La Foi, Gardienne de la langue en Ontario 1900–1950 by Robert Choquette (review)

192 LETTERS IN CANADA 1987 sont-ils vraiment des ecrivains? Meme si certains n'auraient pas publie, semble-t-il, une seule page? Sous la rubrique 'Oeuvres' ne paraissent, par exemple, que des pieces de theatre jouees (dont plusieurs designees d'ailleurs comme 'creations collectives') et non imprimees, pour Lucie Desjardins, Hedwige Herbiet, Marie-The Morin, Anne-Marie Riel et d'autres. Par contre, certaines absences etonnent, acommencer par celIe de Gerard Bessette (qui repond pourtant atous les criteres signaIes plus haut). Oil sont des ecrivains 'actuels et actifs' tels Alain Gagnon, Louise de Gonzague-Pelletier, Marguerite Lapalme, Maurice Lapointe, Pascal Sabourin, Denis Saint-Jules, Sylvie Trudel, Robert Yergeau? Enfin, la decision de ne retenir qU'une seule citation critique - presque toutes comportent une seule phrase, parfois incomplete - et de la privilegier en la mettant en haut de page, peut-elle vraiment se justifier? Qu'apprendon d'utile dans un resume critique tel: 'Andree Lacelle sait utiliser un langage poetique qu'elle module adifferents niveaux d'expression afin d'atteindre un maximum de densite'? Que dire de cette remarque sur Marguerite Whissell-Tregonning (la citation est complete): 'Dans un style sans aucune pretention, dans la libre allure d'une conversation qui ne cherche pas de savantes transitions'? Puisque les deux tiers de la page restent blancs, pourquoi ne pas citer Ie passage en entier - et d'autres aussi? En somme, un volume utile mais peu rigoureux, beau mais ephemere, puisqu'il faudra sans doute Ie refaire a tous les cinq ou dix ans. (L.E. DOUCETTE) Robert Choquette. La Foi, eardienne de la langue en Ontario 1900-1950 Bellarmin. 282. $24.00 This is Robert Choquette's.third volume dealing with the connection between religion and the use of the French language in Ontario. The first, Language and Religion: A History ofEnglish-French Conflict in Ontario (1975), subsequently published in French as Langue et religion (1977), concentrated on the educational and political crisis over the controversial Regulation 17, which restricted French-language instruction. His second, L'Eglise catholique dans ['Ontario franfais du dix-neuvieme siecle (1984), dealt with the institutional growth of the Catholic church in the province, tracing the power-struggle between Anglo-Celtic and francophone members of the hierarchy for control over the development of the church, particularly in those linguistic shatter-belts, the Ottawa Valley and northern Ontario. This latest volume retraces some of the same ground as Language and Religion (in so far as it oulines in a single chapter the story of Regulation 17, its causes and its consequences seen from the perspective of francophone education), but its main purpose is to carry the theme of the second volume forward to the midpoint of this century. HUMANITIES 193 This most recent volume consists of three parts, roughly equal in size but rather disparate in content. In the first section, 'L'Eglise,' the author analyses the diocesan structure of the church in Ontario and relations with the Vatican through its apostolic delegates, continuing the story of the language controversy as it was played out in terms of church politics. The second section, 'L'Ecole,' deals in two chapters with the issues that arose over bilingual and francophone education, and a third chapter, as long as the preceding two, is devoted to the language controversy at the University- of Ottawa which led anglophone Catholics to propose a Catholic university for Canada but to settle for creating St Patrick's College instead. The last section of the book, entitled 'La Cause franco-ontarienne,' seems to be two extended appendices, the first consisting of several brief biographies of 'les chefs de lila cause,'" and the second a chapter-length study of the Ordre de Jacques Cartier, a secret society which existed from 1926 until 1965. The Ordre's aim was to promote the rights of French Canadians by creating public interest groups, such as the Ligue d'action civique, and by influencing the decision-making process in the Saint-Jean Baptiste societies and similar organizations. At its height in the 1950S the Ordre de Jacques Cartier had more than eleven thousand members, but its espousal of Quebec independence doomed it as a 'national' organization . In his Sense ofPower Carl...