Bilingualism: Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club / At Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916

by N. A. Belcourt

“IT WAS TAKEN TO MEAN THAT FRENCH COULD NOT BE USED AS A LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION AND COMMUNICATION;

“IT WAS REGARDED AS AN ATTEMPT TO GRADUALLY ELIMINATE THE FRENCH LANGUAGE FROM THE ENGLISH-FRENCH SCHOOLS.”

That is not my statement, remember, gentlemen, but the unanimous statement of three English inspectors and three French inspectors charged with the duty of enforcing this regulation.

Naturally the French-Canadians of Ontario, of whom there are 250,000, who have in the past enjoyed the right of teaching their language to their own children, promptly and strongly resented all this. But they have not been the aggressive and turbulent agitators which they have been represented to be. On the contrary, they took the constitutional means of going to the Department about the matter. Memorials, representations and calm and dignified protests were made. Delegations were sent to Toronto. On one occasion the chairman of the Ottawa separate school board went to Toronto as the representative of most of the different separate school boards throughout the province. Nothing came of it. Sir James Whitney told them that he was not going to establish RACIAL SCHOOLS in the Province of Ontario, whatever the meaning of that may be. He sought to make them feel that he looked upon the use of French in the Ontario schools as introducing racial schools.

Gentlemen, I have to touch on these points very briefly because I know your time is precious, and I do not want to trespass upon your indulgence. I might say that such litigation followed. However I do not propose to go into that as I do not know that much profit could be derived from it in the time which you have kindly allowed me.

Then this statute was passed last year, of which we are now asking the disallowance, and I am going to speak of that briefly. I am sure you have heard something of the petitions which have been circulated, not only in the Province of Ontario, but also in Quebec, calling upon the Dominion Government to disallow this statute passed in 1915. The statute has two effects, the validating of regulation 17, which in the meantime was being tried in the courts, and the purpose of establishing the Ottawa Separate School Commission, of which I have no doubt you have also heard.

The act takes all the powers from the Roman Catholic Separate School Trustees elected by the Roman Catholic rate-payers and confers them upon the Commission. This Commission—which I shall not qualify, but which I shall describe—was composed of three gentlemen, Mr. Denis Murphy, Mr. D'Arcy McGee, and Mr. Charbonneau. The first two being Irish Catholics, and the other a French-Canadian Catholic.

The Roman Catholic population of Ottawa is composed of nearly 50,000 people, of whom about 33,000 are French-Canadians and about 17,000 are Irish Catholics. As I said, the Government appointed two Irish Catholics and made one of them chairman, the other vice-chairman, and Mr. Charbonneau simply a member. This commission was vested with all the powers which the board of elected trustees had the statutory right and the duty to administer. You can imagine, gentlemen, how efficiently these schools could be conducted under such conditions and with such a commission. You can imagine the provocation it was to the French-Canadian population of Ottawa. I should add that one of the commissioners—they are all respectable men—but one was in the unfortunate position of being a license holder under the Government which appointed him. Mr. Charbonneau, or the firm to which he belonged, held a license for the sale of intoxicating liquors. He held his license from the Government appointing him, and this was the man who was going to administer these schools in the capital of Canada. You can imagine the resentment of the people and how difficult—how impossible—it was for such a commission to administer in a proper way the schools confided to their care. The result was confusion worse confounded, and considerable agitation, with the result that to-day there are nearly 5,000 children belonging to the English-French schools of Ottawa who are deprived of an education, and have been so deprived for two months. Their teachers have not been paid some of them for five, ten, fifteen and twenty months. The taxes belonging to the French-Canadian supporters of these schools have been used for the payment of the teachers in the schools attended by the Irish Catholics, schools which have not in any way, at any time, under any conditions being interfered with by the French-Canadian people of Ottawa.

Another result of regulation No. 17 is—I doubt if there is anyone in this room who will really believe me, but I assure you that it is true—let me tell you, gentlemen, that to-day the Germans in the Province of Ontario have and are enjoying, with the consent and participation of the Department, rights that are absolutely denied to the French-Canadian population. I knew you would say “shame.” I know no intelligent person will believe this at first, but I pledge you my word that that is the case. I am going to read you regulation 15 so that I shall not be misunderstood. Regulation 15 says: “15. In school sections where the French or German language prevails, the trustees may, in addition to the course of study prescribed for public schools, require instruction to be given in reading, grammar and composition to such pupils as are directed by their parents or guardians to study either of these languages, and in all such cases the authorized text books in French or German shall be used.”

Regulation 17 has abrogated this provision with respect to French in all schools established after June, 1912, and with respect to German the matter remains as it was under regulation 15.