From: clamen@CS.CMU.EDU (Stewart Clamen)
Subject: BOURASSA: IMMIGRANTS AND AN ANGLO-FRENCH WEST
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
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Reply-To: clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 06:51:49 GMT
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I posted these transcriptions a number of months ago, but my
conversation with Mr. Hylnka begs their repost.  We are, in fact,
debating old issues.

Here is the first statement.  The second will be posted subsequently.
I encourage Mr. Hylnka and others interested in this issue, to read
them.

----

Henri Bourassa, 
Canada, House of Commons Debates,
March 28, 1905 (pp. 8587-8589)

----------

Immigrants and an Anglo-French West



... Now, Sir, the British North America Act,  leaving aside  all small
considerations of detail, had, I think, two great objects in view. The
first has been frequently stated,  it had for all  its object  to bury
all quarrels of the past between Upper  and Lower Canada, that was the
birth  idea of confederation.   The second idea  was a larger one, one
that had  been  conceived   by imperial  statesmen   and  by  Canadian
statesmen, it was the loftier idea of creating under the British flag,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a  great confederation of provinces,
the basis of which would  be the principle of equality  which had been
accepted by both races in this country.  It  was at first to unite the
existing colonies and then to make them  one nation.  It did not enter
into the minds of  the fathers of  confederation  to impose the French
language upon the provinces of Ontario, neither  upon the provinces of
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia,
which   already  had constitutions, which  already   had parliamentary
institutions.  But then they  considered --- and  this was  the second
object of the Confederation Act --- when they considered  those virgin
lands when  they threw open  to civilization those immense territories
which had theretofore  been only the domain  of  the  Indian  and  the
buffalo,  what was the idea which  dominated their  minds?   It was to
introduce there an idea that  would  include  both  nationalities,  to
introduce an idea that would bring together the French and English; it
was  to create   there  a  British  colony, but  also an  Anglo-French
alliance, that would endure for all time.  That was the mother idea of
confederation  which dominated  the minds of   Sir John A.  Macdonald,
George Brown and Sir George E. Cartier.  Their idea  was that in those
new  territories,    provinces should be  carved  out   where the best
traditions  of England and France   would be introduced and maintained
for all time to come.  And  are we going  to be called demagogues, are
we to be branded with the narrow accusation that we wish to make a few
votes in our province because we  desire to keep  that pledge that not
only was given to the people of the new  Territories, but which formed
one  of the bases  of confederation?  Are  we to be  condemned because
to-day we  wish to give  effect to  that intention of  the Fathers  of
Confederation, to that intention of  the framers  of the Manitoba Act,
which we wish to perpetuate in the  northwestern provinces?  We desire
to prove  that the agreement between the  English and the French still
endures.

	The Solicitor General, I was  sorry to hear, made an  argument
this afternoon that because the  French Canadians are less numerous in
the Northwest   than    the  Germans, or   the   Scandinavians or  the
Doukhobors, there is no  reason to grant  us  the official use of  the
French language.  The Prime Minister argued that it would not  be fair
to ask for the  official  use of  French because we  were only a small
percentage of the population in those provinces.  Sir, a question like
that which  was considered by the  fathers of confederation and by the
framers of the Manitoba Act, is not one of  those  what can be settled
by  quoting figures.  What are we  doing  at the present time  by this
legislation?  We are not creating two provinces for five years, or ten
years.  What will be  the character of  those provinces in the future?
My hon. friend has given this afternoon some figures that throw a great
deal of light on this question.  It is true that  we are only four per
cent  of the population in  those two provinces.    At one time  there
were, besides Indians, no  other representatives  of civilized nations
but the French and the English.  But  if it is  true that in 1901 only
four per cent of the  population was French, it is  equally true  that
only  47 per cent  was English  speaking, including  Scotch, Irish and
Welsh; all the rest  was composed of foreigners from  other lands, men
who have no traditions in common with the  two  original races in this
country,   who know  nothing   of    our constitution, which   is  now
thirty-three  years of age.  I  say it is the duty  of the founders of
these provinces, it is their  duty to the descendents of  those French
pioneers who were  the first to  bring  civilization to  those western
countries as well as the first to  plant it  on the  shores of the St.
Lawrence,  to join hands  with   the   English-speaking  people in the
resolve  to  unit that   country great, a British colony   as long  as
possible; but that the same time to make it  so  far as traditions are
concerned, an Anglo-French country ...


--
Stewart M. Clamen			Internet:    clamen@cs.cmu.edu
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