structuring of the social order situates the Revolution tranquille in the common mainstream of movements of national and social emancipation elsewhere.

Assuredly, the "colonial" analogy is imperfect and even misleading, to the extent that it can give grounds for obscuring the role of the handful of French-Canadian finance-capitalists, their integration with Anglo-Canadian (and U.S.) monopoly, their promotion (under Lesage's leadership) of state-monopoly capitalism in Quebec. There are some "left" nationalists who deny outright the very existence of a French-Canadian bourgeoisie (to say nothing of the clerical Establishment); obviously, such a stance renders impossible the adoption of a sound independent working-class policy.

In "The Social Evolution of Quebec Reconsidered", Hubert Guindon shows how "the traditional elites are still the commanding ones in French-Canadian society"; their current "rejuvenation," he argues, "can only be accounted for by as neat a set of converging interests of clergy, political parties, and foreign capitalists as can be imagined." A "developing clerical bureaucratic power is seen as evolving a new, streamlined relationship with the business-enmeshed Quebec provincial state. (French-Canadian Society, pp. 155-161) The picture is one of state- monopoly-capitalist development, in peculiar, specific conditions. The study of social classes for which Guy Rocher and others are calling must evidently include a thoroughgoing examination of the "anatomy" of the French-Canadian bourgeoisie. No such detailed study as yet exists.

* * *

From the foregoing it is apparent that much more concrete in-

QUESTIONS IN DISPUTE 65

vestigation is needed into the structures and relationships of state monopoly capitalism in Quebec and in Canada as a whole — carrying forward the work initiated by the Parks, Porter and Ray-nauld. (In relation to Canada, this would help clarify the problem that is expressed in the use of the term, "U.S.-Canadian oligarchy" in the Communist Party program: a problem that in a more complex way bears on the situation in French Canada as well.)

But just as important as concrete socio-economic research is the clarification of concepts. Confusion abounds as yet in regard to the concept of the nation; as in the persistent failure to distinguish between the two conflicting meanings that are attached to the term — nation as a certain type of community of persons, and nation as sovereign state entity (or as the sum-total of inhabitants of a given state). The expressions "Canada as a nation," "Quebec as a nation," illustrate this difficulty: neither is a nation in the sociological or the Marxist sense (which applies, not to a state structure, but to peoples: e.g. Do the Canadians constitute one nation or two? Are the people of Quebec a nation, or is it the French Canadians who are the nation there, etc.) On this point, the chapter entitled "The Terminological Jungle" which opens Benjamin Akzin's useful book State and Nation (London 1964) has much to recommend it. The author emphasizes that in the two alternative usages of the term "nation" there is involved not merely "a terminological debate nor a semantic refinement" but "rather a difference of essential meaning." Clarity is possible only if one of these meanings is chosen and adhered to throughout a given discussion (it is the often unconscious switching from one to another meaning that can bring discussion to a standstill); and Akzin opts for the meaning of nation as "a certain type of ethnic group":

Indeed, only if this meaning is attributed to our terms does the subject of our enquiry make any sense at all: for in its other meaning, where nation tends to coincide with the demographic element in statehood, our problem would resolve itself into a near-tautology and would amount to nothing else but an enquiry into the relation between the State and the sum total of human beings who form the State. What we are concerned with, however, is the very real complex of conflicts, of attempts at compromise and harmonization, and of mutual influences of two forces, the one political, the other ethnic,

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when they meet with mankind as their common ground, actors and object, (p. 10)

If the relationship (and distinction) between state and nation is one area of ambiguity and unclarity, it is not the only one. The relation of class and nation (now that class structure is receiving attention) emerges as another.

In their paper entitled "Social Class in French Canada , Jacques Dofny and Marcel Rioux present the concept of what they call an "ethnic class." They write:

A social class and a recognized, extensive ethnic minority share many common features . . . Our hypothesis is that most of the particular characteristics of the problem of social classes in French Canada stem from two factors. On the one hand, this socio-cultural entity considers itself and is considered to be a total society or a nation, and in this sense the problem of social classes resembles that in any other society in the process of industrialization and urbanization; on the other hand, French Canadians also regard themselves and are considered to be a recognizable ethnic minority which plays the same role within Canada, regarded in its turn as a total society, as a social class plays within a total society. It is the interaction between these two existing situations and the predominance of one or other "class" consciousness at any given moment that explains the particular characteristics of each period and the alliances and ideological struggles that appear. ... If the social structure of French Canada is differentiated almost as much as that of English Canada, its system of values and its culture have long remained much more homogeneous. It is precisely this fact that has delayed the realization of a social-class consciousness and, more specifically, the working-class consciousness. Indeed, if French Canada, as an ethnic "class," seems at a disadvantage within Canada, at how much greater a disadvantage is the working class within this ethnic class. (French-Canadian Society, pp. 308-311)

The concept of an "ethnic class" would seem to obscure rather than clarify the real relationships existing in society. To equate national community with socio-economic structure is to blur the specific qualities of each. Does the French-Canadian "ethnic minority" play "the same role within Canada ... as a social class plays within a total society?"

If it does, then class analysis in the Marxist sense, and the relationship between class consciousness and national sentiment, alike are meaningless. The kind of result that emerges is indicated

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in the assertion that "during the period from 1945 to 1958, social-class consciousness became more evident within French Canada as the ethnic-class concsiousness weakened . . . Since 1958, ethnic-class consciousness has regained ascendancy." (ibid, p. 312) In going on to explain this reversal, the authors do in fact present the interacting political and economic forces in terms of social class forces and nationalist ideology. This is simpler, and a more fruitful approach than the ambiguity of the idea of "ethnic class" (in which the blurred mingling in real life of national and class consciousness appears to undcrly a conceptual equating of social class and ethnic community in theory). The "ethnic-class" concept seems to lean heavily on a subjectivist tendency: "classes" tend to be treated in terms of "realization of consciousness." Thus, the question of the existence and struggles of "a 'middle class' or of a 'working class* in the sense of de facto groupings with their own values" is said to require substantiation through "the collection of data which arc often still not available, particularly data pertaining to identification of class consciousness ... a knowledge of the tendencies of the bourgeoisie and proletariat of French Canada." Certainlv such studies arc needed: but is there not here something of a suggestion that assurance regarding the objective existence of social classes is contingent on further knowledge of their subjective "tendencies"? Perhaps I am unfair to MM. Dofny and Rioux. Yet the outcome of their use of the concept of the "ethnic class" is hardly reassuring; we arc offered a hypothetical "evolution of class relations according to three schemes":

If both classes, freeing themselves from their restraining political past, were to turn their strength towards the assertion of common values, defined ethnically, the class struggle would be concentrated at the political level where the total French-Canadian group faces the English-Canadian group. Another possibility would be that the alliance would take place at the social level, uniting the Canadian bourgeoisie against the Canadian working class without any distinction as to ethnic origin. Finally, there is the possibility that the values and economic and political interests of both the English and the French would be subjected progressively to the influence of North American values (as has been the case, for example, with the trade unions) and by this means be definitely weakened or absorbed at all levels by the power of the United States, (ibid., p. 318)

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Of the three "schemes", the first and third offer nothing more than confrontations between ethnic communities, the second, between social classes. But does not our real problem start with establishing the role of social, class forces in i and 3, and of national factors in number 2? Unless we introduce this bothersome "complication", we arc reduced to cither "simple" (i.e. bourgeois) nationalism or else an oversimplified "class-struggle" approach which excludes the national factor (in other words, an approach of "national nihilism"). With the "ethnic class" it would seem, we arc back where we started.*

* * *

Fundamental, for Marxists, is the primacy of the role of the socio-economic formation, the mode of production. The ethnic or national community evolves, derives its dynamic of change, in ways and directions determined by the movement and conflict of social class forces. Not the nation but the class is primary. It is this point that the "ethnic class" idea wholly obscures. But from the primacy of social structure it docs not at all follow that the nation is merely a matter of form, void of a content of its own: this sort of denial of the autonomy and substance of the ethnic community is one of the impediments that have been placed by mechanical materialism in the roadway of development of revolutionary Marxism. (Has this been entirely foreign to our own difficulties and slowness in coming to grips with the issue of national self-determination?)

Marxists have of late begun to examine afresh some of the complexities and subtleties of the national question, in the light of new studies both of the peoples and liberation movements of Africa. Asia and the Americas, and of the new aspects which the national question has presented in some advanced capitalist countries in the period of intensified general crisis of the imperialist system.
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*This article had just been set in type when I received the issue of Rccherchcs Sociographitjucs (Laval) devoted to "Les Classes soriales an Canada Francais." It contains extremely rich material to which we shall devote future pages of comment. In particular, Professor Rioux, in an essay on "Conscience ethnique et conscience de classe au Quebec," develops and (it seems to me) somewhat modifies the position taken on the "ethnic class" in the paper discussed above.

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Both these areas were dealt with in the 1961 81 -party statement; further, more specialized studies are offered in Jean Chesneaux, "The Process of Formation of Nations in Africa and Asia: an Essay in Marxist Analysis" (La Pensee); and S. A. Tokarev, "The Problem of Types of Ethnic Community: on methological problems of ethnography" (Questions of Philosophy, No. 11, 1964)* The plan of study of the national question proposed by the Marxist Study Centre (cf. our Summer 1962 issue) included further investigation into problems of each of the two nations in Canada, and their relationships; the character and trends of the national group communities; the status and condition of the Indian and Eskimo peoples. It also pointed to the need for a critical appraisal of the large body of writing on nationalism and national movements that has appeared since the last war, especially under the stimulus of the national-liberation revolutions. Such a survey would certainly need to embrace developments in Marxist-Leninist theory in the half-century since Stalin formulated his definition of the nation. In pursuing as much of this program as lies within the limits of our capacities, we would wish to invite exchanges of opinion and mutual aid as between Marxists in this country, in both French and English Canada, and our colleagues working in this field in other countries.
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*An abridged translation of Tokarev has appeared in the Marxist Study Centre Bulletin, Spring 1965; both articles will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Marxist quarterly.

-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --

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BOOKS IN REVIEW 95

Current Studies of Quebec

Current Studies of Quebec

Turning-Point In Bourgeois Nationalism

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Current Studies of Quebec

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BOOKS IN REVIEW 91

DOCUMENTS 79

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DOCUMENTS 81

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DOCUMENTS 83

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DOCUMENTS 85

PREAMBLE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

AMONG BOOKS RECEIVED

Stanley Ryerson

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