Demanding Publication of Parliamentary Proceedings in French
Extrait de Gaétan Migneault, « Le Canada français et la Confédération : Les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick », dans Jean-François Caron et Marcel Martel, Le Canada français et la Confédération : Fondements et bilan critique (PUL, 2016), p. 20-21
"To the Honourable Members of the House of Assembly of the province of New Brunswick in session;
The humble request of the undersigned inhabitants of the County of Gloucester states;
Whereas one sixth of the population belongs to the French race, of whom very few of this number understand the language;
Whereas thousands of inhabitants thus find themselves unable to learn about the debates in Parliament, in which they are nevertheless interested, as is any other inhabitant of New Brunswick;
Whereas the undersigned witnessed with regret, in 1864, the rejection of the motion of the member in Parliament for this county requesting that the debates of the Legislative Assembly be translated into French, that is to say: The Debates of the House of Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick and the Journal of the House of the same;
Whereas clause 133 of the Confederation project recognises the fairness of the measure that your petitioners hereby request, by stating that: “the Acts of the Parliament of Canada and the Quebec legislature will be printed and published in both languages”;
Whereas it seems to your petitioners that the time has come for the local legislature to grant the French of this province that which the honourable delegates of the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick did not think, in their wisdom, they would have to refuse to the French of the general government;
For this reason, your petitioners, trusting in your impartiality and in the fairness of their request, ask you to agree to the translation of the debates and the journal of the Legislative Assembly, as well as to the translation of public notices issued by the authority of the government.
And we shall not cease in our petitions."
In 1864, politicians from the British North American colonies met in Charlottetown and Quebec City to lay the foundations of the future Canadian Confederation. Known as the Fathers of Confederation, they adopted 72 resolutions to guide the drafting of the British North America Act (BNAA), later passed by the British Parliament in 1867.
Resolution 46, which became section 133 of the BNAA, states that parliamentary institutions and courts of the future Province of Quebec and the federal government shall be bilingual (English and French). This resolution excludes reference the colony of New Brunswick, despite its sizeable French-speaking Acadian minority.
The 72 resolutions were published in the Royal Gazette on January 25, 1865, during the New Brunswick election campaign. They provoked debate. Many voters denounced the division of powers between the provinces and the federal government, and New Brunswick’s place in the future Canadian Confederation. Anti-Confederation forces won the election. The new government was fragile, however, and lost power a year later in a subsequent election. These elections took place against the backdrop of a possible invasion of New Brunswick by the Fenians, supporters of Irish independence living in the United States.
One hundred and seventy-nine Acadians from Gloucester County, in the northeast of New Brunswick, took advantage of these debates to promote their linguistic rights. They presented a petition to the Legislative Assembly on June 11 or 12, 1867. The petition demanded that parliamentary proceedings be published in both English and French. Elected officials rejected the petition, just as they had done every previous time since the 1850s when they debated the issue of translating debates. Acadians would have to wait until New Brunswick’s Official Languages Act was passed in 1969, finally making the province bilingual.
Title of the document : To the Honourable Members of the House of Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick in Parliament assembled; The humble petition of the undersigned inhabitants of Gloucester County humbly represents.
Date : June 11 or 12, 1867
Reference: Public Archives of New Brunswick, Legislative Assembly fonds, RG4-RS4, petition no. 108, 1867. The petition is also reproduced in Marie-Claire Pître, “La revendication des droits linguistiques au XIX e siècle dans la Péninsule acadienne,” Égalité: revue acadienne d’analyse
politique, vol. 22, 1987-1988, p. 97-100.
To learn more about this topic:
Online
« Les Acadiens et la fédération canadienne, with J. Belliveau », Aujourd’hui l’histoire, Ici Radio-Canada, 22 août 2019.
« Les acadiens face à la constitution de 1867 », Format libre, Ici Radio-Canada, 4 juillet 2017.
Doucet, Michel. « Les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick et la Confédération », L’Acadie Nouvelle, 20 février 2017.
Migneault, Gaétan. « Quand l’Acadie remettait la pendule à l’heure de la Confédération », OnFr, 21 avril 2017.
Printed sources
Migneault, Gaétan. Les Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick et la Confédération, Lévis, Les Éditions de la Francophonie, 2009.
Migneault, Gaétan. « La reconnaissance législative accordée aux Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick avant la Confédération (1784 à 1867) », Acadiensis, vol. 41, no 2 (été-automne 2012), p. 109-141.
Migneault, Gaétan. « L’accès de la minorité francophone à l’Assemblée législative du Nouveau-Brunswick », Acadiensis, vol. 47, no 1 (hiver-printemps 2018), p. 140-177.
Rocher, François. « Sur les opposants au projet de Confédération de 1864 : critiques sur la finalité du régime », dans Eugénie Brouillet, Alain-G. Gagnon et Guy Laforest (dir.), La Conférence de Québec de 1864, 150 ans plus tard. Comprendre l’émergence de la fédération canadienne, Québec, Presses de l’Université Laval, 2016, p. 191-230.
