 PETER BLACK Who owned the 20th century? Canada? Or Quebec?
The most shopworn quip of the last hundred years certainly must be Sir Wilfrid Laurier's boast that the 20th century belongs to Canada.
We don't often hear the first part of that quote, in which Laurier awards the 19th century to the Americans.
With all due respect to Sir Wilf -- and with the benefit of hindsight -- we can now concede that Canada didn't come close to being the main attraction of the closing century of the millennium, although Céline Dion, Shania Twain, and Jim Carrey at least got us some ink in the tabloids in the closing years.
Sir Wilf, being probably our most quotable prime minister of the century, rivaled only perhaps by Pierre Trudeau or John Diefenbaker, had other observations that deserve some scrutiny as Canada rounds the millennial horn. Some stand the test of time better than his precipitous claim to the 20th century.
Here's one: "The unity of the people is the secret of the future."
Laurier knew a thing or two about the dark forces of disunity. If Jean Chrétien thinks he has it bad being the favourite whipping boy of contemporary sovereignist intellectuals and newspaper caricaturists, at least he can be grateful he is not the target of vengeful bishops vowing excommunication and mobs of surly English bigots as was on several occasions his hero's lot.
Laurier was frequently beset by both sides of the English/French divide. He was denounced in Toronto as a papist stooge for his support of the Jesuit Estates Act and his reluctance to dutifully commit Canadians to the service of the British in the Boer War. He took equally vehement heat from the powers of Catholic orthodoxy for his compromise agreement on the Manitoba schools question.
That latter issue also gave rise to Henri Bourassa, as eloquent an opponent as Lucien Bouchard is on his better days. Bourassa, a grandson of Patriote leader Louis-Joseph Papineau, and founder of the nationalist organ Le Devoir, started off in politics as a Laurier Liberal, but soon became the independent-minded champion of various French-Canadian struggles, such as Ontario's Regulation 17 restriction on separate schools, and the First World War conscription issue.
Bourassa was Laurier's nemesis through much of his fifteen years as prime minister. Indeed, it was Bourassa's rallying of Quebec's forces in the 1911 election against Laurier that led to the Liberal's defeat.
Author Laurier LaPierre has this to say about Bourassa in his book about his namesake: "... had Laurier not been in power and leader of the Liberal Party, he (Bourassa) would have led the province into the disastrous adventure of separatism."
Jean Chrétien, one supposes, can only dream of such praise, and, mindful of Laurier's legacy, he hopes to keep his own nationalist nemesis at bay with the Clarity Act. Bourassa, according to some historians, never really embraced the concept of a separate Quebec state, but remained a passionate defender of French rights throughout Canada. Could this be Lucien Bouchard's destiny?
"The unity of the people is the secret of the future." That unity, strained as it has been on frequent occasions this century, may not have fulfilled Laurier's vision of 100 million industrious Canadians giving the Yanks a run for their money, but all in all, the country hasn't done too badly. It's still more or less in one piece, with all regions enjoying in varying measures the fruits of a robust economy.
And as for the French-Canadian "race," as was the term in vogue at the time, how has it fared?
Well, the century ends as it begins with a popular French-Canadian as prime minister. But there's also a Supreme Court with a francophone majority, a francophone chief of defense staff, a francophone premier of an officially bilingual New Brunswick and on and on.
There's a nationwide French-speaking entity that has defied countless attempts to minimize or assimilate it. Although diminishing in proportion to the overall population, there are still some two million more French-speaking people in Canada than the country's five million total in 1900.
Laurier may have missed the mark when he said the 20th century belongs to Canada. But given the tenacity of Canada's French-speaking people, one might argue that the century, or at least a significant piece of it, belongs to them.
Copyright © 1999 Peter Black/Log Cabin Chronicles/12.99 |
