Graduation Address

"French and English-Speaking Canadians" (UA Case 67, Box 2)

Mr. President, members of the Senate and Faculty, fellow graduates of 1964, ladies and gentlemen, may I first express my gratitude to the University for the very high honour which has been bestowed upon me this afternoon. I am sure, also, that my fellow recipients of this recognition would wish me to express the same sentiment on their behalf. We have joined a very notable company indeed.

The occasion sends my mind travelling back through the years to the period from 1926 to 1930 when I was an undergraduate. U.N.B. was small, three hundred students, a tiny staff, a little cluster of undergraduate buildings, a pitiful library housed in a small room on the top floor of the old Arts Building. But, need I go on? Some of you will remember. Though our opportunities were limited there was the compensation of an indefinable spirit which engendered a great affection for "the college up the hill".

It is when one returns to the new U.N.B. with its enormous campus, its many buildings, its greatly enlarged student body, and its intensely trained and qualified staff, that one realizes an old order has passed and a new one has come into being. Between 1930 and 1964, the world like U.N.B., has experienced a number of major events and convulsions, including the great depression, the second world war, the spread of the communist revolution, the emergence of the United Nations, the liquidation of old empires, the creation of new alliances, tremendous shifts in social power, and a revolution in the expectations of men. The short period of thirty-four years between my two degrees from this University has witnessed an accumulation of human experience involving both triumph and tragedy to a degree of concentration unthinkable even in 1930.

Yet it is not with these great events that I wish to deal to-day, but rather with a major, but related, problem which is unique to our own country, and one which, unless we are prepared to recognize it and bring to bear our concentrated intelligence and knowledge, may well prove to be extremely important and very dangerous to us all as Canadians in the next two or three decades. I refer, of course, to French-English relations. I have chosen this subject because I believe New Brunswick has a uniquely favourable opportunity to exert a constructive influence on this matter, an influence which might significantly shape the course of Canadian history.

In what I have to day during the next few minutes, I shall be speaking as a New Brunswicker addressing fellow New Brunswickers. Perhaps some will consider it presumptuous for one who left this province thirty years ago to feel free to speak as a native or a long time resident. To such would-be critics I can only answer that what one acquires as a child and youth in this beloved province does not wash out, at least in the same generation.

During the worst of the great depression in the thirties, and again since 1945, I have been a resident of Montreal. I have been part of that English-speaking solitude in our great French-speaking metropolis. I have grown to love my adopted province and, I hope, to respect the aspirations of my fellow Quebecers who happen to speak French as their mother tongue. At an earlier period I had more or less accepted the basic compromise of French-English co-existence in Montreal. This arrangement was conventional, not constitutional. Economic power rested largely in the hands of the English-speaking minority, and political power rested with the French-speaking majority. The process of accommodation did not always produce morally defensible results, but it did provide a viable co-existence. It could not, and did not last, and it is now being rapidly eroded or destroyed by the somewhat unquiet revolution in French Canada.

I do not propose to describe what is happening in Quebec. The facts are reasonably well known. Nor shall I try to explain this phenomenal change. Rather shall I suggest some of the social and political consequences for us all, as Canadians.

French Canadians have adopted new goals. These reflect the revolutionary changes in the social order of twentieth century western countries. They are manifest in the decline of agriculture and the rise of industry, in the decline of rural communities and the enormous growth of cities and towns, in the lessening influence of the clergy and the emergence of new elites including editors, columnists, business-men, scientists, engineers, trade union bodies, radio and television commentators, personalities of the performing arts, and others. And the general mass of the population finds itself allocated to a new occupational structure of the factory, the refinery, the mine, the warehouse, the shop, and the services. In other words, French-Canadians in the world of work look and act and behave very much like their English-Canadian fellow-citizens. In this respect we have been moving closer together as our social forms and national destiny are shaped by the relentless and penetrating power of economic evolution.

But the adaptations in ways of life which such social evolution demands have different consequences for the two cultures. English Canadians may fear the loss of national identity because of the powerful American political magnet, but they are secure in the knowledge that evolving industrialism is no threat to the pre-eminence of English as a language and its cultural attributes, at least in the North American context.

It is different with the French. While they may be happy with the material and even many of the cultural consequences of the economic revolution, the demands of adaptation bear with greater weight on them than on the English. Indeed the fear of the loss of their French identity is a haunting spectre which pervades their thinking. There is no comparable fear in English Canada - not even the prospect of Americanization. I believe this to be crucial. Again and again by one example and another, it has been borne upon me that cultural survival is a predominant preoccupation in French Canada.

One of the most persistent comments I hear from my English-speaking compatriots is that French Canada has not said in any clear voice what it wants. Such expression is made less frequently in English Quebec than elsewhere. But it is repeated over and over again in Toronto and St. John and Winnipeg and Vancouver and elsewhere. And let me add for the particular benefit of my French-speaking fellow citizens that it is a perfectly honest statement. It reflects a kind of bewilderment, and even frustration, which English-Canadians experience when they try to understand what the commotion in the province of Quebec is all about.

It would be presumptuous of one Orange, Ulster, Battle of the Boyne antecedents to speak for French Canada. Aside from my not being French, there is the fact that French Canada speaks with many tongues, and the debate within reflects many conflicting aspirations. Yet it is possible to identify one element which is universal. This is the desire to remain French-Canadian. This is the one thing that comes clearly out of the welter of debate in Quebec. Once an English-Speaking Canadian has accepted fully and without reservation, either intellectual or emotional, this fact he has taken a great leap forward in understanding the Canadian problem. Once he really appreciates the French Canadian's wish to make his accommodation with the social consequences of spreading industrialism within the context of a healthy French-Canadian culture he no longer has any need to ask for a definition of French goals. This one goal is all-embracing. It lies behind the need to recognize Quebec as a sort of mother area, it helps to explain the use of the expression "French Canadian Nation", which is so frightening to most of us in the English community. It explains why it is so difficult for French Canadians to develop a strong attachment to Canada as a nation, because being Canadian (as opposed to being French-Canadian) so often means Anglicisation. It explains French impatience with a Canada which says they may be French in Quebec but have no right to be French elsewhere in the country. It explains why French-Canadians are inclined to believe that we, les Anglais, have never abandoned the hope of ultimate absorption. It begets fear and an aggressive determination to resist. Fear begets unreason, an overstatement of goals, and a disproportionate role for extremists. In turn the English believe the worst and react with fear. Fear on both sides could be calamitous.

Can we hope for a healthy, vigorous French fact in a reasonably harmonious relationship with the English fact. Or is it destined to go through the agonizing process of gradual assimilation with all the frustration and sense and inferiority that that implies. The evidence is mixed and conflicting. Almost certainly the French fact desired by the extremists is impossible because of the multitude of contacts between the small French group with a continental English fact. Those who would separate French Canada, or Quebec alone, are seeking to enhance French political power; but for what purpose? The danger that it might be used to limit continental contacts, and hence impose yet another ideological curtain is great. Ideological curtains inevitably imply internal regimentation. A separate French state is probably viable, but not likely to be dedicated to individual freedom.

How then can the French-Canadian nationality survive in the context of almost overpowering influences from the rest of the continent, especially in a period of enormous changes which all indicate the breaking down rather than the erecting of barriers? I believe it can and will survive, but not without great transformation. Change within French Canada to-day is staggering, and the social order which is emerging will differ sharply from the older pattern. Furthermore, in Quebec, it is pacing an equally significant change in the English community. The solitude must, and is, breaking down. No longer can the English in Quebec live in a splendid isolation purely as English. Within a decade or two it will be accepted that all English Quebecers will be bilingual and even perhaps bicultural. I see nothing wrong in this. Indeed we shall be a richer nation for it. Similarly, the French fact cannot be uniform across the country. There must be adaptations to the local circumstances, not the least of which will be the need not to erect a barrier to personal achievement.

It seems to me the time has arrived in this country for a conscious and calculated approach to the question of the two Canadas. The paramount need is to recognize bi-nationalism as a mutual goal. Both French and English Canada must be strong, the French as French and the English as English. Let me add that I believe this places the heavier responsibility on English Canada. It is we who must accept and even work for the elimination of barriers to equality which now exist. In Quebec I have a right to have my children educated in English. Where, outside of Quebec, does this legal right exist for French Canadians? There may be tolerances elsewhere, but toleration is itself a symbol of inequality favorable to those who dispense the privilege. When we have in our pragmatic English minds fully accepted the goal of legal equality for French and English from Atlantic to Pacific, the battle for Canadian unity will have been won. Until we do the Canadian Federation may be in jeopardy.

A nation the size of Canada has difficulty making any great contribution to the course of human affairs. Hockey has given us a dubious reputation, and the mounted police have added a certain spurious glamour. We have for decades supplied a small number of persons of stature to the performing arts, and our reputation in the visual arts, in radio, and even television has been rising. We also have to our credit a few distinguished scientists.

A notable contribution, however, has been made in the area of government. The Canadian role in the evolution of the Commonwealth has been large and constructive. Similarly in the period from the end of the second world war to the present, Canadians have enhanced the reputation of our country as international civil servants, as special United Nations mediators, as administrators in troubled areas, and even as policing agents. The names of Gregg, Pearson, Burns and others, have given this country a reputation for reasonableness, imagination, and administrative effectiveness, hardly equalled by any comparable country.

May I suggest that we are now in a position to extend our role by resolving our own principal internal problem. Let me explain. Perhaps the greatest challenge to the ingenuity of man that he has ever faced is that of the relationships of peoples in this second half of the twentieth century. Whatever may be the reason, men are no longer prepared to accept a second class status for themselves and their group. Here we confront a world-wide phenomenon which is almost as dangerous as nuclear bombs. Equality is demanded and will be achieved. The significant fact is that all recorded history reveals domination of peoples by other peoples, of races by other races, of religions by those who stamp out heresy.

I said earlier I was going to deal with a uniquely Canadian problem. In a sense French-English relations are; but in a broader sense we are concerned with a world-wide phenomena. Compared to some other multi-cultured situations, our problem is uncomplicated. We have two highly developed and sophisticated cultures, we are relatively affluent, we have had rich experience in evolutionary government forms; because of our relations with great powers we have developed a high degree of tolerance. We have largely avoided the stultifying influence of the monolithic melting-pot thesis.

Have we retained the sense of justice, and the flexibility to recreate our nation on a basis of real and effective equality? In my opinion the greatest opportunity exists in New Brunswick, partly because of the proportions of French and English, partly because of the gentler tone of the relationship, and partly because of a long experience in tolerant co-existence. But I put it bluntly to my fellow New Brunswickers of English origin. Have you reached the starting point? Have you rid yourself of the absorption complex?

The most heartening news of recent years in New Brunswick was the announcement of the founding of a French University at Moncton. Let us hope that this institution will produce a rebirth of French culture in the Atlantic provinces. It would be a pity, however, if the effect of the establishment of the University at Moncton were to encourage intellectual cultural solitudes. Within the context of two cultures the universities, English and French conjointly, could contribute greatly to the solution of the Canadian problem as it exists in this province, and perhaps give leadership in Canada as a whole, and possible even some slight direction to other similarly placed countries. Here is, I believe, a unique opportunity for New Brunswick, and especially for U.N.B. as the senior institution of higher learning. The last two decades have been years of building the university itself. May it now pour out its energies to strengthen the bi-national character of the province, and provide a badly needed illustration of mutual and constructive toleration to Canada as a whole.