Can French Canada Stand Alone?

by Marcel Faribault

THE dissatisfaction of French Canadians with their lot in a predominantly British regime runs the whole gamut, from simple concern or sadness to defiance to the point of separatism. The main body of opinion is groping for concrete remedies and hoping for statesmanship from its leaders. That it will not be pooh-poohed, abused, or offered sops is evidenced by the unanimous decision of the Quebec legislature to appoint a committee entrusted with the determination of “the objectives to be followed by French Canada in the reconsideration of the Canadian federal system and the best means of attaining these objectives.” This crisis closely parallels that of the young United States in 1787. In its case, however, the first constitution was too loose and had to be strengthened. In Canada’s case, the constitution has too many relics of imperial days and has to be loosened.

Eskimos and Indians excepted, the oldest Canadian stock is of French origin. Its settlement, begun in 1608, was fully completed by 1760, never to be strengthened by subsequent immigration. Those 150 years were more than sufficient to create a territorial pattern, an established system of laws, a network of institutions and traditions, and selfreliance. The following century enhanced and fortified these characteristics. Private laws were retained, developed, extended, and codified, under their ancient designation of civil laws and civil rights. Constitutional and parliamentary law was mastered to oppose and restrain the new administration and was turned to good account in securing the use of the French language in public debates, freedom of religion for the Roman Catholic inhabitants despite the public laws of England, and last, the establishment of a school system based on local denominational options. Until 1867, at the very least, this people was the only one to call itself and to be called Canadian. The 1961 census gives its strength at 5,541,000, of which 4,241,000 French Canadians inhabit the province of Quebec, where they form 81 percent of the total and practically all the rural population.

The British element in the population provides close to one quarter of the current immigration. Nevertheless, it can muster only 43 percent of the population, being overwhelmingly predominant in the Maritime Provinces, about 10 percent in Quebec, 60 percent in both Ontario and British Columbia, and falling somewhat below 45 percent in the Prairies. Its language is English, and its religion mostly Protestant; its traditions are monarchist, and its laws the uncodified and proliferating common law; it does rely on itself and on Canada to be sure, but also on Great Britain, the Empire, and the Commonwealth. The French Canadian looks back at least eight and sometimes as many as twelve generations; the British Canadian, probably five on an average.

Constitutional problems are abstruse and technical, and when they become crucial, it is generally too late to solve them. One instance will serve as an illustration. Last August, Ottawa newspapers reported that an attempt to alter the British North America Act, the imperial statute which serves as Canada’s constitution, had been rebuffed in the Canadian House of Commons. The proposal had been to substitute the sentence “Canada is a federal state” for the sentence “The provinces shall form and be one Dominion under the name of Canada.” The problem lies in the definition of the three words “dominion,” “federal,” and “state,” and the difficulty becomes clearer when one realizes that the Statute of Westminster, adopted in 1931 as the freedom charter of the Commonwealth nations, denies Canada the right to amend its own constitution. The matter is brought into sharper focus when one learns that Quebeckers have for the last four years taken to calling their province a state, a practice frowned upon by the rest of the country.

The Canadian constitution is criticized by Quebec for being too centralizing and therefore not truly federal — and for being too British, devoid of checks and balances, and poorly adapted to the present needs of Canada. These critics claim that the constitution is not democratic enough, that it omits important principles, and therefore does not hold out much hope for the future.

There is no question that the one great purpose behind Confederation was to keep the upper portion of North America British, thereby giving it the means to attract a continuous flow of settlers from the United Kingdom. The presence of the French Canadians made the federal system imperative, but they were deliberately contained within Quebec lest their increase in number, spread, and influence should imperil the British predominance. When a relaxation of policy opened the doors to peoples of other origins, nothing was done to increase the mobility of the French Canadians across the country. The guarantees for a separate school system, which the constitution provided for all provinces, were not honored. The use of the French language on a par with English, guaranteed only in the federal Parliament and the federal courts (since in Quebec the guarantee worked the other way), was not extended to the federal public service. Top places, and in many cases middle ones, in business, industry, and finance continued to be reserved to the British or thoroughly British-integrated. It is no wonder that under such typically colonial treatment, French Canadians developed their own nationalism.

Today, language is the dividing line in Canadian life, to a far greater extent than it is in Europe or Africa. English has been the only trans-Canada cultural bond. Yet French is also spoken across the land, in the following ratio to each province’s population: Newfoundland 3.7 percent, Nova Scotia 12 percent, Prince Edward Island 16 percent, New Brunswick 39 percent, Quebec 81 percent, Ontario 10.3 percent, Manitoba 9.1 percent, Saskatchewan 6.4 percent, Alberta 6.2 percent, and British Columbia 4.1 percent. That Canada is in fact bilingual is perhaps the deepest and most commanding reason for Quebec to remain in the Confederation, provided the French-speaking minorities of the other provinces, totaling over 1,300,000 people, are granted rights equal to those Quebec has granted in the past to its own English-speaking minorities centered in and around Montreal and numbering approximately 1,200,000.

THERE are certainly good reasons why Canada ought to be a federal country. First, because of its size and the geography of its parts. Quebec, a selfcontained and irreducible block, amputated from Labrador by the political decision of a court whose only object was to give Hamilton Falls to the then British colony of Newfoundland, still remains an overwhelming one sixth of Canada as a whole, and would be one fourth if the Northwest territories were to be excluded for purposes of comparison with the other provinces. It has an area of 595,000 square miles; only Alaska, with 586,000, can be compared with it. It is twice the size of Texas, nearly three times the size of France, and six times the size of the United Kingdom.

Quebec is a must for Canada because it separates the Maritime Provinces from the center, and the center and western parts from the Atlantic; it holds the St. Lawrence River and practically commands Hudson Bay. At the same time, Quebec needs the rest of the country because the St. Lawrence is the outlet of the Great Lakes and their water level may affect its entire economy. Montreal, the Quebec and Canadian metropolis, is a natural port and bridgehead for overseas, for the United States, and for the rest of Canada; any attempt to bypass it and diminish its role, as Toronto expected to do through the Seaway, could very well cause a crisis of the first order.

If the provincial boundaries were to be reshuffled, Canada could be separated into two parts on the Ontario-Manitoba boundary. Or perhaps into four by dividing the coastal area on each side from the hinterland. Or perhaps into six by taking successively the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba plus half of Saskatchewan, western Saskatchewan and Alberta up to the Rockies, and finally, British Columbia. All the rest is refinement.

Each one of the six great Canadian regions has a narrow arable area which serves as its base; each province is bounded to the south by the United States, is opened toward the north at a latitude where land and life change character, has only one other province on each side, has no boundary with more than two provinces (Quebec excepted only on account of Labrador), is dependent on another province for access to the sea or to another sea, is dependent on a particular river which takes its source or prolongs its course in another province. And each of these areas is a giant unit corresponding to at least five average states of the United States.

Canada is sometimes called underdeveloped if only its size and sparsity of settlement are considered; but it is acknowledged to be quite mature in its economic practice and sophistication, for which it is indebted both to Great Britain and to the United States. Yet the two conditions are closely tied together.

The Canadian economy is dominated by the Laurentian shield, which attracts exploitation on a large scale, whether it be of forests, mines, inland waters, fisheries, furs, agriculture, or hydroelectric power. Hence the natural development of the large corporations, the advantages of cartels and agreements for marketing, and the existence of cooperatives.

The distance from the seas and the absence of urban markets capable of consuming its production make such an economy a particularly open one; hence the development of transportation and indeed of an exceptionally diversified system of communications: roads and railroads, telephone, telegraph, radio, television, airlines, shipping lines, hotels, motels.

The harshness of both the climate and the land makes it more practical to transport power and energy very long distances rather than to settle next to their sources, whether coal, oil, gas, or electricity. Fuel and power are required for warmth and everyday life just as much as for industry. Buying the necessary services and equipment to make life comfortable and profitable is therefore very expensive.

In such a vast country, no economy, even a primary one, may be considered independent from services, communication, trade, and governmental intervention. The availability of capital thus becomes a paramount consideration. Hence a remarkable commercial banking system, developed through the establishment of branches, quite sensitive to the economy, and working in very close cooperation with the central bank and the treasury or department of finance in regard to both monetary and fiscal policies.

If one looks at the distribution of powers effected by the constitution between the federal and the provincial governments, it is evident that “it was intended to foster a national economy which would relieve dependence upon a few industries and lessen exposure to the effects of the economic policies pursued by the United States and Great Britain.” These words of the Sirois Commission Report on Dominion-Provincial relations in 1940 sum up the reasons for the attribution to the federal government of all those matters connected with the circulation of goods and money.

TODAY Canada is held together less by geography, natural resources, and nationality than by the very efficient composite network of communications, circulation and transfer of wealth, income, profits, and welfare. There is little doubt that any wholesale disruption of this order would bring a lessening of the standard of living, unemployment, withdrawal of capital, and stagnation. This would harm the poorer as well as the richer provinces, and since a minimum standard of living for all is one of the aims of present social thinking, it may not be contemplated with a clear conscience.

On the other hand, a remarkably strong case is being built up for states rights in economic matters. One of the greatest fallacies prevalent in Canada since the end of World War II is the assertion that the federal government should assume responsibility for the pace and direction of the nation’s economic development. While understandable in a wartime economy, in peacetime such a view is a complete perversion of governmental functions. The United States adopted the tenth amendment to its constitution, which stated unequivocally that all residuary powers are vested in the states. Canada’s constitution has committed the capital sin of saying otherwise. All the provinces have come around, by degrees, sometimes not quite consciously, to the view that the fiscal powers enjoyed by the federal government during war and depression have been continued too long, extended too far, used to penetrate provincial fields, misused through ignorance of regional diversities.

Actually, the desire to prevent war is one of the main reasons for federation. It is a commonplace of Canadian history that Confederation was designed in part “to brace the scattered provinces against possible American aggression” as a deliberate policy of Great Britain. Today people no longer speak of aggression, but one hears talk of possible peaceful absorption, economic control, and excessive political influence, all of which come under the general heading of foreign affairs.

Let us take the subject of national defense. Canada is not strong enough to defend itself against an aggressor without the American alliance, still less against the Americans themselves. Against any other invader, its only defenses, in theory at least, could well be its length, breadth, and barrenness, and its best generals, waste, winter, and will to survive. From the United States’s viewpoint, the calamity might not seem too great if the Canadian Confederation were to split on an economic basis. But the United States would certainly prefer to see Canada continue united on purely military grounds because of the importance of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Great Lakes and their international character, the need for the Alaskan highway, the possible use of air bases as exemplified in the DEW Line, and the existence and desirability of NATO. The transformation of the latter from an agreement for defense into an instrument for peaceful purposes is but a natural and welcome development of practical politics, as the participation of Canada in the O.A.S. would also be. It is remarkable, however, that the French Canadians from Quebec Province have been for many years the main Canadian proponents of this collaboration with Latin-American countries.

If one really desires to justify Confederation on a basis of foreign affairs, one should look for much more elementary reasoning. In the first place, a divided Canada could not hope to preserve the Far North. In the second place, each province, if independent, would lose the benefit of the savings effected by common outside representation, whether political, consular, commercial, military, or cultural. Some of the provinces could not afford it; to others the cost would be remarkably high since it would have to be proportionate to the openness of their economy. Third, the loss of stature, prestige, and influence to each one of the component states would be very great indeed, whether one thinks of the United Nations or merely of the British Commonwealth, of the Atlantic alliance, or of other international bodies and ventures. A fourth consideration is the empirical one that it seems foolish to abandon a system which has been a very efficient instrument of peace and development at the very time when other countries, nationalities, and continents have come to realize its advantages. Realpolitik would go one step further and add a fifth argument. Regardless of underlying causes, there is one factor which all countries must face today — namely, the intricacy of social, economic, political, and racial considerations and the speed with which the color factor can be utilized to sweep away all considerations of interest, reason, and humanity. Should passions prevail in that respect, Canada would be in the white camp, in the very same way it finds itself in the anti-Communist one, and would have to exert its full strength, which will certainly be greater if it is one unified country and thus in a position to muster all of its resources to the utmost, in quantity, quality, diversity, and rapidity.

It has become hackneyed to say that such dangers can be forestalled only by the exercise and the spread of reason and therefore by the existence of a guiding philosophy. However, Canada has developed neither a philosophy of federalism nor indeed any philosophy at all, since a philosophy which is neither harmonious and integrated nor vocally expressed simply does not exist. I should like to indicate at this point some few principles of federalism which have not been respected in Canadian law and practice. These principles are as follows:

1. The supremacy of the rule of law, inherent and expressed in a constitution, which must be written, rigid, and observed without breach until modified according to an agreed procedure. Yet the Canadian parliamentary practice, following British tradition, gives as much importance to unwritten law and to precedents.

2. The division of sovereignty between the component states on the one hand and the federal government on the other, without any supremacy of one over the others, subordination of one to the will of the others, or delegation of power by one to the others, or to any of them. English-speaking Canada has a habit of forgetting this, since it takes the Ottawa Parliament as the successor of the British one.

3. The establishment of checks and balances against abuse of power within each one of the governments, federal or local, as regards the citizens themselves. However, Canada has no general bill of rights.

4. The interpretation of the constitution by the courts instead of by the executive power, by public opinion, or by the legislatures. Ever since the Imperial Privy Council ceased to be the court of last resort in 1949, the Supreme Court of Canada has failed to be a satisfactory substitute.

5. The agreement of the component states to live and dwell together in perpetuity, under peace, and therefore to renounce war, secession, or revolution, and to replace them by discussion, tolerance, and compromise in good faith. This is repeatedly ignored by the majority.

6. The acknowledgment that the federal government is a society of societies and that therefore the residuary powers must remain with the component states. Not only does the constitution say otherwise, but there is in Canada no doctrine of autonomous local government and assembly.

7. The possibility of adding new component states to the federation upon conditions not essentially different from those already applicable and without modification of the latter. This is tantamount to saying that no class is impenetrable, but the fluidity and mobility of elites in Canadian life are quite restricted.

In view of such factors as nationalities, geography, economics, and foreign affairs, the conclusion seems inescapable that Canada’s future should be tied into a federal system, but it is imperative that the omissions and errors of the past should be redressed. At first blush, the initiative would seem to lie with the federal power, however paradoxical this may look when it is well known in advance that the outcome must be less centralization. Great Britain’s colonial office has in the past given many an example of such statesmanship toward territories which later became dominions and members of the Commonwealth. On the other hand, perhaps the rest of the country will not take the matter seriously until it is faced with concrete demands and proposals such as are bound to come from the Quebec legislature. In the meantime, it is hoped that enough will be done in private meetings and in public debates so that the country will not be taken entirely unawares should the holding of a constitutional conference become suddenly urgent.

How much a revision of the Canadian constitution should depart from the existing one is a highly debatable question. According to some, the very name Confederation would show prescience on the part of the founding fathers and point to a union centered on national defense and foreign affairs only. Sensing the excess of ideology in such a statement, others have talked in terms of an associate status for Quebec. This designation seems to stem from the case either of Puerto Rico in respect to the United States or of some former European colonies in respect to the Common Market. It would only be valid, however, if the rest of Canada could be considered as an integrated, homogeneous whole, which geography denies, since provincial and regional loyalties run much deeper than casual observers would imagine, quite apart from the problem of nationalities.

A third view would detract little from present federal practices, innovations, and pretension at leading the economy, save that it would permit provinces to “opt out" of any federally rooted scheme. This would solve no problems and would foster discontent through the refusal to surmount bare empiricism and to face principles. If, on the contrary, cooperative federalism would acknowledge the absolute need for a revision of the constitution in depth, its very name could be the point of departure for many new adventures, cooperation being taken as a possible reinforcement of current dealings between the component states on the one hand and a possible enlargement of aid between the federal government and foreign countries on the other hand. At the same time, constitutional revision would serve as a means of making admittedly temporary arrangements between the component states and the federal government for quite specific purposes. Such a perspective would then permit a much more direct reference to the acknowledged principles of federalism, on the basis of a strict equality for all component states and the necessary exchanges of quid pro quo.

This would still leave the constitution in need of being made less imperial, endowed with a true constitutional court, inspired by a more comprehensive bill of rights, revigorated by a reformed senate, strengthened by the return to the provinces of all their fundamental functions, stripped of the illusions of federal fiscal predominance, and so equitable that new states would be as eager to join it as component ones are unwilling to change it.