Politics

The earliest political activities of French immigrants were local. The mayors of small communities established and largely peopled by French immigrants, such as Saint-Pierre and Sainte-Rose du Lac in Manitoba, were often French immigrants themselves. Such activity proved more feasible in western Canada, where separate French communities existed, than in Quebec, where they did not. Political activity in Quebec could only take place when French immigrants had had sufficient time to integrate into the host community, and generally this evolution necessitated more than a single generation. Few Quebec politicians have been of recent French origin. Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, named prime minister of Quebec in 1878, was born in France though he came to Quebec as a child about 1839. Joly’s last public position was that of Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia (1900–06).

Elsewhere in Canada, participation in political life at higher levels was possible only for immigrants who had overcome the language barrier and were perceived as representative of the larger community. Second-generation French in the west desirous of a political career were undoubtedly assisted by the fact that most of the population of the region was of comparatively recent arrival; in the older eastern provinces, recent settlement could be a handicap. François Gigot, from Alsace, who sat in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly from 1883 until 1886, was one of the first French immigrants in Canada elected to high political office. The parents of J.M. Uhrich, lieutenant governor of Saskatchewan from 1948 until 1951, immigrated to Ontario from Alsace after the Franco-Prussian War. Gildas Molgat, son of Breton immigrant Louis Molgat, was elected to the legislative assembly of Manitoba in 1953, as was Roger Teillet, whose paternal ancestors came from the Vendée region of France. Both Molgat and Teillet later entered federal politics.

At certain moments, French immigrants involved themselves in homeland politics. World War II, for example, saw public quarrels between those who supported Marshal Philippe Pétain and the Vichy regime and those who favoured the Free French movement of Charles de Gaulle. Vichy supporters, many of them French-Canadian, were probably more numerous until 1942 when Canada broke relations with the regime and the Germans occupied the state. Moreover, the Free French movement in Canada was racked by incessant quarrels of personality and politics. De Gaulle’s first representative in Canada, one Dr Vignal, president of the Union Nationale Française in Montreal, failed to establish his leadership. Only in mid-1943 did Gabriel Bonneau, de Gaulle’s new representative in Canada, succeed in uniting the French of Montreal.