NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/can/politics/10991

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-21 | 7.1 KB

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From: [e-mail] (CZ94000)
Newsgroups: can.politics,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Henri Bourassa (was RE: Legalized discrimination...)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 21 Dec 92 17:33:47 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John LaRocque) writes:
>
>In the early 20th century, ONE BRAVE CANADIAN fought for the values you
>profess, and he was shunned by every anglophone politician in the country.
>Henri Bourassa was a Liberal MP who believed in an independent Canada
>that respected the rights of French Canadians in every province. What
>happened to him. His prime minister, the British toady, William Laurier,
                                                         ^^^^^^^
William????

>allowed the extermination of French education in Manitoba. The same leader
>sent Canadian troops to South Africa to promote British imperialism, stop
>the evil Boers and provide the Brits with diamonds and a passage to India.

I'm just nitpicking here, but I think the South African gold mines
had a lot more economic importance than the diamond mines.  And
since Transvaal and the Orange Free State were inland, they hardly
mattered for the "passage to India".  The Cape Colony became British
long before the Boer War.

   text omitted
>
>Those values could have been practised years ago when they could have
>actually been of some use. But history had forgotten this brave man and
>his words and deeds. Henri Bourassa, French Canada's greatest federal
>politician, founder of Le Devoir, defender of francohpone minorites and
>a Canada independent of British imperialism, a leader who fought for what
>he believed and would not compromise no matter how unpopular his stand
>was in parts of the country. He is now forgotten by Canadians
>of his era. Only in Quebec do people appreciate what he has done. Only
>in Quebec to people realize the heritage of this man.
>
You may be a little too optimistic here.  I'm afraid most Montrealers
think of Henri Bourassa only as the name of a Metro station.  I'd
like to think I'm wrong about this.

I don't disagree with your evaluation of Bourassa, but I'd like to
add a few nuances.  First of all, the French language was already
in deep trouble in Manitoba even before the passage of the Manitoba
Schools Act.  In spite of efforts by the Archbishops of St-Boniface,
Tache' and Langevin, to encourage Quebecois to move to the West,
there had been very little such migration (in part due to opposition
from Church and political leaders in Quebec) and francophones had
already gone from being the majority to a small minority in Manitoba.

Secondly, what Laurier allowed was not the destruction of French
education in Manitoba, but of (publicly-funded) Catholic education
in that province.  In our secular age, when language is a major
topic of political controversy and religion plays a very minor
role, it's hard for us to grasp just how big a part religion played
in politics a century ago.  Of course, since French Canadians were
almost all Catholics, the two issues were not unconnected, but
I think we tend to overemphasize the linguistic aspect of past
controversies and ignore the religious side.

Though Bourassa's ideas about an independent, bilingual Canada
seem very attractive to many of us today, I wouldn't say the
same thing about his religious views.  Bourassa was a fervent
Catholic, who was ashamed of the anticlericalism of his grand-
father, Papineau.  He muted his opposition to Ontario's anti-French
Regulation 17 on orders from the Vatican (the Catholic hierarchy
in Ontario, in particular Bishop Fallon of London, was just as anti-
French as the Protestant Orange Lodge).  I think the reactionary
Catholicism supported by Bourassa was as harmful to Quebec as
the prejudice of English Canadians.

    more stuff deleted

>Nada. Nothing. NFB has helped artists but has had NO impact on the public
>at large. Fooey on you nationalistic jingoistic Canadians (yes, you
>are a jingo).

I hardly think anything Robert Smits wrote could be called "jingoistic."
A reminder that this expression has its origin in the verse:

We don't want to fight,
But, by jingo, if we do,
We've got the guns, we've got the men,
We've got the money, too.

This is from a time in the 1870's when Britain was threatening to go
to war to keep Russian naval influence from breaking through the
Dardanelles into the eastern Mediterranean.  Jingoism isn't just
nationalism, it's _bellicose_ nationalism.  Canadians have never
been in a position to be jingoistic.

>And as for the CBC, what a joke. Have you seen the new
>National. The only important thing the CBC has ever done is Hockey
>Night in Canada and the news at 10. Once again - nada, nothing.

At the risk of dating myself again...I remember when the National
was on at 11.
>
>In Quebec they actually make films that people watch. Hey, Ding et Dong
>had the highest box office receipts of last year, and nobody in English
>Canada saw it. Or the world wide acclaim of Denys Arcand or Jean-Claude
>Lauzon. All of English Canada's stars have moved to the USA to make
>it big.

I think it'd be pretty hard to translate Ding et Dong into English,
or even to teach anglos enough French to appreciate them.  I don't
find them funny.  I think you have to be raised in French Quebecoise
culture to "get" them.
>
    still more deletions

>BULLSHIT! What politician said "A British subject I was born, a British
>subject I will die" ? Hint: he executed Riel. What politician said, "When
>Britian is at war, Canada is at war ? Hint: he gave Manitobans the Manitoba
>School act and sent volunteers to fight for King and Empire in South Africa.

Thomas Greenway gave Manitobans the Manitoba Schools Act.  And when the
Boer War began, it was for Queen and Empire, Victoria not having died
yet.  But I'm nitpicking again.

>Only in French Canada did people say "Our country is Canada, not Britain".
>I admire the Americans for one thing: they achieved true independence. They
>said no to the monarchy, no to the UK and created a country founded on the
>principles of individual freedom and democracy. Do you realize HOW LONG
>Canadians had to wait for that?
>
>And as for slavery, Americans may have invented it, but Canada sure as
>hell was not going to take them in as refugees. And the Chinese, blown
>up in mine blasts in the Rockies to build our "national railroad". Kind
>liberal Canada my ass. My country killed people. My country persescuted
>minorites. My country is no better than the USA.

Slavery was not invented by the Americans.  It had existed for
millenia.  And Canada did take in runaway slaves.  Look up the
history of the Underground Railroad.  One of the first acts of the
Upper Canada Legislature, 200 years ago, was to outlaw the slave trade.
But you're right that Canadians have never been the saints we like
to portray ourselves as.  There are lots of shameful episodes in our
history.
>
Tom Box
[e-mail]