Politics Chapter
The situation between
the francophone and the anglophone has always been very tense, right from
the beginning of Canada’s history. They shared the same interest in
keeping the social and political structure, but difficult times, especielly
in Quebec caused the tension to rise again.
In Qucbec these difficult times caused in 1837-38 a francophone middle class
to rise and they tried through reforms and a political nationalism to gain
full control over Qucbec. They did not succeed mostly because of lack of support
in the society and because of a strong British army. The francophone middle
class party was called the Parti Patriote and the president was Louis –
Jospeh Papineau.
After the failure the middle class got seperated into two groups where one of them acted in the best interest of the French minority and worked with the British majority. The other group were old members of the Party Patriote and a younger generation who still wanted a French Quebec and rejected everything the British party achieved.
In 1976 a deadlock in the Assembly caused an agreement to pursue the implementation
of a federal system for the Upper and Lower Canada or for all the British
North America colonies.
The same year a party in Quebec was elected and they committed to achieve
a political indepedencen in Quebec. Just two years earlier the Liberal government
had made French the official language of Quebec and this caused a larger tension
between the two sides. This was not just in Quebec, but also all over Canada.
The Anglophones thought that these attempts weretoo close to a free Quebec.
The problem with Quebec and the francophone community is that it is a minority
in Canada and the rest of the country will always work against it. This makes
the francophone community react with strong actions, like making French an
official language. They feel they need to do this to be heard, but instead
they cause more and bigger tension towards the anglophone community.
In the book, Canada Profile there is a text about the political situation in Canada called “Seperation Two”. It tells us that Canada is very British and perhaps the British community does not want to understand the francophone’s situation and frustration. Canada consists of British culture, religion, language and politics. Because of this majority there is no room for the francophone community and the only place where there is a majority is Quebec, the francophone community tries its best to control this area. The story is showing us that there are big social differentences in Canada and that the Francophone are not always being listened to and mostly there is a wish to suppress them.
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