The Marxist Quarterly Autumn 1965

M. J. Sago

NOT ONLY IS  this Preliminary Report noteworthy in that it has proven to be a best-seller, but its approach and presentation are strikingly different from the traditionally stiff and formal language of officialdom. This report was obviously written with the general public in mind, rather than just the government, the politicians, and the constitutional experts. Moreover, it can be said to reflect with some degree of objectivity the state of mind and the underlying conflict of ideas and forces as revealed at public discussion meetings from coast to coast with some 12,000 Canadians in attendance.

When the ten commissioners, under the co-chairmanship of André Laurendeau and A. Davidson Dunton, first decided to publish their unanimous preliminary statement on the ideas and thinking of people, after 17 months of hearings, the working title of the draft report was simply "Canada in Crisis." The title was apparently too much for the government, and the Prime Minister's office is said to have erased it in favor of the present innocuous one. The incident illustrates, if nothing more, the resistance of those in charge of the country's affairs to a confrontation of the real issues, or to any suggestion that Confederation was in real trouble.

The 211-page report renders a service by throwing a sharp light on the seething currents of this country's life and by suggesting something of the deeper conflicts that underlie them. It reveals Canada at the crossroads and warns against complacent attitudes toward a "situation that will worsen with time, and that could worsen much more quickly than many think." It observes:
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*Queen's Printer. 211 pages. $1. ($2 in French and English.)

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The Commissioners, like all Canadians who read newspapers, fully expected to find themselves confronted by tensions and conflicts. They knew that there have been strains throughout the history of Confederation; and that difficulties can be expected in a country where cultures exist side by side. What the Commissioners have discovered little by little, however, is very different: they have been driven to the conclusion that Canada, without being fully conscious of the fact, is passing through the greatest crisis in its history.

This is the premise of the report. “We have to communicate an experience through which we have actually lived, and to show that simple realities of everyday life came to reveal the existence, the depth and the sharpness of the crisis.” That members of the commission were fully aware of the implications and gravity of their warning is clearly stated:

We are going to have to put our country's divisions on display, and we appreciate the dangers of doing so. But the feeling of the Commission is that at this point the danger of a clear and frank statement is less than the danger of silence; this type of disease cannot be cured by keeping it hidden indefinitely from the patient. Above all the Commissioners are convinced that they are demonstrating a supreme confidence in Canada; because to tell a people plainly, even bluntly, what you believe to be the truth, is to show your own conviction that it is strong enough to face the truth. It is in fact to say to the country that you have faith in it and in its future.

The report poses the question:

What does the crisis spring from? ... Our inquiry is not far enough advanced, ... to enable us to establish exactly its underlying causes and its extent. All we can do is describe it as we see it now; it would appear from what is happening that the state of affairs established in 1867, and never since seriously challenged, is now for the first time being rejected by the French Canadians of Quebec.

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Mirroring in their report the ideas, prejudices, uncertainties and
frustrations, the grievances and aspirations which exploded on the floor of the regional meetings, the Commissioners felt compelled to conclude that

What is at stake is the very fact of Canada: what kind of country will it be? Will it continue to exist? These questions are not for theoreticians only, they are posed by groups of human beings. And other groups by refusing to ask themselves the same questions actually increase the seriousness of the situation.

Out of the welter of arguments, submissions and outbursts from the regional meetings across the land, the report establishes a focus: “The chief protagonists, whether they are conscious of it or not, are French-speaking Quebec and English-speaking Canada. And it seems to us to be no longer the traditional conflict between a majority and a minority. It is rather a conflict between two majorities: that which is a majority in all Canada, and that which is a majority in the entity of Quebec.”

The Commissioners explain that French-speaking Quebec acted for a long time as though it had accepted the idea of being merely a privileged “ethnic minority.” Today, the report points out, there is the kind of opinion in the province that regards Quebec as practically an autonomous society, with every expectation of recognition.

This attitude goes back to a fundamental expectation for French Canada, that is, to be an equal partner with English-speaking Canada. If this idea is found to be impossible, because such equality is not believed in or is not acceptable, we believe the sense of deception will bring decisive consequences. An important element in French-speaking Quebec is already tempted to go it alone.

There is no doubt that this is the crux of the crisis in the view of the Commissioners. What is shown to be imperative is the critical need for a new deal within Confederation -- a new concept of Confederation -- that will provide for an equal partnership of French and English Canada.

From evidence so far accumulated, it appears to us that English-speaking Canadians as a whole must come to recognize the existence of a vigorous French-speaking society within Canada, and to find out more about the aspirations, frustrations and achievements of French Canadians in Quebec and outside it. They must come to understand what it means to be a member of a minority, or of a smaller partner

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people, and to be able to give that minority assurances which are unnecessary for a majority . . . they have to face the fact that, if Canada is to continue to exist, there must be a true partnership, and that the partnership must be worked out as between equals. They must be prepared to discuss in a forthright, open-minded way the practical implications of such a partnership.

But the road to an open-minded view of such implications, is a long, hard, gruelling journey to understanding. In addition to the entrenched attitudes and prejudices of the Anglo-Saxon power elite, there are the conflicts and anxieties of the national groups.

The fear that other ethnic groups might be forgotten in the developing dialogue between Canadians of French and British origin is noted by the report, and this is coupled with a strong affirmation of their importance to Canada.

In many communities, we were told, a vigorous sense of cultural identity persists . . . The desire of these groups to be seen as a special element in Canadian life was strongest on the prairies. Elsewhere, solidarity with English or, in some cases, French Canada, was most often emphasized.

Participants in the regional meetings in Western Canada especially stressed "<b>multiculturalism</b>" or the "Canadian mosaic" as the answer for the ethnic groups of other than British or French origin. But the idea that these ethnic groups comprise a corporate entity&nbsp;-- a third force&nbsp;-- had few supporters, the report states, "even among the 'New Canadians'."

"More frequently," the report declares, "speakers would turn to specific issues. It was suggested to us that there could be special recognition of languages other than French and English without these other languages being given official status . . . The teaching of languages other than French and English as optional subjects in schools and universities; greater use of these languages on radio and television; public aid to cultural projects&nbsp;-- these were the ideas that were advanced most often in attempts to give solid substance to the abstract concept of a <b>multicultural</b> Canada."

While the report acknowledges the importance of the national groups in the scheme of things, as a vital part of Canadian history and development, with their own problems and demands, the question as a whole is not brought into full focus. Many of those

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who spoke before the commission, on behalf of the ethnic groups, tended to confuse or counterpose <b>multiculturalism</b> with binationalism.

The brief of the Canadian Council of National Groups, still to be formally presented at the final hearings of the commission, deals at some length with this question. It warns that the various cultural communities can only be understood within the meaning of the two nations that make up Canada, and of which they are cohesive and coherent parts. Unless they are seen in this relationship (and such was not the case in many of the submissions by ethnic leaders) then the contributions and problems of the national groups cannot be properly and fully assessed. It agrees that the ethnic groups continue to play an important role in the evolution of the culture and psychological make-up of English Canada, and in the development of a national consciousness that is distinct from the British and American. It recognizes that the character and substance of these communities evolved, from the very beginning, in the climate of political, social and economic discrimination.

It is to be hoped that when the final report is written, more will be said and with a great deal more clarity on the whole question of our national groups.

It was inevitable that the proximity and influence of the United States should concern many of those who appeared before the commission. It was described as a pervasive force in Canadian life which had an inhibiting or distracting effect on attempts to debate the Canadian situation. "The principal concern of those who raised this question," the Commissioners observe, "centered on the manner in which the tremendous disproportion in population, wealth and power between the two countries threatens Canada's survival as an independent state, and gives new significance to the concept of equal partnership."

The Preliminary Report, while presenting a lively account of the great Canadian debate, also hints at some of the fundamental problems of our society. In raising the issue of the right of French Canada to equal partnership, it uncovers some of the roots of the entrenched Anglo-Canadian power structure. To what extent the final report will come to grips with this remains to be seen.







 

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