The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier: A Chronicle of Our Own Time

by Oscar D. Skelton

The field of social legislation, in which so many radical experiments have been made by other lands, in Canada falls for the most part to the provinces. Within its limited jurisdiction the Laurier Government achieved some notable results. Early in its career it put down sweating and made compulsory the payment of fair wages by government contractors. It set up a department of Labour, making it possible to secure much useful information hitherto inaccessible and to guard workmen's interests in many relations. Late in the Laurier régime a commission was appointed to study the question of technical education, important alike for manufacturer and for artisan. The most distinctive innovation, however, was the Lemieux Act, drawn up by W. L. Mackenzie King, the first deputy minister of Labour. This provided for compulsory investigation into labour disputes in quasi-public industries. It proved a long step towards industrial peace, and was one of the few Canadian legislative experiments which have awakened world-wide interest and investigation.

The growth of the West made it necessary to face the question of granting full provincial powers to the North-West Territories. Originally under the direct rule of the Dominion parliament, step by step they had approached self-government. In 1886 they had been given representation at Ottawa; in 1888 a local legislature was created, with limited powers, later somewhat enlarged; and in 1897 the Executive Council was made responsible to the legislature. Now, with half a million people between Manitoba and British Columbia, the time had come to take the last step. And so in 1905 the Autonomy Bills, establishing the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, were brought before the House of Commons by the prime minister.

There were many controversial issues involved. How many provinces should be created? Two were decided upon, to comprise the area south of the sixtieth parallel; the area to the north was left in the territorial status. What should be the capitals? Provisionally Edmonton and Regina were selected. Should the provinces be given control of crown lands? Notwithstanding some opposition, it was decided to maintain the policy, in force from the first acquisition of the West, of keeping the lands in control of the Dominion, which also had control of immigration. What financial aid should be given? Liberal grants were provided, accepted by all parties as fair and adequate. What legislative powers should the provinces be given, particularly on the subject of education? This proved a thorny question. It provoked a storm of heated controversy which for a brief time recalled the days of the Jesuits' Estates and Manitoba school questions.

A clause in the bills, which Sir Wilfrid Laurier introduced in February 1905, provided: first, that Section 93 of the British North America Act, safeguarding minority privileges, should apply; secondly, to make it clearer what these privileges were, it stipulated that the majority of the ratepayers in any district might establish such schools as they thought fit, and that the minority, whether Protestant or Catholic, might also do so, being in that case liable only for one set of school rates; and thirdly, that legislative appropriations should be divided equitably between public and separate schools.

Three main questions arose. Were separate schools desirable in themselves? Was there any obligation, legal or moral, to establish or maintain them? If so, what form should they take?

Introducing the bills, Sir Wilfrid stated that he 'never could understand what objection there could be to a system of schools wherein, after secular matters had been attended to, the tenets of the religion of Christ, even with the divisions which exist among His followers, are allowed to be taught.' He went on to contrast the schools of Canada, wherein Christian dogmas and morals were taught, with those of the United States, where they were not taught, and to point out the resulting difference in moral standards as witnessed by lynching, murder, and divorce statistics.

The great majority of Catholics and a minority of Protestants, or their ecclesiastical spokesmen, regarded the school as a means of teaching religion as well as secular subjects, and wished secular subjects, where possible, to be taught from a distinctly religious point of view. A small minority were in favour of complete secularization of all schools. The majority of Protestants would probably have favoured some non-denominational recognition of religion in the schools, and would judge denominational teaching by the test of how far this would involve herding the children apart and putting obstacles in the path of educational efficiency and of national unity.

But was parliament free to grant the provinces the liberty to decide the question solely in accord with what the majority might now or hereafter think expedient? On the one hand, it was vigorously contended that it was free, and that any attempt to limit the power of the province was uncalled for, was an attempt to petrify its laws, and to revive the coercion which Sir Wilfrid Laurier himself had denounced and defeated in 1896. The recognition of separate schools in the British North America Act, the critics continued, applied only to the four original provinces, and there was probably no power, and certainly no legal obligation, to extend the principle to the West. On the other hand, it was argued that Section 93 of the British North America Act—introduced at the instance of the Protestant minority of Quebec, and designed to protect the interest of all minorities—morally and legally bound the whole Dominion; that the Manitoba Act of 1870 confirmed the principle that the Dominion could give a new province only such powers as the constitution provided, which meant control over education subject to the minority's privilege; and that parliament, by unanimously establishing separate schools in the North-West Territories in 1875, had still further bound its successors, or at least had shown how the Fathers of Confederation interpreted the constitution.

To many, however, the abstract questions of separate schools and the constitution were less important than the practical question, What kind of schools were to be guaranteed by these bills? Sir Wilfrid Laurier declared that the school system to be continued was that actually in force in the North-West, which had been established under the clause respecting schools of the Dominion Act of 1875, which the present bills repeated word for word. This system worked very satisfactorily. It gave Catholic and Protestant minorities the right to establish separate schools, and to pay taxes only for such schools. In all other respects the school system was uniform; there was only one department of education, one course of study, one set of books, one staff of inspectors. No religious teaching or religious emblems were permitted during school hours; only in the half-hour after the close of school might such teaching be provided. The separate schools were really national schools with the minimum of ecclesiastical control.