translate English to French: As he stated when presenting his bill, "We are determined to remain under the protection of the British Crown."34 The second French-Canadian minister was Louis-François Rodrigue Masson (1878-80), a former brigade major who had entered politics in 1868, after retiring from the Active Militia. The new minister, who was ill throughout much of the 1879 session, was concerned primarily with encouraging French Canadians to play "their proportionate role in 55
Ayant participé aux conférences de Charlottetown (1864), de Québec (1865) et de Londres (1866), à titre de défenseur des droits de ses compatriotes du Canada-Est, il connaissait bien les problèmes ethniques et linguistiques.