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Canada's First Constitution: Pierre Bédard on Tolerance and Dissent*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Janet Ajzenstat
Janet Ajzenstat
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
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Abstract

Pierre Bédard, leader of the French Canadian party in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada from 1792 until 1812, and a staunch defender of British political institutions, is compared with two of his compatriots whose opinion of the British system is less admiring. To understand the dilemma of colonial politics Bédard attempts to reconcile the idea of tolerance and freedom that he finds in British constitutional authorities like Locke and Blackstone with his perception, illuminated by those same authorities, that British rule in Lower Canada was intolerant. What emerges is an unmatched description of the constitutional principle enabling free criticism of government in Parliament and in the press. Blanchet and Taschereau, in contrast, provide an argument that promotes reflection on the limits of political dissent even in an essentially tolerant polity.

Résumé

Pierre Bédard, dirigeant du parti canadien-français à l'Assemblée Législative du Bas Canada de 1792 à 1812, et défenseur dévoué des institutions politiques britanniques, est comparé à deux de ses compatriotes dont l'opinion sur le système britannique est moins enthousiaste. Pour comprendre le dilemme de la politique coloniale, Bédard entreprend de réconcilier les idées de tolérance et de liberté qu'il trouve chez les experts en constitution britannique tels que Locke et Blackstone, avec sa perception, éclairée par ces mêmes experts, selon laquelle l'autorité britannique dans le Bas Canada était intolérante. Il en ressort une description incomparable des principes constitutionnels permettant la libre critique du gouvernement au sein des parlement et dans la presse. Blanchet et Taschereau, au contraire, donnent des arguments en vue de promouvoir la réflexion sur les limites de l'opposition même dans le cadre d'une politique essentiellement tolérante.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 39 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1990

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References

1 Locke, John, A Letter Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), 69.Google Scholar

2 Blackstone and Jean Louis De Lolme are quoted in Le Canadien, sometimes at length. See, for example, Le Canadien 2, 15 (March 2, 1808); 2, 25 (May 7, 1808); 2, 32 (June 25, 1808); 3, 29 (June 3, 1809); and 3, 37 (July 29, 1809). The journal also cited or ran excerpts from British documents relating to Canada, the journals and debates of the British Parliament, and statutes and journals of the assemblies of other British colonies and ex-colonies. Journals of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada 15 (April 11, 1807) gives a list of books and documents Bedard purchased for the parliamentary library. It includes Malthus and Bentham as well as a wealth of law books. Smith, Lawrence A. H., “Le Canadien and the British Constitution, 1806–1810,” Canadian Historical Review 38 (1957), 93–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar, lists the books read by Assembly members at this time. As Smith notes, the Canadians shunned radical and utopian thinkers, concentrating on “arguments expounding the rule of law and toleration” (100). For Bédard's constitutional ideas see Ouellet, Fernand, Lower Canada, 1791–1840 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1980)Google Scholar, and Finlay, John L., “The State of a Reputation: Bédard as Constitutionalist,” Journal of Canadian Studies 20 (1985–86), 60–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See the Prospectus for Le Canadien which promises to take advantage of the province's liberty of the press to explain to readers “the rare treasure which we possess in our Constitution.” (All translations from Le Canadien and other French sources are mine.) The third issue cites Pitt, Burke and Fox to uphold an argument about the rights of British subjects. See Le Canadien 1, 3 (December 6, 1806).

4 See the “Mémoire au Soutien de la Requet des Habitans du Bas-Canada, à Son Altesse Royale le Prince Regent,” in Christie, Robert, A History of the Late Province of Lower Canada, Vol. 6, Interesting Public Documents and Official Correspondence (Montreal: John Lovell, 1855), 313–26.Google Scholar It must be noted that in attributing the “Memoire” to Blanchet and Taschereau I am running counter to prevailing opinion among historians. Both Ouellet and Finlay argue that the “Mémoire” is essentially Bédard's work. See Ouellet, Lower Canada, 1791–1840, 88–89; Ouellet, Fernand, “Pierre-Stanislas Bédard,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 6: 1821–1835 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 43–48Google Scholar; and Finlay, “The State of a Reputation,” 72–74. I give reasons below to support the idea that Bédard did not write the “Mémoire,” arguing for one thing that it is unconvincing to suppose that one and the same person could advance the very different constitutional arguments embodied in Le Canadien and in the “Mémoire.” Nevertheless, cautious readers may want to treat my attribution of the “Mémoire” to Blanchet and Taschereau as a hypothesis rather than established fact.

5 Everyone acknowledges that Blanchet and Taschereau bore considerable responsibility for the “Mémoire.” Opinions differ merely about the extent to which they relied on Bédard's arguments. We know from Bédard's correspondence with John Neilson that Blanchet and Taschereau appealed to Bédard for help while they were preparing the “Mémoire” and that he sent them notes and documents. See the letter to Neilson of November 2, 1814 (Public Archives of Canada, Neilson Collection, Vol. 2, 391). (Bédard at this time was living in Trois Rivières, effectively an exile from the political scene.) In arguing for Bédard as the principal author of the “Mémoire,” Ouellet makes much of the evidence in the correspondence. But the letters in fact show us Bédard complaining to Neilson about being able to do very little to assist Blanchet and Taschereau. See his letter of September 25, 1814 (Neilson Collection, Vol. 2, 378–79), where he says he can do so little because he is constantly busy, has so little information, and is without books. The plain sense of the letters of September 25 and November 2 is that Bédard wished he could have had a larger hand in writing the “Mémoire.”

6 For an argument that does more to suggest how imperialism and liberalism might be reconciled see Stéphane Dion, “Durham et Tocqueville sur la colonisation libérate,” paper delivered at the Durham Conference, Trent University, May 1989.

7 See Wallot, J.-P., “Pierre Bédard et ‘Le Canadien,’” Magazine de la Presse, July 2, 1966Google Scholar; and Ouellet, “Pierre-Stanislas Bédard,” 47.

8 Address to voters in the constituency of Surrey. Cited in Garneau, F.-X., Hisloire du Canada, Vol. 2 (5th ed.; Paris: Librarie Félix Alcan, 1920), 487.Google Scholar See also Ouellet, Fernand, Economic and Social History of Quebec, 1760–1850 (Ottawa: Gage [Carleton Library], 1980).Google Scholar

9 Ouellet is convinced that Bédard was the first proponent of the principle in Canada or Britain (Lower Canada, 88; “Pierre-Stanislas Bédard,” 49). Ouellet's term is always “ministerial responsibility,” rather than “responsible government.”

10 Dunham, Aileen, Political Unrest in Upper Canada, 1815–1836 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart [Carleton Library], 1963; first published in 1927), 154.Google ScholarBuckner, Phillip A. suggests how influential Dunham was in The Transition to Responsible Government: British Policy in British North America, 1815–1850 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1985), 4, 5.Google Scholar For Durham on “responsible government,” see Ajzenstat, Janet, The Political Thought of Lord Durham (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988), 52–72.Google Scholar

11 Le Canadien 1, 10 (January 24, 1807). It should be said that the notes and articles in Le Canadien are unsigned, or signed with pseudonyms. This note is attributed to Bédard by most readers, including Ouellet and Finlay. J.-P. Wallot has suggested that Bédard is not proposing the full-blown version of “responsible government,” but merely that ministers should be held responsible individually through the threat of impeachment. See Wallot, “Pierre Bédard et Le Canadien.’” I would argue that Bédard's use of the term “ministry” (ministère), and his suggestion that the ministry has a single programme and the “opposition” another, mean that he is indeed thinking of a collective ministry and collective responsibility.

12 So Finlay, arguing that Bédard was a proponent of the “dying creed of checks and balances,” concludes that he simply could not have stood for “responsible government” (“The State of a Reputation,” 75).

13 See, for example, Dawson, R. Macgregor, The Government of Canada (5th ed. revised by Ward, Norman; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970)Google Scholar, chap. 1, “Representative and Responsible Government.”

14 Le Canadien 2, 14 (February 27, 1808), the report of Bédard's speech in the Assembly; Ibid., 2, 16 (March 9, 1808).

15 Dickinson, H. T. provides a useful guide to the eighteenth-century reformers and their platform in Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth Century Britain (London: Weidenfeldand Nicolson, 1977)Google Scholar, especially 181–92. From May 1809, when the quarrel with Craig began to heat up, Le Canadien regularly ran excerpts from the English Bill of Rights above the dateline—an English statement on the rights of Parliament to which the Canadians felt themselves in every way entitled.

16 The most vigorous statements about the Assembly's independence were prompted by the intemperate speech made by Governor Craig on dissolving Parliament in May 1809. Craig openly attacked the Canadians in the Assembly, while praising Government party supporters. See Journals of the Assembly 1, 17 (May 15, 1809). See the letter from “N “ in Le Canadien 3, 29 (June 3, 1809), citing Blackstone and Locke in support of the contention that all Crown influence in elections is forbidden.

17 Remember the statement on “responsible government” in Le Canadien 1, 10 (January 24, 1807); and see Le Canadien 3, 51 (November 4, 1809), second edition.

18 Le Canadien 1, 18 (March 21, 1807) and 1, 26 (May 16, 1807).

19 See, for example, New, Chester, Lord Durham: A Biography of John George Lambton, First Earl of Durham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), 495–96.Google Scholar

20 Durham dates “responsible government” from 1688, to the utter confusion of his commentators. See Lucas, C. P. (ed.), Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), 73, 79, 279.Google Scholar Phillip Buckner argues that, “the essential principle that the ministers of the Crown were responsible to Parliament for the general conduct of the executive government was clearly established in the eighteenth century” (The Transition to Responsible Government, 5).

21 On this subject Donald Creighton's classic article is still indispensable. See Creighton, Donald, “The Struggle for Financial Control in Lower Canada, 1818–1831,” Canadian Historical Review 12 (1931), 120–44.Google Scholar

22 See Le Canadien 1, 25 (May 7, 1808), where the “independence” of the Assembly is linked to the right to review money bills. Note that Bédard is not proposing to pay less than the Governor wanted; quite the contrary—he is proposing that the province raise, and the Assembly vote, a much larger sum than the Governor had ever submitted to the House (Journals of the Assembly 18 [February 6, 1810]). How much extra money was needed? The picture was confused, but it appeared that the provincial revenues fell short by almost half (Journals of the Assembly 18 [February 17, 1810]).

23 See Craig's, remarks, Journals of the Assembly 18 (February 23, 1810).Google Scholar

24 See, for example, Journals of the Assembly 17 (April 10, 1809).

25 Le Canadien 1, 11 (January 31, 1807), the letter from A. B. This piece goes on: “To make the King's Representative responsible for the counsels of the ministers is both unjust and unconstitutional. It exposes the King's Representative to lose the confidence of the people through the faults of the minister.” See also Le Canadien 2, 34 (July 9, 1809); 2, 35 (July 16, 1808); 2, 16 (March 9, 1808); and 1, 9 (January 17, 1807).

26 See Le Canadien 4, 2 (December 9, 1809), the letter from “Junvenis.”

27 “Mémoire,” 314. Compare Le Canadien 1, 11 (January 31, 1807).

28 “Mémoire,” 314–15.

29 Ouellet, “Pierre-Stanislas Bédard,” 45–47. See “Mémoire,” 319. Finlay recognizes that the doctrine of the “Mémoire” cannot be reconciled with the idea of “responsible government.” But he accepts Ouellet's claim that Bédard is the author of the “Mémoire,” and as a result is forced to argue, despite Ouellet, that Bédard could not possibly have been an advocate of responsible government (“The State of a Reputation,” 72–74).

30 “Mémoire,” 319. Ouellet sees that the “Mémoire” calls for an executive council representing the two parties, but he insists that such a system is more or less “responsible government” (“Pierre-Stanislas Bédard,” 46). He has to admit that the argument of the “Memoire” cannot be assimilated in all ways to the position Bédard put forward in Le Canadien. He suggests that Bédard may have changed his mind, or been confused (“Pierre-Stanislas Bédard,” 43, 44, 45).

31 Bédard never lost interest in this issue. See the letter of November 30, 1825 (Neilson Collection, vol. 5, 203–05).

32 “Mémoire,” 320.

33 Underlying my disagreement with Ouellet about the authorship of the “Mémoire” is the fact that Ouellet takes the kind of sociological approach to the material that is typical of many historians, while I analyze it as the expression of a political philosophy. Ouellet describes Bédard's thought in terms of particular economic and social circumstances; he sees Bédard as spokesman for his social class. This makes it easy for him to overlook the difference between a constitution in which parties alternate in office, and a constitution in which the head of government rules after consulting various interests; both systems might have promoted the interests of that French-Canadian middle class. What a theoretical analysis reveals is a sharp difference between coherent arguments in the “Mémoire” and Le Canadien, that cannot easily be explained away by references to class interest or the assumption that Bédard was confused.

34 “Mémoire,” 321.

35 I am grateful to Peter Aucoin for his comments on the material in this section.

36 Le Canadien 3, 29 (June 3, 1809). The commentators have stumbled badly over this quotation. Both Ouellet and Lawrence A. H. Smith take it to mean that the author was arguing for the superiority of the Legislative Assembly over the political executive. Not so; while the legislative power, meaning the three branches of the legislature (the two legislative houses and the political executive) is superior to the executive power proper, the three branches of the legislature are not superior or inferior to one another. Underlying the commentators’ mistake, I think, is the vague conviction that if the parliamentary system does not locate real political power in the representative assembly, it ought to.

37 Le Canadien 3, 22 (April 26, 1809). See also Journals of the Assembly 17 (April 10, 1809).

38 De Lolme describes the difference between the two sorts of executive power in clearest terms. See Lolme, Jean Louis De, The Constitution of England, ed. by Macgregor, John (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853)Google Scholar, Book I, chap. 5, 61. The Constitution of England was first published in French in 1770, and in English in 1775. It was widely read in England and in both Upper and Lower Canada. De Lolme might be called Canada's forgotten constitutional mentor.

39 Blackstone, William, Commentaries on the Laws of England (New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1969)Google Scholar, Book 1, Part 2, chap. 7.

40 De Lolme, The Constitution of England, Book I, chap. 4, 52.

41 Le Canadien, 2, 22 (April 26, 1809).

42 On the separation of powers in the British constitutional tradition, see Vile, M. J. C., Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967).Google Scholar For the idea that the separation of powers informs the Canadian constitution today, see Ajzenstat, Janet, “Comment: The Separation of Powers in 1867,” this Journal 20 (1987), 117–20.Google Scholar

43 Le Canadien 2, 25 (May 7, 1801); and see the election address from 1810, widely attributed to Bédard, “À Tous les Électeurs.”

44 Le Canadien 1, 10 (January 24, 1807).

45 De Lolme, The Constitution of England, Advertisement, xix.

46 Ibid.; and see Book I, chap. 1, and Book II, chap. 1.

47 Ibid., Book II, chap. 17, 280: “Great men” cannot “transfer to themselves the supreme executive authority.” See also Book II, chap. 2, 154–56, and the story in Book II, chap. 1, of the man of great ability who has acquired “in high degree the love of the people and obtained a great influence in the House of Commons.” De Lolme pictures this man as the greatest threat to the constitution of England! He is, according to De Lolme, a potential tyrant merely biding his time as the people's favourite in order to “unmask [his] ambition.” But given “the stability of the Crown,” says De Lolme, the “only door which the constitution leaves open to ambition, of whatever kind it may be, is a place in the administration during the pleasure of the king” (149). This chapter is furnished with references to Machiavelli's History of Florence, and to English statesmen, people's favourites for the most part. Did Bédard, leader of the province's popular party, read this tale with interest? We may suppose.

48 Ibid., xix.

49 Ibid., Book II, chap. 17, 280; and see Book I, chaps. 6 and 7.

50 See the untitled flyer in English beginning, “My Children, let me request your attention for a few minutes. Fifty years you have been fattening upon the Bounty of a Generous Government.” It appears on the last reel of the Canadian Library Association microfilm of Le Canadien.

51 See “Aux Canadiens,” “À Tous les Électeursdu Bas Canada,” and other flyers, and Le Canadien 2, 47 (October 9, 1809).

52 “Mémoire,” 320–21.

53 See Audet, Francis J. and Surveyer, Edouard Fabre, Les Députés du Premier Parlement, 1792–1796 (Montreal: Les Éditions des Dix, 1946)Google Scholar; and Dionne, N.-E., Pierre Bédard et ses fils (Quebec: Laflamme et Proulx, 1909).Google Scholar

54 Neilson Collection, Vol. 3, 135 (December 20, 1817). See also Ouellet, Lower Canada 1791–1840, 93.