How Far Can the French Opt Out?

"There is grave danger to the future of Canada and all Canadians. What is at stake is the very fact of Canada. The clash of English and French could destroy the country, if permitted to deepen." So said a ten-man royal commission last week after 18 months spent examining Canada's most pressing problem--the deep division between French-and English-speaking Canadians.

Set up by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson at the height of the French Canadian separatist terrorism in 1963, the commission dug back into Canadian history, traveled all across the country interviewing hundreds of organizations and more than 11,000 individuals. It reported that while English-speaking Canadians are basically satisfied with their lives, French Canadians are not and are in an increasingly dangerous mood about it.

English Only. Under the British North America Act of 1867, French Canada, meaning the huge eastern province of Quebec, retained its own language, Catholic religion and cultural identity on an equal basis with the English. Quebec is still overwhelmingly French. The rub is over the word equal.

As explained by the commission, the French Canadian complaints are those of second-class citizenship. French Canadians feel that their countrymen pay nothing more than lip service to the idea of biculturalism. French is a foreign language in two-thirds of the country; road signs and transportation schedules are in English only; the federal government in Ottawa operates mainly in English. English Canadians hold the best civil service jobs. In Quebec itself, English-speaking outsiders control the major corporations. For a long time, noted the commission, "French-speaking Quebec acted as though it had accepted the idea of merely being a privileged 'ethnic minority.' Today, the kind of opinion we met so often in the province regards Quebec practically as an autonomous society and expects her to be treated as such."

Time to Match. Reading the report last week, most Canadians agreed with the description of the friction. However, people on both sides questioned the tone of high alarm. The commission did most of its interviewing in the spring and summer of 1964, when tensions were still high after a tiny lunatic fringe of Quebec separatists had been bombing mailboxes and raiding armories. The situation has eased considerably since then. Lester Pearson has appointed more French Canadians to key Cabinet posts than any other Prime Minister, and made a start on lowering the language barrier in the civil service. Canada has a new maple-leaf flag that symbolizes neither English nor French. And Pearson has gone far to meet Quebec Premier Jean Lesage's demands for nation-within-a-nation status by allowing Quebec to "opt out" of such national schemes as old-age welfare and public works, thus freeing provincial funds that would otherwise go to Ottawa.

No one, least of all Mike Pearson, pretends that the problem has been solved. But few Canadians genuinely believe that their country is currently in "grave danger." The commission now has another two years to recommend what else can be done, as its mandate says, for a "satisfactory matching up between the minimum of what French-speaking Canadians consider as vital and the maximum that English-speaking Canadians will accept."

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