On July 1, 1887, one week after accepting the Liberal leadership, Laurier attended celebrations marking Canada’s twentieth birthday. Though he put on a good face in public, he was deeply troubled. What was there to celebrate? he wondered. Throughout the young nation people were grumbling. Now, as he began to chart the course he would follow as leader of the Opposition, Laurier considered the problems he would have to deal with.
The most pressing was growing francophone-anglophone hostility. Riel’s death had led to the formation of the Parti national. A majority of Quebec voters had turned to the new party because they were furious that the federal government, dominated by anglophone Protestants, had executed a man who had fought for the rights of francophone Roman Catholics. Might not the federal government turn on the francophones of Quebec as it had on those in the North-West Territories? Many Québécois asked themselves this question. The result was increasing distrust of anglophone Canadians. Québécois were looking inward instead of reaching out to other Canadians.
Wilfrid Laurier seen here in 1891, the year when he fought, and lost, his first election as Liberal leader. He went on to win the next four elections and was prime minister for fifteen consecutive years, a feat unequalled in Canadian history.
As for anglophone Canadians, most of them were Protestants and either English-born or the descendants of people from the British Isles. Their deepest feelings of loyalty were not to Canada, but to Great Britain, the mother country. As one of them put it clearly “We are Canadian, and in order to be Canadian we must be British.” For many, this meant supporting Britain’s global empire. Because the empire was still expanding, Britain was sometimes at war. If the British government were to ask Canada for help in a war, many anglophone Canadians believed that Canada had a duty to go to Britain’s aid. Such people were called imperialists.
To the most militant among them, any Canadian who disagreed with this point of view was disloyal, even a traitor. One of the most prominent imperialists was D’Alton McCarthy, a Conservative MP from Ontario and a leading member of the Orange Lodge. McCarthy, and many others like him, believed that the main obstacle to keeping Canada loyal to Great Britain was francophone Roman Catholic Quebec. To him, only Protestants who spoke English could be loyal Canadians.
Laurier had to ask himself how the situation in Canada in 1887 related to ideas that had been taking shape in his mind since he had entered politics. The definition of Canadian nationalism he had pieced together was based on the idea that a true Canadian had to be loyal to Canada alone. Yet he did not wish to urge any group to ignore its roots, language, or religious beliefs. What each had to do was tolerate others by accepting the differences between them.
To make this work, Laurier believed that the federal government should not act in any way to threaten a group’s identity: its religion, language, and schools. In these matters, it was absolutely necessary for each province to have autonomy, the right to make its own laws without interference from the federal government. Allowing these differences to exist could make all Canadians feel secure: no group would feel that its cultural identity would be threatened. This security could make all Canadians loyal to the nation that protected their right to be different. In this way, diversity could produce unity.
Laurier hoped that, in time, people would stop calling themselves French-Canadians and English-Canadians. By trusting in mutual tolerance, Canadiens would feel more secure, and imperialists would no longer call on Great Britain for advice. Both groups would be proud to be simply Canadians; trust and friendship would replace suspicion and hostility. Finally, a day would come when all Canadians would agree that Canada should be free from British control. Still loyal to the mother country, but master of its own destiny, Canada would declare its independence.
Laurier knew that to realize his distant goal would be very difficult. The differences in Canadian society meant that no group could always get its way. He was absolutely convinced that to prevent conflict, there had to be give and take. Confederation had been based on compromise. Without compromise, there would be no future for Canada. In the end, compromise would lead to independence. Laurier the realist never lost sight of that ideal.
When Laurier accepted the Liberal leadership in 1887, compromise was not a popular word in some parts of Canada. In Ontario, many agreed with D’Alton McCarthy when he accused francophones of belonging to a “bastard nationality.” In a heated debate in the House of Commons, he and his followers argued that Canada was British and there should be only one “race” in the country. In response, Laurier pointed out that he was French in origin, but also a British subject. And, if there was to be only one race, he asked, “Well, what would that race be? Is it the British lion that is to swallow the French lamb, or the French lamb that is to swallow the British lion? There can be more than one race, but there shall be one nation.”
Outside the House, McCarthy went much further. He threatened violence: “This is a British country, and the sooner we take in hand our French Canadians and make them British… the less trouble we shall have to prevent. Now is the time when the ballot box will decide the great question; and if that does not supply the remedy in this generation, bayonets will supply it in the next.”
These were dangerous words, but McCarthy had no second thoughts. Inside the House he continued his attack by introducing a motion to end the use of French in the North-West Territories.
Laurier was furious, but he fought to control his anger as he rose to speak. Unsmiling, he looked directly at McCarthy sitting in the Conservative benches on the other side of the House and began.
“The honourable gentleman coldly proposes that one and a half million of Canadians – in order, as he says, that they should become good Canadians – should renounce their origin and the traditions of their race. He proposes that the humiliation of one whole race in this country should be the foundation of this Dominion. Does he believe that to subject one whole section of our population to the humiliation of renouncing its origin, of turning its back upon its history, would make them proud of the country?”
When the vote was taken, McCarthy’s motion was defeated. But Laurier knew that McCarthy was far from ready to give up. He warned the House of McCarthy’s real aim: “This is only a preliminary skirmish, soon to be followed by a general onslaught upon the whole French race in Canada. The French Canadians are to be deprived of their language, not only in the North-West Territories, but wherever their language exists.”
Laurier’s prediction was correct. The next target was Manitoba. Many Manitobans liked McCarthy’s anti-French message. They were unhappy with the separate school system established by the Manitoba Act in 1870. Twenty years later, there were very few francophone Roman Catholics living in the province. The majority were anglophone Protestants who had emigrated from Ontario.
In February 1890, the government of Manitoba took action. It announced that French would no longer be an official language in the province. Next, it passed the Public Schools Act, which stated that in all public schools (ones funded by the government), religion would no longer be taught and English would be the only language of instruction. If Roman Catholics wanted to keep their separate schools, they would have to pay for them out of their own pockets, and also pay for the public schools with their taxes. This was a deathblow to the system set up by the Conservative government twenty years earlier when it had created Manitoba.
The enraged Roman Catholic bishops of Quebec were the first to react. They demanded that the federal government disallow the Manitoba law. Because the situation was risky, the Conservative government was reluctant to act. If it did, Protestants in Ontario would accuse it of giving in to the Roman Catholic Church. But, if it did not, the rights of the Catholic minority, guaranteed by a Conservative government in 1871, would be quashed. Whichever way the government turned, it would offend one group or the other, and lose votes as a result.
Divided among themselves, the Conservatives decided to delay by taking the question to the courts. Nearly four years later, in January 1895, after numerous court hearings in Canada and Great Britain, the final judgment was reached: the federal government did have the right to pass a remedial law to force Manitoba to reopen Catholic schools in the province.
Still the Conservative government hesitated to act because of the split in its own ranks. Finally, it ordered Manitoba to reopen the Catholic schools. When Manitoba flatly refused, the Conservative government announced it was preparing a remedial bill to be introduced in the next session of the House of Commons in January 1896.
Now, after so much delay, the Conservatives had at last taken a stand. But what, people asked, was the position of the Liberals? Laurier and his party also faced a dilemma. During the long, drawn-out Manitoba Schools affair, Laurier agonized over the conflict between his passionate belief in provincial autonomy and his equally fervent commitment to minority rights. Fortunately, his cautious nature allowed him to bide his time, listen, and remain silent until the right moment arrived. In this way, while he watched the Conservative party gradually tearing itself apart, he had kept his party united.
But keeping silent had not been easy. Laurier was frequently under pressure to show his hand. The Roman Catholic Church maintained a feverishly active campaign in which every priest made it clear to his parishioners where the Church stood. If Laurier was not willing to declare himself for the Catholic minority in Manitoba, the Church promised to oppose him and every Liberal candidate in the next election. However, in Ontario, the Protestant churches, the Orange Lodge, and most newspapers supported provincial autonomy and warned Laurier not to interfere in Manitoba.
Soon he would have to unveil his policy. Did he support interference by the federal government in the affairs of a province? Was he willing to allow a minority to lose its rights? In February 1896, the Conservatives carried out their threat. They introduced a bill in the House of Commons to restore the Roman Catholic schools in Manitoba.
Laurier waited patiently for the right moment to enter the debate. He began by pointing out that the Roman Catholic Church had made it absolutely clear what it would do if he were to oppose the bill. But it was not this threat that had guided him in deciding where he stood on the bill. He continued:
“So long as I have a seat in this House, so long as I occupy the position I do now, whenever it shall become my duty to take a stand upon any question whatever, that stand I will take not upon grounds of Roman Catholicism, not upon grounds of Protestantism, but upon grounds which can appeal to the conscience of all men, irrespective of their particular faith, upon grounds which can be occupied by all men who love justice, freedom and toleration.”
What stand would he take? He gave his answer:
“… Never did I rise with a greater sense of security; never did I feel so strong in the consciousness of right, as I do now, at this anxious moment; when, in the name of the constitution so outrageously misinterpreted by the government, in the name of peace and harmony in this land; when in the name of the minority which this bill seeks or pretends to help, in the name of this nation on which so may hopes are centred, I rise to ask this Parliament not to proceed any further with this bill.”
At long last, Laurier had revealed where he stood. He was opposed to letting the federal government make the provincial government submit to its will. He stood for provincial autonomy.
The debate continued for several more weeks, but the Conservatives had run out of time. Parliament had reached the five-year limit imposed by tradition. At the end of April, Parliament was dissolved and a general election was called for June 23.
In the campaign that followed, Laurier had one fear, the power of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec. His old enemy, Bishop Laflèche, aging but still breathing anti-Laurier fire, was once again ready to do battle. He led the attack by instructing all the priests that Laurier must be opposed. Catholics were warned that it was a sin to support Laurier and his Liberals.
When the votes were counted, Laurier was the clear winner. The people of Quebec had turned away from the warnings of their Church and put their faith in Laurier and his promise that he would work out a policy that would solve the problem without using legal force and that would provide justice for the minority at the same time.
Laurier and his fellow Liberals won forty-nine of the sixty-five seats in Quebec. In the rest of the country, the Conservatives had won a few more seats than the Liberals. With the wide margin he held in Quebec, Laurier enjoyed a comfortable majority in the new House of Commons. For the first time in Canada’s history, the people had elected a French-speaking, Roman Catholic prime minister.