Learning (Or Not) From History

What We Choose To Remember

The 1960s were stormy years in Quebec. One of the most consequential battles of the era exploded in Saint-Léonard. A new film by Félix Rose makes the case that La Bataille de Saint-Léonard (1968) was the impetus for Bill 101.

Félix Rose deserves full marks for archival research. His film shows Italian parents and their children inhabiting a brand new neighbourhood rising in bushland. We see diverging visions of education that degenerate into street battles and death threats. We see panicked politician struggle to find a peaceful comprise, which is impossible as the crowds grow larger and angrier.  The film works hard to recreate the passions of the era. This makes for a rip-roaring film experience. Josée Legault, Journal de Montréal: Il faut courir voir ‘’La bataille de Saint-Léonard.’’

“Saint-Leonard was a brand new district built by Italians and mostly populated by Italians. They left their homes in districts such as Saint-Michel, Rosemount or NDG to buy a house in Saint-Leonard.”

Rose’s story-telling technique is less successful for a history documentary. It does not create the space to view events and motivations from an objective distance. It does not ask new questions or listen to new voices. This is a pity because the Saint-Leonard riots were a pivotal event in Quebec’s history.

In the twenty years following the Second World War, more than 150,000 Italians migrated to Quebec, which offered the New World in a version that was strongly Catholic and where the majority spoke French, a language close to Italian. It was an attractive combination. Things didn’t work out as planned.  Quebec was in the throes of an extraordinary baby boom. Schools were full. They did not need immigrants.

Quebec’s predominant school system was Catholic and French. There was also a Protestant system, that was mostly English, and a small English-Catholic network of schools created for the Irish. Which system would make room for the thousands of new immigrants? The French Catholic system rejected non-Catholics: all the Jewish kids and the Greek Orthodox, as well as French-speaking Protestants. What about Italian kids, who were Catholic? This is where the story becomes complicated. Some Italians were accepted into French Catholic schools. Many were rejected.  Rose’s film adopts the Nationalist narrative that immigrants were to blame for rejecting French schools because English was the language of work and prosperity, while French was the language of poverty and humiliation.

Context is important. Saint-Leonard was a brand new district built by Italians and mostly populated by Italians. They left their homes in districts such as Saint-Michel, Rosemount or NDG to buy a house in Saint-Leonard. Many of the kids moving there had already attended English Catholic schools because that’s were they were sent by the neighbourhood French Catholic school.

A new French Catholic school board was created for Saint-Leonard. Many Italian parents enrolled their children in schools that offered a bilingual curriculum. This was a time when radio and TV stations were experimenting with bilingual programming. Montreal was de facto bilingual, so why not bilingual schools? It was a reasonable question then, and is still pertinent today.

The human story behind the Battle of Saint Leonard is complex. The politics of the day reduced it to a stark duality. On one side, a bunch of foreigners manipulated by Quebec’s hereditary enemies – the English; on the other side, Quebec’s underdogs fighting to defend their language, culture, history and soul!

The leader of the ruling Union Nationale party proposed a law to provide freedom of choice in education. Jean-Jacques Bertrand allegedly justified this solution because, ‘We fought on the Battle on the Plains of Abraham and lost….’ J-J Bertrand and the Union Nationale party lost the 1970 election and were erased from history. Robert Bourassa’s Liberal’s gained power and passed a language law that alienated Anglos but did not placate French Nationalists. In the 1976 provincial election, a new party founded by René Levesque took power. The Parti Québécois immediately passed Bill 101.

We still do not have linguistic peace. Most Montrealers have quietly chosen to be bilingual, and that is a problem for people who insist that the only official language in Quebec is French, as if being bilingual is incompatible with speaking French and enjoying French culture. I have interviewed hundreds of Quebecers who arrived in successive waves of immigration. Most were happy to learn French… and English. Most Italians learned French, even if French schools in the pre Bill-101 era rejected them. This is history that needs to be confronted and reckoned with. Films like La Bataille de Saint-Léonard do not help us understand why it was a mistake to villainize minorities in the past. It is inexcusable today.

Guy Rex Rodgers was founding Executive Director of the English Language Arts Network (ELAN) and recently returned to filmmaking. You can reach Guy at: [email protected]