Canadian Private Ethnic Schools

Abstract

AT A TIME when Canadians are earnestly re-fashioning the very fabric of Confederation, the opinions, claims and demands coming from the non-British, non-French segments of the population have been credited with creating another element of discord in the somewhat less than harmonious relations between the two dominant societies. For the first time in Canadian history the public have had an opportunity to hear what neither British nor French citizens of the country think about such matters as Canada's cultural and linguistic dualism and its future development and to hear their opinions regarding the 'founding partners' of Confederation. What they heard was not exactly laudatory; complaints have been many coming from some ethnic groups and those were not without a touch of bitterness. Worst of all, the demands for public financial support for the minority ethnic groups' cultural and language maintenance activities have become more insistent and have spread to more than one dissatisfied community. It is not the first time that the various ethnic groups have claimed their share of the tax money for their own specific purposes. However, they never attained the nation-wide publicity accorded them by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism which, in addition to the British-French area of relations was asked to take 'into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that shculd be taken to safeguard that contribution'. Much of what has been said by individuals and official representatives of the various associations made good headlines. What has been said deserves a study of its own and is outside the scope of the present article; here we should like to indicate the main lines of the presentations relevant to the topic. Of main interest to us are the demands articulated by those who appeared before the Commission during its hearings across Canada. They did not represent a cohesive set of claims, as some would like us to believe but a variety which ranged from calling for a sort of tri-partite nation-British, French and all other ethnic origins-to modest pleas for a greater recognition of contributions of neither French nor British Canadians to the development of the country. Disparate as their views were, there was near-consensus in asking for more or less specified financial support for their language and culture retention efforts. The response to public pronouncements was equally varied; from the 'none of that nonsense' attitude to mild dismay and surprise. Few editors went as far as one in the Kingston Whig Standard who lambasted 'foreigners' wanting to fish in the troubled Canadian waters and ended with a reminder that the current dialogue is between 'the founding nations' and outsiders should '. .. keep out of it'.'( Other editors preferred to raise the spectre of the babylonian tower of languages and of inevitable 'balkanization';