Sorry claim for apology

PRINCE Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, arrived in Canada for an 11-day visit on Monday. The heir to the throne and his wife will visit Newfoundland, Ontario, British Columbia -- where we can expect the usual hearts and flowers that accompany a royal visit -- and Quebec. That last is a stop-over that seems likely to be a little more contentious.

Quebec sovereigntists, or separatists, as they are known more accurately elsewhere, want the Prince of Wales to apologize for a perceived genocide waged by the British Crown against French-Canadians in Quebec for the last 400 years. The prince must apologize for everything from the Conquest in the mid-18th century to patriation of the Constitution without Quebec's agreement in 1982. In between he must apologize for the fact a majority of North Americans, not just Canadians, today speak English. Otherwise, he is not welcome in Quebec.

A more grotesque definition of genocide or a more fatuous demand for an apology can hardly be imagined. At the time of the conquest of Quebec by the British, the Catholic Church was one of the most powerful institutions in the French territory. In figuring out how to deal with a conquered people with whom they had been at war off and on for years, the British adopted an enlightened post-conquest policy. However much it might have been influenced by the political practicalities of the situation, Britain's behaviour in the following years helped ensure, from 1760 until today, the existence of a healthy French culture in North America.

Even though the Catholic Church at the time was outlawed in Britain, it was left in its powerful position in Quebec, and played such a role until middle of the 20th century, when Quebec nationalists themselves eroded the position and changed the world that conquerors had declined to meddle with.

French Canada was largely left alone, unexploited. There was no flood of British carpetbaggers to take advantage of a conquered people, as one might well have expected, only a trickle of entrepreneurs and investors who generally worked in partnerships -- sometimes uneven ones -- with the Quebecois. The English dominance of Canada, of North America, was not the result of oppression -- indeed, British policy may have delayed it, but it was an historical inevitability given the lack of interest shown by France, the existence of America next door, and the vast land open to European settlers moving into English Canada.

Prince Charles and the British Crown have nothing to apologize for and the Canadian government should make certain that none is made in Quebec. Quebecers more realistically should celebrate a coexistence that has protected them for 400 years, rather listen to the un-historic and unfounded complaints of a handful of separatists; and perhaps some of them, maybe many of them will. Canada grovelled once when it cancelled this year's re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham because of separatist complaints. It should not humiliate itself again by showing such a complete misunderstanding of its own history.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 3, 2009 A12