Community Besieged: The Anglophone Minority and the Politics of Quebec

Terry A. Crowley is a professor of history at the University of Guelph,
and the former editor of the journal Ontario History. He is the author
of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality and Canadian History to
1967, and the co-author of The College on

Minorities of whatever stripe currently attract avid attention, but not
Quebec’s anglophones. As part of North America’s immense
English-speaking sea, these people have long been perceived as enjoying
a privileged position that sets them apart from other minorities. That
perception has been largely outdated for more than a quarter of a
century, since French was first declared the official language of the
province of Quebec by Robert Bourassa’s Liberal government in 1974.
Since that time, Quebec’s anglophones have commonly seen themselves as
the besieged community so ably portrayed by Brock University political
scientist Garth Stevenson. While Stevenson concentrates on 20th-century
political evolution, he also deals in depth with such contentious issues
as language policies, relations with the provincial and federal
governments, and denominational versus linguistic schools in the
province.

The apparatus of consociational democracy with which Garth Stevenson
has chosen to frame his study may appear to some as excessively
elaborate. According to his interpretation, Canada’s earlier political
tradition of elite accommodation paved the way for a consociationalism
that is defined as “government by elite cartel designed to turn a
democracy with a fragmented political culture into a stable
democracy.” Concentrating on provincial politics, Stevenson sees
consociationalism firmly in place until anglophone representation began
to weaken with Maurice Duplessis’ Union Nationale governments after
1936. After several decades of transition, the beginnings of provincial
language legislation and the rise of the Parti Québécois during the
1960s signaled an end to the comfortable position that the anglophone
minority had enjoyed. For a brief period, preschoolers were subjected to
stressful language tests. The Charter of the French Language in 1977
made getting access to provincial government services in English very
difficult and required many professionals to pass language examinations.
While the language used on signs became the most visible object of
linguistic antagonisms, many anglophones rallied under the banner of
Alliance Quebec to restore elements of their former position. In 1984,
Bourassa passed legislation providing for access in English to
government health and social services.

What we have here, with or without the fancy notion of consociational
democracy, is a very Canadian story of peaceful evolution that stretches
well back into the 19th century. Disenthroned from their previous
privileged position, Quebec’s anglophones momentarily found themselves
under assault, regrouped, and reached new accommodations with their
provincial government. Stevenson’s detailed research and fresh
thinking will make his study a standard reference for anyone interested
in this aspect of Canadian public life.