From: gordon@madmax.uwaterloo.ca (Gordon R. Strachan)
Subject: Re: Radio stations in Quebec, Western Canada
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 12:44:02 GMT

In article <1382@newsserver.cs.uwindsor.ca> hlynka@server.uwindsor.ca (Myron Hlynka) writes:
>Stewart Clamen = SC
>Myron Hlynka = MH
>(in earlier postings)
>
>SC Sorry, but I am going to yell here.
>
>SC WHEN MANITOBA WAS CREATED (1870), IT WAS OFFICIALLY BILINGUAL.
>
>True, but the province of Manitoba was created in some sense when the 
>federal government had a gun to its head, at the time of the 
>Riel Rebellion. 

Not to mention the fact that when Manitoba was created it was something like
75% French speaking.

>   
>SC The Manitoba provincial government unconstitutionally removed the
>SC bilingualism provision.  In the early 1980s (I cannot remember the
>SC year), the Supreme Court of Canada ruled (the appeal case had to do
>SC with someone receiving a unilingual parking ticket, I believe) that
>SC Manitoba had been illegally passing legislation all those years, since
>SC they had not been published in both official languages.
>
>When Saskatchewan and Alberta were created in 1905, they were not
>officially bilingual. The case of Manitoba was fought earlier in 
>Manitoba and Canadian history, back in the 1890's. 
>
>More recently,
>Pierre Trudeau stacked the Supreme Court of Canada with people who 
>shared his "vision" of Canada. Then his party sought out someone in 
>Manitoba who would be willing to a case to court, any case, even a 
>traffic ticket. Trudeau's Liberal government paid all of the expenses 
>of the man involved.Of course, Trudeau's hand picked Supreme Court 
>made its decision as it was supposed to do. 
>

This is a rather paranoid view what happened.  If you look at Manitobian
history the Supreme Court was completely correct in its ruling there was no
need to stack it.  It was clear from day one that Manitoba was in violation
of its charter.  In fact it is very difficult, if not impossible, to defend
Manitoba's actions in the past towards the French speaking people there.  So
we should simply accept the court's rulings and do what we can to address
past wrongs.

>The result was that Manitoba's laws and legislation were declared 
>illegal since they had not been written in French. It is curious
>that Manitoba does not have the power to make its own rules 
>regarding language, but must get them approved by the Federal 
>government, where one can be sure that Quebec will not allow Manitoba 
>to remove any French provisions, regardless of the proportion of 
>French Manitobans. 

I am not a constitutional expert but I suspect this has something to do
with the fact that Manitoba entered confederation after Canada become a country
and Quebec came in when Canada was created.  As a result, Manitoba was created
by the Federal government and Quebec wasn't.  However, the point is irrelevant
since neither province was being told what to do by the federal government.
It was the Supreme Court which ruled on Manitoba's laws not the federal
government.  In fact, if you remember there was a parrallel drawn at the time
between the Manitoba's laws and the bill 101 in Quebec.  Both cases were
brought to the supreme court at almost the same time.  In both cases the
Supreme Courts ruled the laws were unconstitutional so the court was being
fair.  The only difference was that Manitoba was big enough to listen to the
court and do as it instructed while Quebec wasn't.

>
>The Supreme Court, amazingly enough, was going to allow 
>the Manitoba government to keep its old laws without the 
>incredible expense of translating them into French, in exchange
>for Manitoba becoming officially bilingual, as acceptable to 
>the Societe Franco Manitobain. Where the Supreme Court got the
>right to do this, I have no idea. 

Ah, I think you have this one wrong.  What happened was that the court ruled
that the Manitoba government was in the wrong but hadn't yet decided what
they were going to do.  They could have ruled all laws passed in Manitoba
since 1900 were null and void.  This would have been a disaster.  At the
same time the Society Franco-Manitoban threatened to launch another law
suit for the expansion of French services in Manitoba.  They would most
certainly would have won this so the government decided to negotiate with the
Franco-Manitobians instead.  In order to avoid the suit Pawley made major
concessions to the French in the bill he brought forward.  At the same time
the Supreme Court brought down its decision on what Manitoba had to do.  It
decided that the best thing for everyone involved was to have all laws
translated into French.  There was a time limit for this to be done and if it
wasn't the law would be void.  This was probably the best thing one could hope
for.

>
>Howver, when Howard Pawley decided to make Manitoba officially
>bilingual (French/English style), and tried to do so, 
>there was a huge outcry. A vote (without any official meaning) 
>was held in Winnipeg, (along with a city election) and the 
>concept was overwhelmingly defeated and condemned.
>The attitude of the Winnipegers was that French English bilingualism 
>was completely unfair to the other ethnic groups, especially groups 
>numerically larger than the French, such as the Ukrainian Canadians 
>and the German Canadians. 

This is true but unfortunately the people of this country are more interested
in make a constitution to reflect some time tainted view of the past and not
to make one for the future.  The powers that be will never stray from the
view of two founding nations no matter how inaccurate it may be.  So you and
I have no choice but to live with it or leave.

>Thousands of NDP party members in Manitoba
>resigned to protest Pawley's decision. When one of Pawley's
>own NDP party members, Russ Doern, broke ranks and declared that
>he would vote against the proposed legislation, Pawley
>backed down, since his majority was very slim and his whole 
>government could be defeated on the issue. 

Yes that is pretty close to what happened.  Eventually the NDP were defeated
and the conservatives brought in a new bill which expanded French services
in the province.  That was done fairly quietly and to be honest and can't
remember the details of the bill.  I can't even remember the details of the
NDP's proposal and why everyone was upset.  I suspect if the bill was
re-introduced today it would pass with out a fuss.

>
>Instead Manitoba was stuck spending millions of dollars 
>translating old laws and legislation, much
>of which was hopelessly dated, in order to satisfy the Supreme
>Court. It was a lose - lose situation. Manitobans have not forgotten.
>They did not enjoy being kicked around by Trudeau's Quebec Liberals.
>  

True which is Mulroney found out when the infamous CF-18 contract was
awarded.  Few people realized how it was linked to the above.

Gordon

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