Canadian And French Relations In The Past

100 Years. Essay, Research Paper

Throughout the ages, many colonies of earlier empires have arisen from

their colonial status to become their own country. For many of these, such

as the United States, French Indochina and many African nations, their was

a common culture which served as a base for uniting their population. In

Canada however, their were two very different cultures present, the French

and the English. These two peoples had originally had many battles to see

who would hold dominance over the colony, and now they had to unite if

their was any hope of achieving confederation. The French people of lower

Canada and the English people of Upper Canada had many differences, and

weren’t extremely trustworthy of each other. The French Canadians were in

a tough spot when the call for confederation came around. They were afraid

of losing their culture if they joined the Canadian confederacy, but they

also didn’t want to get assimilated into the United States. The French

Canadian attitudes towards confederation in the eighteen sixty’s, can best

be seen through the views of the leading French Canadian politicians of the

day.

In French Canada around the period of confederacy, their were two main

political parties, the bleus and the rouges. In the 1860’s, the leading

French Canadian party was the conservative bleu party. This party, had the

largest bloc of French Canadian legislative seats in parliament.1 The

leader of this party at the time that confederacy was being debated by

leading Canadian politicians was George Etienne Cartier. Cartier was born

in 1814,2 and his grandfather had been a member of the Lower Canadian

assembly in 1809.3 Prior to becoming a French leader in the move towards

confederation, Cartier had been involved in the Rebellion of 1837 that was

lead by Louis Joseph Papineau.4 When the question of confederation came

up, Cartier was quick to add his support to the movement. At the time,

their had been debates whether the current Parliament like assembly should

be elected on the basis of representation by population. This was not an

idea that any French Canadian would have been in support of, because of the

substantial population difference between the English and the French. This

idea of “rep by pop” had many French Canadians worrying about losing their

culture because of the lack of governmental representation for their

people. Cartier was one of the leading opposition to “Rep by pop” in

Canada. He didn’t want to see the French Canadian culture squeezed out of

the people because the English were making all of the laws.

One of the main problems that many people saw with Canadian confederacy

was the differing cultures. No one thought that these cultures would be

able to work together in running a country. The leading English politician

of the time, was John A. Macdonald. He and Cartier were long time

political allies.5 When Cartier heard Macdonald’s plan for confederation

he was quick to jump on the confederacy bandwagon. Cartier`s opinion was

that the local control of provinces under confederacy would be instrumental

in the survival of French culture.6 Cartier thought that a federal union

would prove to be very prosperous, and no one culture would come to

dominate it, because of the diversity of the nations population.7 Also on

the subject of differing cultures, Cartier compared the confederation of

Canada to the United Kingdom. He said that their are three very different

cultures residing in the United Kingdom, and that hasn’t stopped them from

prospering, or becoming one of the most powerful nations in the world.8

Cartier didn’t seem to think that the differing cultures were that much of

a problem. He believed that having multiculturalism within the nation

would lead to each party involved contributing to the general wealth of the

nation and that because of this, prosperity of the new nation would

increase.9

Another one of Cartier’s concerns for French Canada was if they didn’t

join the Canadian confederation, that they would be annexed into the United

States and completely lose their French identity.10 In the end, Cartier’s

attitude towards Canadian Confederation can be summed up in one of his

speeches in parliament in 1865 when he said “Shall we be content in mere

provincial existence, when, by combining together, we could become a great

nation”11

All of French Canada’s politicians weren’t as optimistic about

confederation as Cartier. Joseph Perrault a member of Quebec’s Rouge

party didn’t share Cartier’s view of a United prosperous Canada. Perrault

thought that under the new confederate parliamentary system, French Canada

would not have enough representation to hold up their views.12 Perrault

felt that if confederation occurred, French Canada would have to be in

constant defense of their own pol

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