Canadian and french relations
Canadian and french relationsThroughout the ages, many colonies of earlier empires have arisen from
their colonial status to become their own country. For many of these, such
as the United States, French Indochina and many African nations, their was
a common culture which served as a base for uniting their population. In
Canada however, their were two very different cultures present, the French
and the English. These two peoples had originally had many battles to see
who would hold dominance over the colony, and now they had to unite if
their was any hope of achieving confederation. The French people of lower
Canada and the English people of Upper Canada had many differences, and
weren't extremely trustworthy of each other. The French Canadians were in
a tough spot when the call for confederation came around. They were afraid
of losing their culture if they joined the Canadian confederacy, but they
also didn't want to get assimilated into the United States. The French
Canadian attitudes towards confederation in the eighteen sixty's, can best
be seen through the views of the leading French Canadian politicians of the
day.
In French Canada around the period of confederacy, their were two main
political parties, the bleus and the rouges. In the 1860's, the leading
French Canadian party was the conservative bleu party. This party, had the
largest bloc of French Canadian legislative seats in parliament.1 The
leader of this party at the time that confederacy was being debated by
leading Canadian politicians was George Etienne Cartier. Cartier was born
in 1814,2 and his grandfather had been a member of the Lower Canadian
assembly in 1809.3 Prior to becoming a French leader in the move towards
confederation, Cartier had been involved in the Rebellion of 1837 that was
lead by Louis Joseph Papineau.4 When the question of confederation came
up, Cartier was quick to add his support to the movement. At the time,
their had been debates whether the current Parliament like assembly should
be elected on the basis of representation by population. This was not an
idea that any French Canadian would have been in support of, because of the
substantial population difference between the English and the French. This
idea of "rep by pop" had many French Canadians worrying about losing their
culture because of the lack of governmental representation for their
people. Cartier was one of the leading opposition to "Rep by pop" in
Canada. He didn't want to see the French Canadian culture squeezed out of
the people because the English were making all of the laws.
One of the main problems that many people saw with Canadian confederacy
was the differing cultures. No one thought that these cultures would be
able to work together in running a country....
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