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Monday. December 17. 1962

The house met at 2.30 p.m.

RAILWAYS. CANALS AND TELEGRAPH LINES

Fourth report of standing committee railways, canals and telegraph lines — Mr. Howe

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(Text:)

Mr. Pearson:

Mr. Chairman, we are now considering interim supply which, when passed, will have provided for ten twelfths of an expenditure of $6 billion, no single dollar of which has been passed by this house as an estimate.  This fact has been pointed out by other hon. members and it will be pointed out again.  At this moment I do not propose to spend any more time on that subject, but I should like to say something about a matter which, even in a technical sense, is covered by interim supply, because it is a subject which does involve intervention by the federal government in provincial-federal relations, and in other ways which bring the whole question to our attention; the question of provincial-federal relations, which has been dealt with in the last few minutes by my hon. friend who preceded me.  I propose to deal with one aspect of it shortly and I hope in an entirely non-partisan way.

Mr. Chairman, our country is now preparing to celebrate the centenary of our confederation. We have a bill before us, at least certain proposals are before us, which make us conscious of this fact. It should be an occasion for thanksgiving and for hope. And yet, as we prepare for this centennial celebration, we in Canada are anxious, indeed uncertain, about our future. We seem doubtful and confused about our place and our role in a rapidly changing world. Our wealth and our resources, both human and material, are great. Our standard of living is high. But we worry, and in my opinion rightly, about Inadequate economic growth and Uie unemployment which results from that, about our unfavourable international balance of payments, and about other things which may a fleet our future. We worry because we are becoming more and more dependant Instead of loss and less dependant upon the United States economically, culturally and even politically. This leaves us with a feeling of frustration and irritation. Recent event-, have shown clearly that we are going through another serious crisis of national unity, and I do not think ft is an exaggeration to call It this. Not only have we been unable In this country to agree on all the symbols of nationhood long after we have become a nation, but in some quartern the very foundation of our confederation is being questioned. Professor Frank H. Underbill, a perceptive if somewhat astringent commentator on the Canadian scene, said the other day in a speech:

The unpleasant fact is that we seem to be drifting without a compass.  We have lost that conviction of positive national purpose which inspired our forefathers in 1867&nbsp… We are fumbling for that lost sense of impending greatness which once buoyed us up … What the times demand of us is a higher degree of sustained intellectual effort, a more courageous imagination, a more experimental spirit than has ever been before required in our history.

Confederation was our declaration of faith in the destiny of a united Canada.  It was also our declaration of independence from the United States.  We would go it on our own on this continent from coast to coast, first as part of the British empire and later as an independent nation of the commonwealth of nations.  We knew at that time that such a declaration, based on such a faith, would involve an economic price.  We were ready then in Canada to pay that price — and I hope and believe we are still ready to do so — namely, the price of being Canadian.

Confederation, however, also involved another price which too many of us either forget or do not wish to pay because perhaps

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it is inconvenient for us to pay it.  Confederation meant the rejection not only of political and economic annexation by the United States but also of the American melting-pot concept of national unity.  Confederation may not have been technically a treaty or a compact between states, but it was an understanding or a settlement between the two founding races of Canada made on the basis of an acceptable and equal partnership.  That settlement provided that national political unity would be achieved and maintained without the imposition of racial, cultural or linguistic uniformity.

I sometimes think that the understanding was more academic than actual.  Outside Quebec, and as Canada grew from coast to coast, this understanding was more often honoured in the breach than in the observance and for reasons which any of us who know about the development of Canada can understand.  As a result, there has grown up in this country two different interpretations of confederation.  It is this difference in interpretation of confederation itself which has created and is creating today confusion, frustration and indeed some conflict.

To French speaking Canadians confederation created a bilingual and bicultural nation.  It protected their language and their culture throughout the whole of Canada.  It meant partnership, not domination.  French speaking Canadians believed that this partnership meant equal opportunities for both the founding races to share in all phases of Canadian development.

English speaking Canadians agree, of course, that the confederation arrangements protected the rights of French Canadians in Quebec, in parliament and in federal courts; but most felt — and I think it is fair to say this — that it did not go beyond those limits, at least until recently.  This meant that, for all practical purposes, there would be an English speaking Canada with a bilingual Quebec.  What is called the “French fact” was to be provincial only.

Mr. Chairman, this difference over the meaning of confederation was obscured for many years after 1867 by other considerations, other considerations which I have not time to go into now.  However, it is the basic source of present misunderstandings and difficulties in relations between the two founding Canadian races.

The first important clash perhaps between those two different interpretations occurred when the school question was raised in Manitoba.  Then, during and after world war I, French Canada and indeed English speaking Canada too — French Canadians and English

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speaking Canadians — were perplexed and disheartened by the conflicting interpretation of the obligations of Canada in her participation in that war.  French speaking Canadians also, and increasingly, felt they had failed somehow in their attempt to secure the acceptability of their culture in other parts of Canada.  Hence they tended to withdraw, with their frustrations, into what has been called at times the Quebec reserve.  This tendency to withdraw did not, of course, prevent important changes in Quebec, especially in the twenties, brought about especially by rapid industrialization.

I think it is fair to say that French Canadians were often slow to adjust themselves to this new industrial environment.  Most of their leaders were trained in law, theology or in medicine.  They saw Quebec’s future in terms of political autonomy, decentralization and a mainly agricultural economy.  There was fear of the new industrialization as something that would break up French Canada’s cohesion and weaken its special values, special traditions and special culture.  I believe that fear was increased, as I think the record will show, by the fact that the capital, management and skilled personnel required for industrial growth were largely imported from English speaking Canada or from the United States of America.  These managers, these financiers, these technicians from outside rightly felt that they were helping to bring wealth and material progress to Quebec, and they were.  It was hard for them to realize that often through no fault of theirs, French speaking Canadians were being excluded from the direction of and even from satisfactory participation in the economic development of their own province.  Changes, then, which brought economic advantages to Quebec suffered from the political disadvantage of being so often imported from outside and of often being alien to the spirit of Quebec.

There was ample room for misunderstanding here.  We English speaking Canadians ought to be able to appreciate this because we often react critically to American financial control and management of industrial growth and resource development in the English speaking parts of Canada.  In the English speaking provinces the barriers, when they existed, were national, not racial.  In Quebec they were primarily racial but they tended also to become national when the English speaking Canadian managers, engineers and technicians made no greater effort to adapt themselves to a Quebec cultural and linguistic environment than did Americans who had come there.

This, Mr. Chairman, was bound to bring about political strains and stresses in Quebec’s

 
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economic progress.  In spite of much sincere and conscientious effort on both sides, and I think that effort has increased in recent years, to reduce and remove these strains, “The Two Solitudes” developed side by side in many of the cities and industrial areas in the province of Quebec.  In earlier years after confederation this state, if I may call it that, of bicultural co-existence did not raise many or obvious problems.  In those days there were only marginal contacts between the two groups and English had become the language of bilingualism.  Even after world war II, when things began to change rapidly in Quebec, the Union Nationale regime helped to hide what was taking place in French Canada from the English speaking community.

This Quebec industrial revolution was accompanied, as revolutions of this kind nearly always are, by parallel revolutions in other fields.  Perhaps it was most apparent in the arts and in literature.  But the structure of society was also changing in other respects as well.  Co-operatives, labour unions, credit unions all grew rapidly in that prov­ince.  Even more important were the changes taking place in the system of education there.  Engineering, commerce, the natural sciences and the social sciences began to attract a greater and greater number of students.

People in English speaking Canada were aware, of course, that something was hap­pening in Quebec.  We were becoming more and more conscious than we were before of Quebec’s importance as a partner in con­federation.  We were not lacking in good will and in a desire to understand the special situation of Quebec.  But perhaps we needed shock treatment to make us appreciate the full significance of what had happened, of Quebec’s social revolution.  That shock was given in recent years by separatism, by the agitation in some quarters, which got so much publicity, for what was called political libera­tion.  That was an extreme reaction to what had been going on for at least 13 years in industrial and social change.  Less extreme reactions, however, were perhaps even more significant and quite as sincere as a reflection of Quebec’s impatience with her present position in confederation.  In any event, for Quebec the period of rural isolationism was over and the prospect of mere survival, even industrial survival, in confederation was not good enough.

It is now clear to all of us, I think, that French speaking Canadians are determined to become directors of their economic and cultural destiny in their own changed and changing society.  They feel that in doing so they are not being isolationists but that, on the contrary, only in this way can they make their rightful contribution to the true development of Canadian confederation.  To this end they also ask for equal and full opportunity to participate in all federal government services, in which their own language will be fully recognized.  This right flows from the equal partnership of confederation.

Are these objectives of full participation in the discharge of national responsibilities along with the full enjoyment of rights and opportunities attainable for all French speaking citizens in our country as it is at present organized in confederation?  I submit that the answer depends in part on French speaking Canadians themselves, on their willingness to continue the effort they have been making, on a large scale since 1960, to develop educational facilities and to ensure that there will be enough qualified French speaking Canadians to exploit the opportunities and fulfil the responsibilities that develop.

But the answer also depends, and I believe in greater degree, on English speaking Canadians because we are in the majority.  In managerial levels in industry, for instance, and in the federal public services it is the English speaking Canadians who must accept the changes which are required to make a reality of full partnership.  Are we willing to do it?  Are we prepared not only to accept those long term objectives of partnership but, perhaps more important and more difficult for us, to take immediate and concrete steps to achieve them?

If the answer to these questions is in the affirmative, then we can be confident of the future of our united country and we can look forward to a new era of strength and unity which will enable us to overcome any economic, cultural and political differences and to go forward together as Canadians.  But if the answer is negative, not so much the answer in words but the answer in fact, and if we become unaware or careless of the obligations and opportunities of true partnership, we will continue in this country to drift from one difficulty to another until a majority of people on both sides will have had enough of this unique Canadian experience.  The final result of that would, indeed, be separatism.  I am sure we are all in full agreement that this course would be only a desperate and despairing solution, for it would mean the end of our united country and the betrayal of a great national heritage.  It would be a loss, an indescribable loss to us all.

Today, when the greatest need of free men and free nations is to come closer together politically, economically and culturally, to accept and act on the compulsions and opportunities of interdependence; at this time of all times it would be a tragic thing for Canadians

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to have to admit their failure to unify their own country in any real and meaningful sense, which means unity without sacrificing special and separate values.  No Canadian, surely, could contemplate with anything but bitter regret the weakening, let alone the fail­ure, of confederation, especially when Canada has grown so much in stature and achieved so much respect in the world.

So, Mr. Chairman, we should be careful not to be complacent about what is happening.  We should also be careful not to let emotions created by immediate controversies or special incidents warp our judgment or distort our perspective.  We should not assume that cracks mean the wall is falling.  On the other hand, we will never restore strength merely by papering over the cracks as they occur.  It is a time, Mr. Chairman, not for extremists and their passions but for a deep, responsible, and understanding examination of basic situations.

This means, I believe, that we have now reached a stage when we should seriously and collectively in this country review the bi-cultural and bilingual situation in our country:  our experiences in the teaching of English and French, and in the relations existing generally between our two founding racial groups.  In this review there should also be in my view, every opportunity and every encouragement for Canadians, individually or in their associations, and organizations, to express their ideas on this situation.  If they find it unsatisfactory they should suggest concrete measures to meet it and to reach a better, more balanced participation of our two founding groups in our national affairs.

Are we ready, for instance, to give to all young Canadians a real opportunity to become truly bilingual?  If the answer is yes, as I am sure it would be, what concrete steps should be taken at the different levels of our educational system to bring about this opportunity, having regard to the fact that constitutional responsibility for education is, and must remain, exclusively provincial?  What further contribution to this end have we the right to expect from radio, from television and from films in both languages?  How can we encourage more frequent contacts between young Canadians?

Then, there is the question which has already been mentioned in this debate, one of specific and inescapable federal responsibility.  What are the reasons why there are

Interim Supply

relatively so few French speaking Canadians in the professional and administrative jobs of the federal civil service, including crown corporations and federal agencies?  How can that situation be improved as it must be improved?  Would it be desirable, for instance to have a bilingual school of public administration operated by the federal government in Ottawa?

There are a great many more questions that we might ask ourselves.  These questions are now very much in the minds of Canadians, more so I believe than ever before in our history.  They deserve concrete answers because they are vital to our future as a united country.  They should he thoroughly examined and Canadians should be given an opportunity of expressing their views about them.  There could not be any better preparation for the celebration of the centenary of confederation than to seek and find these answers.  The federal government, as I have already stated and as is obvious to us all, has a special and exclusive responsibility to do something about the federal service and the crown companies.  But an inquiry here, Mr. Chairman, and even necessary changes, will not in my view go far enough.  Many of the most important problems to be solved fall within provincial jurisdiction, especially those arising out of the teaching of both languages.  Therefore, if this wider inquiry into the means of developing the bicultural character of Canadian confederation is to be undertaken, the provincial governments would have to be associated with it.

I suggest that to this end the federal government should consult with the provincial governments without delay.  If these consultations — I hope this would not happen and I cannot see any reason why it should — do not result in a positive response or if they are delayed, then of course any federal government would have an obligation to go ahead with the inquiry into matters which fall within its own jurisdiction.  One additional advantage, Mr. Chairman, of the joint inquiry, that is with the provinces, is that it would show the importance of the contribution to our national development made by Canadians other than the founding races, which has been of special and indeed exciting value since world war II.  This contribution of new Canadians from old races has added strength, colour and vitality to the pattern of our national life.  It has enriched Canadianism by qualities inherited from old and noble traditions and cultures of other lands.

What better way could we prepare for our centenary than by taking effective steps
 

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now to deepen and strengthen the reality and the hopes of confederation so that all Canadians, without regard to race or language or cultural backgrounds, may feel with confidence that within this nation they can realize, without discrimination and tn full partnership, a good destiny for themselves and for those who follow them.  In that spirit of hope and confidence we can all work together and build up a greater and more united Canada.

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