bout de papier, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1998) — Spring 1998 // Printemps 1998, pp. 42–43
DIRECT INTERVENTION: CANADA-FRANCE
RELATIONS 1967-1974 by Eldon Black,
Carleton University Press, p. 203, $27.95
Reviewed by John J. Noble
It is not every day that one of your predecessors publishes a book about his professional activities in the post you currently occupy. Eldon (Pat) Black’s book Direct Intervention: Canada-France Relations 1967-1974 is a fascinating read. It brings back a lot of memories, a lot of old battles, together with a realization of how similar some things still are; and yet how much they have changed for the better. Black chronicles the darkest period of Canada-France relations from De Gaulle’s infamous cry from the City Hall balcony in Montreal to the first visit to France in ten years by a Canadian Prime Minister in 1974.
Black outlines the direct intervention by Presidents De Gaulle and Pompidou and their Ministers and officials in Canadian affairs and the constant efforts by the Canadian Government and its Embassy staff in Paris to combat and/or clarify French interventions in this regard. Black covers the battles waged over the birth of la Francophonie and the various attempts by France to give Quebec an international presence. He covers the contentious issue of visits by French Ministers to Quebec without going to Ottawa, including that of Minister De Lipkowski, which both infuriated PM Trudeau and finished De Lipkowski’s political career in France. Trudeau’s comments about that visit were used by the French as an excuse to delay inviting him to France. Black recalls how former BC Premier W.A.C. Bennett, highly sceptical of warnings from Ottawa bureaucrats, became convinced after listening to De Lipkowski in Paris that there was a plot in official French circles to destroy Canadian unity.
In analyzing the fallout from the General’s balcony statement, Black recalls that during the Cabinet discussion of how the Canadian Government should react, Intervention: Canada-France Relations 196 reviewed by John J. Noble
As Far As Ever the Puffin Flew reviewed by John Treleaven two junior ministers and future PMs, Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien, urged a strong reaction, otherwise people in France would think the Canadian government was weak. Minister Chrétien informed his colleagues of how the provincial government had bussed people from his riding to Trois Rivières for organized demonstrations during the General’s passage.
Black recalls the nature of the immediate responses by Mayor Jean Drapeau and Prime Minister Pearson, including Pearson’s fury at De Gaulle’s comparison of his reception in Quebec to that which he had received after the liberation of Paris. He reports the conclusions of External Affairs officials that “Ottawa should stick to its policy of a balance between rejection of outside interference and reaffirmation of the importance it attaches to relations with France”. However difficult, it should be “business as usual” with France unless further provoked. The other conclusion of the team was that the fate of Canada lay in Canada and that Ottawa and Quebec City must have a continuing dialogue.
As part of his prologue, Black outlines some serious policy differences between his first Ambassador, Jules Léger and the then Under-Secretary, Marcel Cadieux, about the conduct of France/Canada relations. Léger thought that Cadieux and the Canadian Government were too legalistic in their approach. However, Black outlines that the approach got even tougher with the arrival of the Trudeau Government. He mentions (without providing details) that President De Gaulle had taken exception to a phrase in Ambassador Léger’s presentation of Letters of Credentials in 1964, which had limited the Ambassador’s further access to the President. (Cadieux apparently was furious and demanded to know why Léger had not cleared his remarks with Ottawa. A lesson for all would-be Ambassadors!) This incident, which occurred before Black’s arrival in Paris, may have tempered relations between Léger and Cadieux throughout Léger’s time in Paris. It also shows the hollowness of Lucien Bouchard’s claim that Léger was undercut by anglophone colleagues in External.
Black arrived in Paris just before President De Gaulle’s November 27, 1967 press conference in which he openly espoused Quebec sovereignty. He attended that press conference as his baptism under fire. During the Cabinet discussion which followed concerning how Canada should react, Justice Minister Trudeau told his colleagues “that the Government’s whole approach to the present constitutional difficulty is pragmatic and incoherent. The Government is forever reacting to isolated incidents and has no overall strategy… It is not giving leadership to the country”. Foreign Minister Paul Martin advised against rash actions and urged a business as usual attitude because, in effect, there was no alternative. That did not mean doing nothing to contain De Gaulle, but rather that one had to go to the source of the problem, which was Quebec and not Paris.
Black recalls Prime Minister Trudeau’s first encounter with PM Couve de Murville (at Premier Daniel Johnson’s funeral), where Trudeau questioned the logic of France’s policy towards Canada. Couve told Trudeau that France was against separatism and had no interest in seeing Canada split up, for the French Fact in North America could only survive in a larger political context. Couve believed that if Quebec was to separate it would be assimilated, as were the Franco-Americans of New England. Trudeau told Couve that French policy did not square with that assessment. Black notes that Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister for six and a half years and had won three elections before he was invited to Paris in 1974
Black recalls that when Jean Guy Cardinal, Deputy Premier and fill-in for an ill Premier Bertrand, came to Paris in January 1969, he was received at the Élysée Palace four times in five days. However “when it came to substance, there appeared to be a certain caution on both sides that contrasted with the warmth of the reception”. Regarding the same visit Black noted that the Canadian press concentrated on appearances and that the French press generally did not report on the visit at all. (Little has changed in this respect.)
Black has an interesting chapter on what “business as usual” meant for the running of the Embassy: diplomatic reporting; trade relations (too small); nuclear policy and satellite communications; visits from other provinces; commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of WW I; visits by Canadian parliamentarians; deficiencies in the Department’s attitude towards the importance of cultural and press relations in foreign policy; problems of renovating the building bought for the Cultural Centre using a unilingual architect who could not work in French.
The opening of the Cultural Centre in 1972 provided an occasion for a marked improvement in France/Canada relations and the visit to Paris of Foreign Minister Mitchell Sharp. In his discussions with French Foreign Minister Schumann, Sharp said he could not accept the French position that the nature of its relations with Canada “depended on the policy of the Quebec Government in power at the time”. While true, it was ironic that the arrival in power of Robert Bourassa’s government in Quebec, with a commitment to a federal system, was a further impetus to normalisation. During Bourassa’s visit to Paris there were no protocol incidents. Bourassa told President Pompidou that De Gaulle’s 1967 visit to Canada had done more harm than good because De Gaulle had used the slogan of a separatist party and then taken an intransigent attitude toward the rest of Canada.
Black attributes part of the return to normalisation in France/Canada relations to the arrival of a “political Ambassador” with clout, Léo Cadieux, who had been a member of the Trudeau cabinet. When Black left Paris in 1971, he returned to Ottawa to become Director General for European Affairs. He continues his chronicle for several years following the arrival of Valéry Giscard D’Estaing as President and the negotiation of the Canada/European Community Contractual Link, which was a direct result of the “Third Option” policy introduced by Mitchell Sharp.
Trudeau’s first official visit to Paris as Prime Minister came in the fall of 1974. During the visit, Trudeau met both President Giscard and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, who made clear that his government wanted to see tangible results from cooperation with all of Canada.
Black concludes by noting that from 1974 on, in general, France kept to its policy of non-indifference and non-interference, even when the Parti Québécois was in power. As a post-script Black suggests that if French-speaking Canadians are to identify with Canada’s foreign policy, they must have a window on the world. That means a close and special relationship with France, which is in Canada’s national interest. Black cautions that the reverse is not true for France. The French are highly suspicious of North America. Their “cousins in Canada” are not high on the French agenda except in emotional terms; history and a bad conscience over leaving French Canada in a lurch over two hundred years ago are compelling forces. But when it comes to economic matters, “the cousins” live in North America and are part of NAFTA. “As far as the French are concerned, Quebec will have to face the consequences of its geography and neighbouring economies essentially alone”
Black acknowledges that in this complex relationship, disputes will arise and it will be important for successive Canadian Governments to differentiate between issues which are absolutely essential to Canadian interests and those which are not. Black suggests the distinction is not always evident because some Canadians are still inclined to replay the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and consider every dispute with France a major confrontation, or alternatively, to refuse to recognize that in key cases French policy directly affects Canadian national interests.
Gazing into the future, Black admits there is a possibility that Quebec will leave Canada. He concludes that, notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority of French politicians, including Gaullists, have insisted that separation would mean the eventual disappearance of the French Fact in North America, France’s policy towards Canada retains enough duality that if Quebec, after a sovereignist win in a referendum, asked for recognition from France, the latter would “likely oblige”. If that were to happen Black suggests “it would be one of the rare occasions in French history when sentiment prevailed over raison d’état”
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1998) — Spring 1998 // Printemps 1998, pp. 42–43. Read the rest of this issue →
