Regulations 17

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The Reglement 17 (English Regulation 17 , French Règlement 17 ) was an ordinance of the Ministry of Education of the Canadian province of Ontario , which was issued in July 1912 by the Conservative government of Prime Minister James Whitney . It restricted the use of French as the language of instruction after the first year of school and banned the teaching of French after the fourth year. In 1913 the regulation was adapted to allow French for one hour a day.

Effects

The provincial government issued the ordinance because of the prevailing opinion among large parts of the population that the use of French endangered the Anglophone, Protestant status of Ontario. In particular, the separate French Catholic school councils were seen as inefficient. The French Canadians reacted with indignation to the downgrading of their language. The influential journalist Henri Bourassa described Whitney's government as "the Prussians of Ontario", an allusion to the Franco-German hereditary enmity .

The ordinance met with particularly strong resistance in the federal capital Ottawa , where the francophone school council was initially ousted, but regained control of the École Guigues through legal channels . The newspaper Le Droit , which still exists today , was founded in 1913 to combat the regulation. In order to break the resistance, the ministry issued regulation 18 in August 1913, which provided for severe sanctions against uncooperative teachers. The administration of Whitney's successor, William Howard Hearst, replaced the elected Ottawa School Council with an appointed commission. However, since the Association canadienne-française d'éducation de l'Ontario had been fighting for years, this measure could never be fully implemented.

Finally, in 1927, the Howard Ferguson government repealed the ordinances. Ferguson was an opponent of bilingualism , but he had to enter into a political alliance directed against the federal government with Louis-Alexandre Taschereau , the Prime Minister of Québec . The conservative provincial government was reluctant to accept bilingual schools, but the ordinances tarnished Ontario and Québec for decades. Purely French-speaking schools were only allowed again with the new Education Act in 1968.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Regulation 17 (Réglement 17). In: Les archives du français du Québec. Université de Laval, accessed January 30, 2010 (French).