Attitude Towards French Canada
Later that year, the re-constituted Labor-Progressive Party published, Ryerson’s French Canada: A Study in Canadian Democracy. Within the pages of French Canada, Ryerson set out his vision of their continuous fight for freedom in the face of colonial servitude. He also emphasised the common aims of French and English Canadians in the pursuit of freedom in the capitalist and colonial systems. Although researched and mostly written while Ryerson was occupied with the direction of the underground party, French Canada was a careful and provocative analysis of Quebec’s social and political history.
French Canada aimed at encouraging the development of a sense of national pride and unity among Canadians during the years of World War II. Ryerson put forth a socio-economic analysis of the Quebec and in turn educated most English-speaking Canadians about a region they knew very little about. As a sequel to 1837, Ryerson’s French Canada revealed “the militant spirit of democracy among French Canadians” in the hopes of uniting “them with their Anglophone compatriots.” Ryerson did follow a certain “great man” approach to history when, in the early chapters, he emphasized the heroes “who struggled for self-determination and/or Canadian unity”; this approach was complemented by an emphasis on “the Quebec masses and their rise out of feudal subjugation toward political power.” Very much the Historical Materialist, Ryerson viewed the previous administrations of Quebec as working with representatives of English Canada and international capitalism to keep Quebec in economic subservience. Ryerson believed, “The Toronto Tory and the Quebec corporatist meet on common ground: hostility to the democratic peoples’ movement, denial of our democratic heritage.” Following on his contentions laid out in 1837, Ryerson viewed the failure of English Canada to recognise their connection to French Canada and to fight hand in hand for the fullest democratic rights of the minority nation only served to deepen the power of reactionary influences and limit Canadian democracy and unity in general.
French Canada was a by-product of World War II and should be viewed as such. It was full of optimism about the prospects of an Allied victory in the war against international fascism and a transformed world capable of bringing about the complete elimination of the conditions that gave rise to fascism and to the prospect of war. Although this book is full of optimism about a possible future world, Ryerson did not envision a Communist future for Canada and instead placed the LPP as an important part of post-war Canada, but not a defining movement or a dominant party. Ryerson’s vision did not come to pass, but his analysis of the political perspicacity of working-class Quebec was groundbreaking as it came during a time when most writers tended to view “Quebec as either a quaint or lamentable anachronism.” French Canada gave its readers a remarkably modern and hopeful image of French-Canadian society.
Read more about this topic: Stanley Brehaut Ryerson
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