French Canadians: An Outsider's Inside Look at Quebec

David De Brou is an assistant professor of history at the University of
Saskatchewan.

The Meech Lake debate and the recent Charlottetown referendum revived
the flagging “Two Solitudes” publishing industry that flourished
during the nationalistic navel gazing of 1960s. Michel Gratton’s
contribution endeavors to inform English Canadians of the secrets of
French-Canadian life. Gratton uses his own experiences—as an
Ottawa-born Franco-Ontarian growing up in the traditional 1950s and
maturing into a young man in the 1960s, when Quebec was undergoing the
massive social and economic changes of the Quiet Revolution—as a
springboard to discuss the much larger questions concerned with the past
and the future survival of francophone minorities outside of Quebec and
the francophone majority within Quebec. As befits the former press
secretary of the Meech Lake Accord’s biggest booster, Brian Mulroney,
Gratton hopes that he has convinced English Canadians “that French
Canadians constitute a nation—a people—in their own right.”

How effective is Gratton as an interpreter for English Canadians? He is
successful at times, providing an informed and engaging discussion of
pre–1965 church-controlled education; the origins and the impact of
the secretive French-Canadian organization known as La Patente (The
Thing or Gimmick); the importance of Frиre Untel (Brother Somebody or
What’s-his-name) to the Quiet Revolution; and the reaction of Cardinal
Paul-Emile Léger to the changing Quebec people, who no longer listened.
The author is less effective when he redons his press-secretary hat and
accepts, without qualification, the Mulroney view of the world. From
there, the Liberal opponents of Meech Lake become spoilers and Uncle
Toms, and the Parti Québécois call for independence becomes the new
religion of the people, who will always “need their opiate.” In the
end, this remains one man’s view (and it is a man’s view—Gratton
never considers the impact the Quiet Revolution may have had on
French-speaking women) of the “Two Solitudes.” His final hope for
French- and English-Canadians is that “some day, we will decide to
live an adventure together.”