Wilfrid Bay-tree

Beginning of its career in Canada

Joseph Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier is born on November 20th, 1841, in a roundwood small house, with Saint-Flax of Laurentides. His/her father, Carolus Bay-tree, fact part of the minority of the population which can read, write, count and speak English. His/her mother, Marcelle Bay-tree, will die when the Wilfrid young person is only 6 years old. For Carolus, education is a priority. It will thus be involved in debt so that his/her son has an education. It makes its primary studies with Saint-Flax, and its traditional studies with Joliette. At the school, the Wilfrid young person shows an extremely assiduous pupil, with health strongly staggering, but of a remarkable intelligence. As of 10 years, it takes already the party of the reformists of Lafontaine and Baldwin.

After having obtained its baccalaureat be arts, it leaves being studied the right to the university of Montreal. It is at that time that it meets members of the Canadian institute, a liberal political group. It côtoie Antoine-Aime Dorion. It is thus Dorion which will take the young Bay-tree under its wing. Bay-tree will make a success of its studies of right with several mentions of honor, but its health is always also bad, suffering of chronic bronchitis. Each winter will be, for Wilfrid, a test. In 1864, a political coalition is formed between Ontarian the Québécois conservatives and, and the Ontariens liberals. Germinate then the project of confederation. Bay-tree will fight, like all the reds, against the union. But when the confederation is proclaimed, Wilfrid will line up side of moderate, and will decide to fight within the confederation.

A liberal in Quebec

Bay-tree presents the first time in the provincial county of Drummond - Arthabaska, in 1871, where he is elected with a very fragile majority. With the legislative Parliament of Quebec, it is shown like a member of Parliament with the remarkable eloquence. But Laurier is not made illusions. The liberal party remains a marginal party, without concrete political program, criticized by the elites and the clergy. Bay-tree will thus decide to be presented to the federal one, where he believes that the chances of triumph of liberalism are better.

It is thus presented, with the election of 1874, in the same district as in 1871, but at the federal level. He is elected with a slightly better majority. Bay-tree becomes the right-hand man of the Québécois members of the cabinet. The Prime Minister wanting it at the Council of Ministers, it appoints it Minister for the income in 1877, station which it will preserve until the defeat of the Liberals in 1878.

After this defeat, indolence and the inaction take Laurier. He is definitively not a politician of opposition. He will be certainly an effective parliamentary secretary of the liberal chief of the time, Edward Blake, but he does not have the eloquence and ardor that one will know to him when he is Prime Minister.

In 1887, Blake resigns. A new chief must be selected. As incredible as that could appear at the time, the liberal Caucus chooses a Canadian-French: Wilfrid Bay-tree. Bay-tree will start by refusing, saying that a Canadian-French cannot fulfill such a function, but vis-a-vis the obstinacy of the caucus, it will end up accepting.

It is a chief of the opposition except par. It attacks without slackening the conservative government, marks points, fact of the profits. It will lead even the liberals to the victory in 1896.

Prime Minister

Bay-tree directed Canada during one period of growth, of industrialization and fast immigrations. Its long career covers one period of political change and economic major. As a Prime Minister it largely contributed to make enter the Canada at the 20th century and to gain a greater autonomy vis-a-vis the the United Kingdom.

One of the first actions of Bay-tree as a Prime Minister was to find a solution with the question of the Catholic schools of French language to the Manitoba, question which had caused the fall of the government of Charles Tupper earlier in 1896. Its compromise, called the Compromis Bay-tree-Greenway , issued that the catholic French-speaking people with the Manitoba could profit from a catholic education if there were enough pupils to justify it, each school being judged on a case-by-case basis. This was seen by several as being the best possible solution taking into account the circumstances, satisfying at the same time the French-speaking people and the english-speaking. However, in practice, in the majority of the cases, the number of French-speaking pupils was always lower than that of the english-speaking, which pushed Laurier to create French-speaking schools of the evening, while in the schools with anglophone majority, it was possible for the French Canadians to obtain half an hour of religious teaching at the end of the classes.

This compromise, in general, was very badly accepted, as well in the Canada-English as French. English-speaking judging that this compromise was an attack with the autonomy of the provinces, and French-speaking people, considering it insufficiently favorable to the French-speaking people. This is only one example in the dialog of the deaf which was maintained between english-speaking and French-speaking people during the reign Bay-tree, and even well after, any government action being considered to be too favorable to the one of the two ethnicities.

In 1899, the the United Kingdom expected a military support on behalf of Canada, as a member of the British Empire, during the Guerre of Boers. Bay-tree was taken between the British Canadians, imperialists, who strongly supported a military action at the sides of the Empire, and the French Canadians, isolationist just like the United States, which was opposed to it also strongly. The latter saw the war of Boers like a recall of their defeat in the Guerre Seven Year old. Henri Bourassa was particularly wild in its opposition. Bay-tree chose finally the sending of a military force made up of volunteers, instead of the militia awaited by the British, but Bourassa denounced it nevertheless.

In 1905, Laurier governed the entry of the Alberta and the Saskatchewan within the Confédération, the two last provinces to be created starting from the Territoires of the North-West.

Whereas Laurier is Prime Minister, he visits a traditional college of Canton-of-the Is, where it is invited to discuss with students. One of these students, it is Louis the St. Lawrence, future Prime Minister of Canada. In front of this audience which drinks the words of majestic the Prime Minister, he will pronounce a famous remained sentence: I dream of a country where the two races founders would be equal one the other, a country where the linguistic and denominational borders would be abolished, a large, worthy and responsible nation, where French-speaking and english-speaking would cohabit there in peace.

Canadian Royal Navy

The naval competition between the the United Kingdom and the Germanic Empire developed in the first years of the 20th century. The British requested from Canada more money and resources to build ships, causing a strong political division in Canada: the imperialists wanted to send as much as possible, the nationalists wanted nothing to send whole.

Aiming at the compromise, Laurier proposed a bill, in 1910, to create the Canadian royal Marine. This navy would consist initially of a force of five cruisers and six destroyers; in times of crisis, it could be put directly under imperial order. This idea was largely rented with the Imperial Conference on Défence with London, but was very unpopular in Canada and largely contributed to the defeat at the polls of Bay-tree in 1911. Robert Borden, in 1912, will decide to continue the creation of the Canadian royal Marine, where Laurier had left it.

Reciprocity and demolished

Another controversy emerged due in support of Laurier to the commercial Réciprocité with the the United States. The Conservative party opposed it, just as the liberal business men; the farmers, them, strongly supported the idea. It was the second controversy to seal the destiny of Bay-tree: the election of 1911 related mainly to the reciprocity, and ended in a victory of the conservatives of Robert Laird Borden. Of this moment, the French Canadians thought that he was a traitor sold to the British, while the British Canadians thought that he was a man capable of compromise.

Bay-tree thus had to be resigned to the defeat, on October 7th, 1911. But this defeat was hardly synonymous with rest for Laurier. On the contrary, as he says it itself in a letter to his deputy Ernest Lapointe in the days which followed the defeat: I want another battle against the tories . Bay-tree thus reorganized completely the administration of the party, creating a central committee of organization, under the presidency of William Lyon Mackenzie King. However, very few things was changed with the liberal program of 1896, with strong traditional liberal color. Only some concessions were made to the Ontarian progressists on the place of the state in the company.

In spite of these efforts, Laurier had an incredible difficulty to maintain the unit of its party. The Inhabitants of Quebec being a liberal bastion since 1887, it had hardly other choice but to defend Canadian autonomy within the British Empire, while Ontario and the West regarded the imperial policy of Borden as acceptable. Although he was the first French Canadian to reach the post of Canada Prime Minister, several Inhabitants of Quebec considered its political orientations too tinted of imperialism. A certain part of its supports in Quebec thus went to the Conservatives. Indeed, Robert Laird Borden, to counter the liberal influence in French Canada, had promised a strong French-speaking representation in its cabinet. Several nationalists, anti-impérialistes were named ministers, in particular Frédérick D. Monk. Others, on the provincial scene, like Israel Tart and Henri Bourrassa, also tackled them in a virulent way the policy of Bay-tree.

In spite of that, the crisis of the conscription of 1917 was going to enable him to reconcile itself with its French-speaking electorate, 62 of the 82 seats obtained by the Liberals with the elections of 1917 being held by Inhabitants of Quebec.

During several decades, the impact which had the presence of a Canadian-French at the post of Prime Minister (under the banner of the Liberals) was strong. Thus, the Inhabitants of Quebec (E) S strongly voted for the Liberals until 1984, except a light exception in 1958. Moreover, in the Sixties and seventies, the chief of the rallying creditist, Réal Caouette, declared state on television the Inhabitants of Quebec vote liberal because their grandparents tightened the hand of Wilfrid Laurier .

Opposition and world war

Bay-tree carried out the opposition during the First World War. It was influential in its opposition to the conscription, which led to the crisis of the conscription of 1917 and the formation of the unionistic government, to which Laurier refused to join. However, several liberals, especially in English Canada, united in Borden as liberal-unionistic, and the liberals of Bay-tree were reduced to a handle of French Canadian deputies after the election of 1917.

Bay-tree died the February 17th 1919, and was buried with the Notre-Dame cemetery with Ottawa, in Ontario.

Heritage

The image that Laurier will leave in Quebec is paradoxical. The Inhabitants of Quebec will give him parliamentary majorities crushing for a long time, and even after its death. But, did it deserve this confidence on behalf of the Inhabitants of Quebec? Indeed, Laurier will defend the French language with much less ardor than several of its predecessors, as well anglophone as French-speaking, such Edward Blake, Oliver Mowat, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, Georges-Etienne Cartier, etc…

Indeed, several laws progressites with regard to the French language will be refused, for example:

refusal to return the bilingual currencies and stations
refusal to oblige thegraded military ones to include/understand and speak French
refusal to grant the school rights of the French-speaking minorities out-Quebec

Bay-tree, although he was regarded as Progressite for his time, could be regarded as a conservative nowadays. Example:

refusal to grant the right to vote with the women
refusal to create the first Social Security

External bonds

Biography on the '' biographical Dictionnaire of Canada in line

federal political Experiment, Library of the Parliament

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