Quebec and Canadian Democracy

Quebec and Canadian DemocracyAuthor(s): Michael OliverSource: The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienned'Economique et de Science politique, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Nov., 1957), pp. 504-515Published by: Wiley on behalf of Canadian Economics AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/139016 .

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QUEBEC AND CANADIAN DEMOCRACY*

MICHAEL OLIVER United College

IT is one of the truisms of Canadian politics that stable federal power cannot be achieved without support from the province of Quebec. Until 1896 the dominant political party, the Conservatives, was the one which held Quebec. Since that period, Liberal ascendancy has been based on solid strength in French Canada. The problem of creating sufficient inter-cultural agreement to make possible the formulation of federal policy has been the most important single factor in determining the character of national party competition. This

difficulty has set a premium on those skills of negotiation and conciliation which have in fact distinguished most successful Canadian statesmen, and has, more than anything else, inhibited the formation of national parties with consistent principles and policies.

Political parties, as a condition of national success, have had to unite French and English elements; but thus far they have done so only on the most tenuous basis. For many purposes, a minimal consensus was sufficient, but it seems to have been inadequate to achieve the full measure of power and influence which the Fathers of Confederation envisaged for central government. Although judicial decisions, and economic and geographic forces, may have accentuated the trend to a decentralization far greater than that contemplated in 1867, the basic reason for this development has been the impossibility of

creating national parties which would unite both French and English Cana- dians behind alternative programmes. In the words of a French-Canadian historian: "Les principaux auteurs de la Conf6deration n'avaient pas cache leur intention d'organiser un gouvernement central tres puissant."' It must be concluded that they either seriously overestimated the range of shared

assumptions between the two cultures, or badly underestimated the degree of

unity on fundamentals which was necessary to run the centralized state they had tried to create. The only type of national political party which Canada has been able to construct successfully has not proved capable of fulfilling their intentions.

In spite of the narrow range of agreement between French and English Canada, during the Second World War and the post-war period there occurred a piecemeal expansion of the central government's activity which, in sum, marked an extension of the federal power beyond anything which had been achieved in the past. This expansion-through war powers, defence activity, unemployment insurance, tax-rental agreements, family allowances, federal aid to universities, and the proposed scheme of national hospital insurance-reflected both the necessities of international conditions and an increased willingness in English Canada to see more power of initiative given the central

*This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Ottawa, June 13, 1957.

1Michel Brunet, Canadians et canadiens (Montreal, 1955), 24.

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Quebec and Canadian Democracy

government. But it has not been accompanied by increased accord between Canada's two cultures. Quebec has never been completely alienated-the

conciliatory skills of the federal government have been sufficient to prevent this-but there has been a gradual stiffening of resistance. An administratively viable solution was applied to each problem; the unity of the state was not endangered by any one of them; but in French Canada the conviction grew that a policy, whose implications had not been thrashed out openly, was being imposed on it by an increasingly united English-Canadian majority. The victory of the Union Nationale party in the last Quebec election indicated that Premier

Duplessis' zealous campaign for provincial autonomy, climaxed by his im-

position of a provincial income tax, was based on a correct assessment of

provincial temper. Willy-nilly, the federal government will be required to do more and more

in the second half of the twentieth century, and increased activity without a

broadening of the agreed aims of Canada's two national groups is inherently dangerous. In the past, when federal governments could restrict themselves to more limited functions, it was possible for Canadians to dispense with close examination of the premises of governmental action. But the debate which must precede a wider range of inter-cultural agreement probably cannot be indefinitely postponed without considerable risk. It would be extremely rash to assert that, throughout Canada's past, federal leaders should have insisted that a full public discussion of fundamentals-a debate in which both French and English Canadians opened their hearts-precede every major decision. Men like Henri Bourassa who emphasized principles and who tried to air the differences between French and English Canada, produced division, though they may have laid the foundation for future agreement. The belief that the better one people gets to know another the friendlier they become is a highly dubious one. There is no reason, drawn from logic or experience, why closer acquaintanceship should not reveal new and better causes for hostility. On the other hand, there seems to be a limit to co-operation based on nothing more than agreement to avoid discussing differences.

Is there any reason to believe that there can be created in the future a closer relationship between English and French Canadians than that which has so far been characteristic of successful national parties, with their detach- able Quebec wings? Two conditions, it may be suggested, would have to be fulfilled.

The first of these is the possibility of differentiating between a number of

viewpoints in French Canada rather than facing a single monolithic French- Canadian outlook. If it is realistic to identify only one French-Canadian attitude, then only one political party will be likely to command Quebec support. This single Quebec viewpoint may at one time best express itself through one party, at another time through another party. But as long as it remains undifferentiated, there is no basis for full French-Canadian integration into the federal party system as a whole. The main part of this paper examines the

hypothesis that French-Canadian political opinion may in the future express itself federally through a variety of channels.

Simply stated, the second condition is a willingness on the part of the

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The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science

English-Canadian majority to deal with French Canada on a deeper level than that demanded by a series of ad hoc compromises. Just to state a point like this, however, is to run the risk of misinterpretation. There is something dreadful about bonne-ententisme; it conjures up visions of those rather appal- ling English 'Canadians who never tire of saying how unfortunate it is that we do not know more about these wonderfully quaint French Canadians who add so much "colour" to Canadian life. The English Canadian who "under- stands" French Canada should be automatically suspect.

I

Every French Canadian is not a nationalist, and in fact many of the younger men and women who are beginning to make an impact on French-Canadian

thinking have consciously thrown off the stereotypes of nationalist thought. However, in the words of M. Pierre-Elliott Trudeau in his introductory chapter to La Grdve de ramiante, French-Canadian nationalism has been l'axe

principal autour duquel a gravit6 presque toute la pensee sociale des Canadiens frangais."2 Nationalist ideology more than anything else, perhaps, has been

responsible for the unified character of French-Canadian participation in federal politics. No matter what their party label, Quebec politicians have

represented to some extent that conception of the French-Canadian nation which nationalist theoreticians have formulated in a vast assemblage of books, in pamphlets and newspaper articles, in sermons, and in St. Jean Baptiste Day orations over a long period of years.

For the most part, this nationalist ideology was fashioned by men who were

highly conservative, even reactionary. There were always exceptions, most

notably, perhaps, Henri Bourassa, whose ability to respond to the challenge of social and political change with imagination and openness makes it im-

possible to classify him on the political right, in spite of the reactionary aspects of his thought. A similar occasional capacity for radicalism can be seen in Olivar Asselin from the days when he spoke with sympathy about the "Red Flag"3 to his final years when he wrote one of the most biting denunciations of nationalist anti-Semitism ever to appear in a Quebec publication.4 But these were the exceptions in a body of thought which was developed, particularly in the 1920's, along thoroughly right-wing lines. To those who directed the editorial policy of Action franfaise, to those who read the papers at the Semaines Sociales and wrote the pamphlets for the Ecole Sociale Populaire, to the leaders of the Association de la Jeunesse Canadienne-Frangaise, to those who in the thirties ran Le Devoir-the paper Bourassa had founded-nationalism meant an attempt to recreate in Quebec an idealized past by sealing provincial society against outside forces and searching for a leader who could establish therein a rigid, anachronistic order. It was an attempt to build an

agricultural dream-world, peopled by a mythical "race," with all that might interfere with a divinely ordained collective mission eliminated. The emphasis

2En collaboration, sous la direction de Pierre-Elliott Trudeau, La Greve de l'amiante (Montreal, 1956), 11.

3Olivar Asselin, Pensee franpaise (Montreal, 1937), 50. 4Ibid., 188 ff.

506




on order and authority overwhelmed all idea of liberty, except national liberty; 6litism and leader-worship destroyed the concept of equality, which came to apply only to the French-Canadian nation in relation to other nations. If it is proper to identify the left with a desire for liberty and equality, and the right with a stress on order and privilege, then the dominant strand of French- Canadian nationalism in the period after the First World War was rightist. Federal representatives from Quebec tended to reflect this general viewpoint; but, more important, nationalist ideology painted these representatives as ambassadors, and sometimes as traitorous ones, to a government which was not their own.

Yet, even during the thirties, when the depression and the chaos of international affairs led to a very general sympathy for extreme doctrines, nationalism in French Canada was not totally directed toward the political right. A deepening of conservative blue, until it became a fascist black, did occur both with the formation of M. Adrien Arcand's Parti National Social Chretien- a small, atypical, if noisy, group-and with the publication of M. Paul Bouchard's La Nation, a more direct outgrowth of the nationalist tradition. But at the same time a small body of liberal, left-wing nationalist thought was developing.

This left-wing development was largely a response to the influence of French Catholic personalist thought-to Jacques Maritain, and the Paris review Esprit and its director, Emmanuel Mounier. But because those who were captivated by this new continental thought were still part of the domestic nationalist movement, their ideas were a strange amalgam of the traditional and the radical. It was obviously difficult to reconcile the doctrines of nationalists like Abbe Groulx with those of a man like Mounier. Abbe Groulx had written in 1924 that democracy was not only a disordered political system but essentially disorganizing. It was by its very nature obliged to take account of all the divergent passions, all the anarchic caprices of universal suffrage, and could thus only by accident submit itself to the intransigent order of principles. Like many other right-wing nationalists, the Abbe disliked both capitalism and democracy. Democracy was almost exclusively concerned with economic considerations, Abb6 Groulx said, but it misunderstood them, because it was enclosed within them.5

Emmanuel Mounier too was hesitant about using the term democracy, but for rather different reasons. It had been dirtied by its associations. His political advice, which influenced the nationalism of the thirties, was later summarized in his book Personalism. The doctrine which he expounded demanded engage- ment in political change; it guarded against affirming spiritual values without precise statement of the means for acting upon them; it avoided a priori dogmatism in order to keep faith with reality and the spirit of freedom; and it rejected the "tabula rasa myth of revolution" as well as satisfaction with the status quo.6

The economic and social aspect of Mounier's proposals was similarly at

5Abb6 Lionel Groulx, "Les Vingt Ans de l'A.C.J.C.," Action fran9aise, XI, juin 1924, 362. 6Emmanuel Mounier, Personalism (London, 1952), 101-2. (Tr. by Philip Mairet from

first ed., Paris, 1950.)

507




variance with the thinking of the dominant French-Canadian nationalists of the twenties. Whereas the nationalists' mistrust and dislike of capitalism led to a preference for corporatism and a more ruralized economy-what M. Michel Brunet has called the agriculturalist illusion of French Canada--Mounier suggested a sharp scrutiny of those who proposed a corporate economy and who

postulated a harmony of workers, employers, nation, and state by a mythical analogy with the human organism.8 Rather, Mounier believed that the

embryonic forms of a future, desirable society appeared in the full-grown body of capitalism. This would be a socialist world, he said, if by socialism was meant the following: The abolition of the proletarian condition; the supersession of the anarchic economy of profit by an economy directed to the fulfilment of the totality of personal needs; the socialization, without state monopoly, of those sectors of industry which otherwise foster economic chaos; the development of co-operative life; the rehabilitation of labour; the promotion, in rejection of all paternalist compromises, of the worker to full personality; the priority of labour over capital; the abolition of class distinctions founded upon the division of labour or of wealth; the priority of personal responsibility over the anonymous organization.9

The clash between the influence of domestic, nationalist right, and continental, Catholic left was particularly noticeable in a French-Canadian review of the early 1930's, La ReMve. Its contributors proclaimed that social change was necessary, but reform had to be purely French Canadian; there could be no question of following the Woodsworths, the English, the Protestants.10 Everything had to be subordinated to the concrete problem of Quebec, " . . . le probleme de la patrie, de la nation liberee, vivant par elle-meme."11 The resolution of La Releve's dilemma came in the fall of 1936, with a redefinition of nationalism, in an article entitled: "Pr6liminaire 'a un manifeste pour la patrie."12 It undoubtedly constituted a swing to the left, but it was made in such a way as to lessen whatever political impact it might have had. La Releve's reassessment of its nationalist ideas eliminated separatism, racialism, and authoritarianism; it discarded the subordination of the individual to the whole which had been characteristic of Groulx's nationalism; it set aside the concept of a collective national destiny, divinely ordained; it thrust to the fore the human person-the worker in his slum tenement, the farmer on his land-and proclaimed his right to work and to receive just remuneration. Its contributors heaped scorn on nationalist leader-worship13 and proclaimed the necessity for continual denunciation of the crime of racialism.'4 But La Relve at the same time minimized the political dimension of human existence. The main theme of the "Pr6liminaire" was a denial of the primacy of political action, a repudia- tion of that political nationalism which, by calling on French Canadians to be masters of the economy and the politics of Quebec, risked a descent into

7"Trois Illusions de la pensee canadienne-fran:aise," Le Devoir, 2 juin 1954. 8Mounier, Personalism, 105. 9 Ibid., 104.

lOClaude Hurtubise, "Compassion pour une jeunesse catholique," La Rellve, I, no. 2, n.d., 30.

lRobert Charbonneau, "Notes sur la jeunesse," La Relive, II, no. 4, decembre 1935, 103. 12La Releve, III, no. 1, septembre-octobre 1936. 13Guy Fregault, "Du c6te des chefs," La Releve, IV, no. 10, janvier 1940. 14Claude Hurtubise, "Les Revues et les ev6nements," La Rellve, IV, no. 10, janvier

1940, 320.

508




materialism.l5 Nation and state were clearly distinguished and this was the means of eliminating the separatist thesis that the French-Canadian nation

required an independent state for its proper fulfilment. But because the distinction between nation and state was also the first step in a chain of reasoning which substituted cultural action for political, La Releve became less and less a political review. Its chief contributors leaned temperamentally to literature- Robert Elie and Robert Charbonneau became novelists; Saint-Denys Garneau, one of Canada's leading poets. But it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Releve group withdrew from politics as much because they quailed at the immense task of transposing their religious ethic into a political programme for Quebec as because they believed political preoccupations to be too materialistic.

The struggle to develop a left-wing position within the framework of French- Canadian nationalism during the thirties can also be traced in certain indi- dividuals, notably M. Andre Laurendeau. Laurendeau was too firmly attached to politics to withdraw from action when faced with the perplexing problem of reconciling his personal convictions with traditional nationalism. Instead he made a forthright attempt to state his case and have it prevail within a nationalist context. The articles which he sent back home to Action nationale

during his stay in France in 1935-6 provide the clearest evidence of his

sympathies. He became convinced of the folly of allowing Catholic doctrine to be identified with the right's fetish of order, and, strongly influenced by the French Catholic leftists, he joined them in condemning Italian imperialism in Ethiopia and accepted Esprit's characterization of the Spanish insurrection as "une reaction de defense capitaliste, fasciste et feodaloclericale, dirig6e par des g6neraux impitoyables."16

He complained that even the best French-Canadian daily newspapers were

giving their readers a one-sided version of the Spanish War. They confused the church's cause with that of certain Catholics, without asking themselves if the Catholics of Spain were not deeply responsible for the situation which had arisen. Laurendeau himself was certain that they shared the guilt; and he pro- tested: "Dieu n'est pas une police bourgeoise chargee de d6fendre les grandes proprietes des nobles et de certaines communautes religieuses, et 'expropriation ehontee du pauvre par le grand capitaliste. . ."17 A reflex of fear caused the Catholic press of Quebec to draw only one conclusion from the Spanish War: beware of Communism. It was just as important, Laurendeau said, to beware of a Christianity "qui aurait perdu le sens de lui-meme," and of Christians "qui continueraient de se refuser a la misere de ce monde."18 Spiritual complacency, and generous intentions which did not dare let themselves be guided by clear vision, were dangers too.

But in spite of the fact that he was obviously striking out in a direction

diametrically opposed to that taken by most French-Canadian nationalists, Laurendeau had no notion of encouraging a division into rightist and leftist

groups within the nationalist movement. The indivisible French-Canadian

15La Relive, III, no. 1, septembre-octobre 1936, 9. 16"Lettre de Paris," Action nationale, IX, janvier 1937, 41. 17Ibid., 41n. 18La Nation, I, 27 aout 1936.

509




nation; the necessity of closed ranks against Anglo-Saxon domination; the traditional nationalist hatred of political parties-all these ideas still had their effect. While he was away, there had occurred the triumph of M. Maurice

Duplessis and the Union Nationale and M. Duplessis' betrayal of Paul Gouin's Action Liberale Nationale. Yet Laurendeau hailed Duplessis' sweep of provincial seats as a triumph for nationalism, although it was already apparent to him that the political right was in power, wearing its nationalism as a convenient mask.

Andre Laurendeau's sympathy with the left was unquestionable and his contribution to a more liberal social and political viewpoint among the nationalists of his province at this period cannot be denied. He struggled to make the policy of provincial autonomism liberal and progressive; but he

continually found himself setting all other considerations aside in order to defend French Canada's separate identity.

It would be possible to cite other examples of a left-wing current in nationalist thought which struggled against the highly conservative orthodoxy of the movement. The books and articles of Frangois Hertell9 were a strange mixture of nationalist separatism, admiration for some aspects of the political right, and a liberal humanism which derived once more from the Catholic

personalists. He reached out to France for new ideas and new standards and, like Andre Laurendeau, tried to find a place for them in his provincial setting. The result of his endeavours was an eccentric mixture of ideas rather than a

synthesis; but his adventurous mind valued its own freedom too highly for him to share the traditionalist and authoritarian predilections of Action franfaise. In the articles on corporatism by MM. G6rard Picard20 and Gerard Filion21 in 1938 can again be seen a consciousness of the need for quite radical economic reform in the province, although the medium for change which they supported, corporatism, was one which had its only modern application in a rightist context.

Halting though they were, these elements of a left-wing reinterpretation of nationalism would probably have experienced a slow, gradual growth, and the differences in social and political ideas among French-Canadian nationalists

might have widened steadily and regularly, had it not been for the Second World War. The forces which fostered a division into left and right did not abate. In France, liberal and socialist Catholic thought gradually increased its leftward orientation; left and right separated even further. At home in

Quebec, industrialism was continually adding to the variety in occupation and outlook which Professor Jean-Charles Falardeau described in Essais sur le

Quebec contemporain.2 But the war came and it had a dual effect: it provided a temporary rallying point for French-Canadian unity, and it quickened im-

measurably the tempo of industrialization and diversification. The tendency toward unification found its clearest expression in the Bloc Populaire Canadien,

'9E.g., Leur Inquietude (2nd. ed., Montreal, 1944); Pour un ordre personnaliste (Montreal, 1942). Sections of both books had previously been published as articles in Action nationale.

20"Association professionnelle et corporation," Action nationale, XI, mai 1938. 21"La Corporation en marche," Action nationale, XI, juin 1938. 22Qu6bec, 1953.

510




but the Bloc's ultimate legacy was a division as profound, perhaps, as that

produced more quietly by industrialization. The lingering death of the party, which had attracted men with views as opposed as those of Andr6 Laurendeau and L6opold Richer, began as soon as the conscription issue was settled. Peace was disastrous; it turned attention to social questions on which there was no real consensus in the party. To survive, a party which had never tasted power, which lacked funds, efficient machinery, and political experience, required much greater doctrinal consistency than the Bloc could ever command. Its demise shattered the illusion of nationalist unity and brought into sharp focus the differences of class and ideology among its supporters.

Right- and left-wing nationalism did not immediately ripen to separate maturity; the process still continues. The distinction which M. Jean-Marc Leger made in 195223 between the nationalism of the modern Le Devoir on the one hand and that of Notre Temps on the other is more necessary than ever today. The division of right and left has even been the subject of a rather ludicrous caricature in M. Robert Rumilly's recent brochure, L'Infiltration gauchiste au Canada franfais.2 Lines of separation among nationalists are obviously not clear cut, and there remains a sufficient number of issues on which nationalists of various complexions are united for a review like the Action nationale to maintain an uneasy alliance. Unanimity in support of a provincial income tax and in the campaigns for the "Chateau Maisonneuve," for bilingual federal

cheques and for a national flag is not, however, a strong enough cement to mend the breaches on labour policy, public control of natural resources, foreign policy, attitudes to visitors to China and Eastern Europe, judgment of M. Duplessis' regime and a host of other questions of first-rate importance. M. Anatole Vanier undoubtedly spoke for many of the older members of the

Ligue d'Action Nationale when he complained quite bitterly of the air of radicalism which many of the younger contributors were giving to the Action nationale.256

The "official" ideology of Quebec, nationalism, has thus gradually developed to the point where to regard it as a single body of thought and opinion is less realistic than ever before. Some nationalists of the left, at least, have shown their willingness to align themselves politically with those who share wholeheartedly their ideas on social policy even if there are disagree- ments on questions of a purely nationalist order. M. Andre Laurendeau, just after the Liberal victory of 1953, admitted editorially in Le Devoir that experience had proved that an exclusively nationalist party was not capable of

providing an effective alternative to the Liberals, and suggested that nationalists "fondent leur groupe sur les idees plus universelles." Foremost among these ideas, he suggested, was "l'idee social. Elle a assez de r6alit6 et d'urgence pour unir ici les esprits les plus divers. Elle pourrait servir de lien avec des

groupes d'autre origine ethnique."26 Within French Canada itself, the possibility of an alliance between nation-

23Le Canada frangaise a la recherche de son avenir," Esprit, XX, aout-septembre 1952, 276-7.

24Edit6 par l'auteur (Montreal, 1956). 25"Aller a gauche et a droite," Action nationale, XLVI, octobre 1956. 26"Anne, ma sceur Anne. ..." Le Devoir, 14 aofit 1958.

511




alists and non-nationalists who are agreed on social policy has already been

partially explored. Just three months after M. Laurendeau's editorial, M. Pierre- Elliott Trudeau echoed the former's proposals in Cite libre, a review manned

by individuals closely connected with the Quebec labour movement and pre- occupied with social and economic questions. He wrote: "J'aimerais que les nationaux et les sociaux tentent de dresser un programme concret d'action

politique.... Ils seraient peut-etre etonnes de voir a quel point leurs id6aux

peuvent s'epouser, et combien convergeants devraient etre leurs moyens d'agir."27 This type of speculation has borne fruit in organization, but not in

unity. Nationalists such as the late Me. Jacques Perrault joined the Parti Social

Democratique; M. Andr6 Laurendeau lent his support to the new Rassemble- ment.

It is questionable, of course, to what extent this development of the left has significance outside a rather narrow circle of intellectuals. In estimating the chances of a left-wing political movement's gaining popular support in

Quebec, it is vital to assess the probable attitude of the key institution in the

province, the Roman Catholic church; and to inquire into the availability of

specific institutions which might lend mass support. Nationalism and the church were always closely linked. Priests educated

in schools where nationalist ideas dominated spread the secular doctrine through their parishes. There was thus an organic connection between the group of intellectuals who developed the nationalist ideology and the people of the province. Probably no other social and political theory will ever have this advantage, for urbanization and changing ideas are altering the relationship between church and people. During the thirties, a number of voices questioned the nature of the church's role in the nationalist movement; Bourassa spoke with horror of a "religion nationalisee,"28 and the effect of his speeches, although they were often bitterly resented, was reinforced by those who read Jacques Maritain's discussion of "'Taction temporelle du chretien"29 and who listened to Esprit's plea for a Catholicism which expressed itself, not in theo- cracy, but in a "return to the double rigours of transcendence and incar- nation."30 Since the Second World War, many of the same people who had moved politically in a liberal-social direction have turned more and more against the politicizing of faith. It must be stressed, however, that the frank discussions of the church's position in the province- in Cite libre, for example31 -are firmly Catholic and bear little resemblance to secular anti-clericalism. This is equally true when such matters have been broached in nationalist publications like the Action nationale.32 To the extent that a changed viewpoint on the church's role in political affairs is reflected within the church itself, it might discourage a repetition of such action as the formal disapproval of a

27"L'Election f6derale: prodromes et conjectures," Cite libre, no. 8, novembre 1953, 9-10. 28See especially three speeches of Bourassa's: "Le Nationalisme est-il un peche?" 30

avril 1935; "Le Nationalisme religieux est l'antithese du catholicisme," 9 mai 1935; "Catho- liques et non-Catholiques," 15 mai 1935.

29See his Du regime temporel et de la liberte (Paris, 1933). 30Mounier, Personalism, 122. 31Jean Le Moyne, "L'Atmosphere religieuse au Canada frangais" and Pierre Vadboncceur,

"R6flexions sur la foi," Citre libre, no. 12, mai 1955. 32Pierre de Grandpre, "L'Inquietude spirituelle et son expression dans les lettres re'-

centes," Action nationale, XLV, juin 1956.

512




successful social-democratic party. A fraction of the clergy may even be ex-

pected, as individuals, to sympathize with left-wing social reforms. Positive institutional support for a left-wing party in Quebec would naturally

be sought in the syndicates of the Confederation des Travailleurs Catholiques du Canada (C.T.C.C.) and other trade-union groups. Although any measure of success without such a solid base would be highly improbable, the

political tradition of North American trade unions-that of the pressure group-gives little reason for optimism on this score. It may be, however, that

Quebec trade unions do not fall into normal North American categories. There are signs, particularly within the Catholic syndicates, that an intel- lectual leadership group, likely to sympathize with political action based on

clearly defined social policy, is far more closely integrated with Quebec unions than is the case in the rest of Canada or the United States. The labour

policy of the Union Nationale regime, moreover, has provided little en-

couragement for those who believe that the trade union's best line of action is pressure on the government.

II

Two conditions were postulated early in this paper for the creation of closer political ties between French and English Canada. One has been examined-the possibility of distinguishing more than one general French- Canadian outlook. The other, the ability of the English-Canadian majorities in our political parties to alter their relationship to French Canada, remains to be touched on briefly. Is it conceivable that a federal political party which

recognized that Quebec was no longer socially and politically monolithic, that even its nationalism was composed of varied shades of opinion, could build an alliance involving more than temporary accommodation? This process has

hardly begun thus far. M. Pierre Vigeant, with a good deal of justice, wrote in Le Devoir that during the 1957 election, "Les chefs des deux grands partis federaux nont rien a nous dire. Ils se gardent bien de soulever les problemes qui nous int6ressent de fagon particuliere et dont la discussion pourrait leur nuire dans les autres provinces."33

For a number of reasons, it is unlikely that the Liberal party would initiate

any such change. As the chief practitioner of that political technique which subordinates principle to the negotiation of ad hoc compromises, and as the holder of the vast majority of federal seats in Quebec, the Liberals can hardly be expected to abandon their winning ways. Recent history bears this out. Prior to the 1956 Quebec election, the provincial Liberals attempted to mark out a

position clearly to the left of the Union Nationale. Grass-roots organization was to lay the basis for internal party democracy; a new stress on principles was symbolized by the reproduction in La Reforme of Laurier's 1877

speech on liberalism.34 But party reform was to no avail and there was a

widespread belief that much of the responsibility for failure lay with the national party. Federal Liberal members were charged with collaboration with the Union Nationale; the federal party seemed more interested in reaching a modus vivendi with M. Duplessis' party than in replacing it. The only

33"Le Quebec laisse en dehors de la lutte 6lectorale," Le Devoir, 28 mai 1957. 34La RWforme, 30 mars 1955.

513




federal cabinet minister from Quebec to suffer defeat in the 1957 federal election was among that minority which worked hard for the provincial Liberals. Thus the provincial party which tried to stand for liberalism failed, and the federal members who sought simply to represent Quebec succeeded. Whether this is a healthy situation for the party as a whole in Quebec remains to be seen. The importation of a French Canadian from Ontario as a leading Quebec representative strongly suggests that the role played by the federal party has not attracted many of the abler young men in the

province. But the current situation makes it unlikely that the Liberals will be the medium for the evolution of a new party pattern.

To the right of the Liberals, the prospects are little different. English- Canadian conservatism differs radically from French-Canadian, and especially nationalist, conservatism. The orthodox English-Canadian right has been urban-industrial, anxious to control state activity (tariff policy, for example) as well as to reduce it. By contrast, the French-Canadian nationalist right has been agriculturalist and anti-state. It has, moreover, stressed ethnic exclusive- ness and magnified the distinctions between French and English Canada.

Perhaps the two can best meet through such an intermediary as the Union Nationale. Marrying English-Canadian business money and French-Canadian nationalist fervour remains an effective formula for provincial elections, but it is questionable whether it can be extended to federal politics.

Is there more reason to believe that a larger range of shared principles might be built on the left? The difficulties are great, perhaps insuperable. There has existed for many years in Quebec a provincial section of the C.C.F.

party; its most loyal supporters could not call its progress spectacular. Recently, its name was changed to the Parti Social Democratique, in an

attempt to give it a genuine French-Canadian flavour, but this did not disguise the fact that the C.C.F. as a national party has given French-Canadian attitudes only cursory attention.

The philosophical foundations of left-wing thinking in French Canada differ

considerably from those in English Canada. Quebec nationalists of the left, like Andre Laurendeau and the Releve group, attempted in the past to adapt for Canadian conditions the ideas of French personalism-of Maritain, Mounier, and others. The elements of pluralism, the stress on the autonomy of social organizations within the state, which existed in these sources was accentuated when they were transplanted to French Canada. They contrast with the central theme of "rationalization," economic efficiency and the elimination of the wasteful misuse of human and material resources, which

English-Canadian socialism inherited from Fabianism and especially from the Webbs. Admittedly the C.C.F. never lacked a strong rural pluralist influence. Its prairie strength, its roots in farmers' organizations, its very name, Co-

operative Commonwealth Federation, point to this. But the C.C.F. has always differed from the western radical groups, to which it has sometimes been

loosely compared, in its reliance on the ideological leadership of urban intellectuals like those who formed the League for Social Reconstruction.35

35This point is made with particular cogency in K. W. McNaught, "CCF: Town and Country," Queen's Quarterly, LXI, summer, 1954, 213-19.

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Quebec and Canadian Democracy The liberal-social ideas which French Canadians borrowed from Catholic

France can be most easily adapted to Quebec, and the Fabian ideas the C.C.F. borrowed from England are most suitable for English Canada. Neither source specifically elaborated its principles to meet the problems of a bi- cultural, federal state. Considerable effort would therefore be required before a synthesis could be reached. A first step might be the revival of the League for Social Reconstruction, on a bilingual basis, with the ultimate purpose of producing a joint French-Canadian-English-Canadian socialist programme. At a time when the English-Canadian left has lost much of the impetus which it had in the thirties, the possibility of a reinfusion of vigour from French Canada might be most appealing. The ideological controversy which full French-Canadian participation would provoke could not fail to be stimulating. A common ground on foreign policy, Canada's role in the Commonwealth and the United Nations, and the desirability of encouraging "un-American activities" might be worked out with surprising ease; but it is difficult to see that a successful rapprochement on domestic matters could be reached without a prolonged re-examination of Canadian federalism. The division of fiscal powers between Dominion and provinces, the permissible variation in social services from one province to another, federal aid to education, the extent of provincial ownership and control of industry-these would be only a few of the more difficult specific problems to be resolved. Despite the fact that it was by no means the product of the Quebec left, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems36 might well serve as a useful focus for debate.

The gradual polarization of French-Canadian nationalism into left-wing and right-wing factions does not simplify the problems of Canadian democracy; rather it makes them more complex. Yet it perhaps offers the chance of genuinely creative political thought and action in this country. The initiative for a redefinition of the process of formulating Canadian policy, based on a clearer appreciation of the diversity of French-Canadian opinion, must come from the English majority, and it could come most readily from the left. If, on the left, the essentially passive bonne entente approach to English-French relations gave way to vigorous debate, preparatory to co-operative action toward agreed social goals, the other parties of Canada could not fail to be influenced.

This task would be an incredibly delicate one; but easier alternatives are fundamentally dangerous. French Canada has sometimes attempted to over- simplify by proposing a closed society made orderly by authoritarianism. English Canada has had a penchant for ignoring the claims of French Canada, while murmuring comfortable words about good relations. These paths seem to lead to dead ends of sterile uniformity or future heightened discord. Canadian politics are inevitably the inherently difficult politics of federalism in a bi-cultural state; neither unitary integration nor cultural isola- tion will suffice. A party system which recognizes these data seems to be a requirement for the future.

36Quebec, 1956, 4 vols.

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Quebec and Canadian Democracy

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