Group Maintenance

Belgians in Canada have experienced relatively rapid integration into mainstream society. In southwestern Ontario, Flemings were subsumed into the anglophone host society. In western Canada, on the other hand, although most Flemings identified with the anglophone majority, on occasion they joined the Walloons in associating with the francophone minorities. The Walloon interpenetration with francophone minorities outside Quebec enabled them to establish a degree of coexistence with the anglophone community. Walloons in western Canada often adopted French-Canadian nationalist views regarding language rights and separate schools. In Quebec the experience seems to have been different again, since both Walloons and Flemings merged into the dominant francophone community.

In all regions their integration proceeded more on an individual basis than as a group experience. They did not create their own ethnocultural subsystem on either a regional or a national scale. Roman Catholicism is one of the major distinguishing characteristics of the group, yet there is only one Flemish parish, Sacred Heart in Saint-Boniface, and no Walloon parish in all of Canada. This anomaly may be explained by the fact that, unlike a number of other ethnic groups, Belgians never settled in enclaves, although there were concentrations of settlement in southwestern Ontario, southern Manitoba, and around Fort Garry–Saint-Boniface. So-called Belgian Towns in Saint-Boniface, Glace Bay, or Estevan were not ghettos or self-sufficient ethnocultural enclaves but residential concentrations. The Belgian component in rural colonization projects such as Namur in Quebec and Bellegarde in Saskatchewan was important, but other groups were always present, and there was no attempt to exclude them. The clubs in Montreal, Saint-Boniface, Delhi, and Sabrevois have increasingly served a heterogeneous community. Belgians, therefore, were never an isolated or segregated community in Canada.

This association with other ethnocultural groups may explain the departure from endogamy that characterized the first generation of immigrants. Local histories and church registers indicate that, in the second generation, marriages extended beyond ethnic boundaries into the wider Roman Catholic community. In subsequent generations, even the religious boundary is crossed as young people increasingly choose their mates from associates at school, the workplace, or recreational activities. The given names of children, once limited to the traditional familial and religious repertoire, increasingly reflect both North American inventiveness and conformity with the larger society. The community’s concentric worlds appear to expand with each succeeding generation.

The openness to other groups has had additional consequences. Flemings have had a low language-retention rate. Outside Quebec they quickly adopted English because of its implications for economic advancement and social acceptance, just as in Quebec in recent decades they have readily integrated into the francophone majority. The first generation of immigrants maintained active drama clubs, literary societies, and social gatherings, but these soon gave way to mainstream cultural and social activities. In the early years of settlement, Flemings in Ontario and Manitoba asked for the services of priests speaking their tongue, but the hierarchy was only infrequently able to meet their requests. There is evidence to suggest that parents in southwestern Ontario passed on the Flemish language to their children, although the children never learned to read and write it. One survey in the tobacco belt indicated that children seldom spoke Flemish with their parents and almost never with their peers, but they retained a sufficient knowledge to communicate with their grandparents. Vlamingen in de Wereld, which is dedicated to bringing about a worldwide Flemish cultural renaissance, has been active in the tobacco belt, promoting the use of standard Dutch at home and in social and cultural events. The Walloons, most of whom settled among other francophones, maintained French at home and in religious, cultural, and social activities generally. The Walloon dialects were hardly ever taken up by the youth, just as until quite recently they were on the point of disappearing in Belgium itself.

The bitter language debates between Flemings and Walloons that raged in Belgium were seldom taken up in Canada. Walloons in Manitoba did have some reason to believe that Flemings were insensitive to their demands for provincial services in French and the restoration of official bilingualism, but there was never open confrontation between the two linguistic groups. Any difference in views can be attributed largely to Flemish blending into the anglophone host society and Walloon identification in most places with the French-Canadian community, rather than to a perpetuation of the language battles of the home country. In the 1920s the Walloons shared with other francophones on the prairies the abuse of such anti-French and anti-Catholic organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, the Orange lodges, and the reactionary wing of the Conservative Party. Politically, the Flemings and Walloons have supported the same political party – either the Conservatives or the Liberals and rarely a third party – and have voted for each other’s candidates in municipal, provincial, and federal elections.

Belgians have contributed much to an emerging Canadian identity. They consistently upheld the work ethic, community values, and loyalty to the Crown. In numerous communities they reinforced Roman Catholic values and traditions, and they are one of the few immigrant groups who have actively promoted the development of francophone institutions in Canada. Belgian miners, dairymen, market gardeners, tobacco growers, and grain growers joined non-ethnic associations. Traditional recreational activities, such as pole archery, pigeon racing, bicycle racing, and Belgian bowling, were never restricted to their own community. Belgian investments in nascent Canadian industries have greatly stimulated development and created jobs. In mining, members of the community have actively supported unionization and the labour movement. In agriculture they have been pioneers in dairying, beet growing, tobacco culture, and market gardening.

Everywhere Belgians have made important contributions to intellectual life, education, religion, and arts and letters. In Quebec their role in the domains of university research, biotechnology, aeronautics, and computer science has been most significant. The Quebec episcopacy looked to Belgium for religious orders to promote new educational and cultural initiatives and for solutions to the challenges arising out of modernization. Belgians have been active participants in Catholic services to other immigrant communities, such as the Ukrainians, Poles, and Hungarians, and in missionary work among the Metis and native peoples.

It is significant that Belgians did not feel the need to build a network of institutions to maintain their identity in Canada. They apparently perceive no inherent contradiction between devotion to Canada and respect for one’s roots. A crowd still gathers for the Independence Day parade through the streets of Montreal each 21 July, as it does for the May Day procession led by the banner of Our Lady of Flanders each year in Windsor, Ontario. In Manitoba, the pole archery tournaments at Sainte-Amélie and the pigeon races at Saint-Boniface have become increasingly popular. In Ontario the Langton fair and the tobacco harvest festivities in Delhi still attract enthusiastic crowds. These are some of the occasions on which Belgians still display their community solidarity.

The acceptance of Belgians by both mainstream communities in Canada derives from the fact that they were initially perceived as “preferred immigrants,” their heroic image as resisters of foreign invasion and occupation in 1914–18 and again in 1940–45, their rapid integration into the dominant society, their success generally as settlers, and their outstanding contributions in fields ranging from music and pedagogy to agriculture and engineering. Whatever judgment may be passed on Canadian immigration policies that categorized peoples as “preferred” and “non-preferred,” as long as such classifications were in use Belgians fell into the “preferred” category.