Who is henri bourassa in ww1

Henri Bourassa and the First World War. Author Clubb, Warren Alexander. Degree Level Masters. Metadata Show full item record. Abstract Henri Bourassa, , was a Canadian politician and journalist. In order to give greater emphasis to the nature of this project, Sir Robert Borden and his colleagues and Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his supporters outdid each other in repeating that just as participation was free and voluntary for the nation, it would remain free and voluntary for individuals.

It was by promising verbally and in writing not to deviate from the principle of voluntary service that the Prime Minister obtained invaluable support from all sectors of society. My readers know that I am not crazy about democracy. Everything happening in the world right now, here as elsewhere, demonstrates the failure of democracy, the untruthfulness of parliamentarianism and the cynical deception of the regime of parties.

Nevertheless, the democratic regime is the system that has been established in Canada by law, the Constitution and in existence for a century already. But what are we to think of these people who, for three years have been inviting Canadians to join the voluntary democratic crusade against military autocracy, now are ready to impose on them the most odious form of militarism by violating the fundamental principles of democracy?

Balfour, in his recent speech to the Canadian Senate and which is recorded in our parliamentary records. According to Mr. Balfour, to achieve this ideal, in fact, demands the supreme sacrifice of all British peoples. How can the government and Parliament, without violating the essence of this principle as well as its immediate application, consider imposing conscription on the country without submitting their decision to a vote by the people, to the ultimate control of the people?

Under the British constitution, the powers of parliament and the cabinet are approximately analogous to those of a board of directors and an executive committee of a shareholders company. Faced with an extraordinary and unexpected situation, parliament may adopt exceptional measures, just as administrators of a company may adopt new regulations.

However, one and the other are subordinate to the ultimate decision of the people or the shareholders. Neither the members of parliament nor the administrators have the right to avoid that judgment by arbitrarily extending their mandate.

The cabinet or the executive committee have even less right to ensure their impunity by acquiring, through corrupt manoeuvres, the complicity of the opposition or other administrators. This brief comparative analysis demonstrates the extent to which the plans for conscription, coalition and prolongation of parliament are inextricably linked to each other.

Given the position he has put himself in, Sir Robert Borden is right. If he wants to succeed in imposing conscription, he must try to form some sort of coalition and prolong parliament as long as the war lasts. If he decides to violate one element of the established order, he will be forced to violate all three elements. It needs to be said that neither Sir Wilfrid Laurier nor any of his supporters have the right to countenance this triple manoeuvre.

All Canadians concerned about public order have a compelling duty to block the move by all legitimate means. An objection may perhaps be raised that in England, Parliament sanctioned an arbitrary prolongation of its powers, the formation of a coalition cabinet and conscription one after another.

There is a simple and easy response. First, abuse of power in London does not justify abuse of power in Ottawa. Canada did not fight for seventy-five years to win its autonomy only to imitate subserviently everything that England does. Instead of always looking toward London, why do our leaders not take a glance from time to time at other autonomous countries of the Empire where conditions are closer to ours?

None of these countries, except New Zealand, has yet succeeded in or thought about imposing conscription. Elections have been held everywhere without the Empire and its allies suffering any consequences. Nowhere has a coalition cabinet been formed to stifle the voice of the people.

In England, the right to adopt conscription is merely a consequence of the right to declare war. He considered small businessmen as the social class that was best prepared to conserve Catholic values. He seems to have thought that the growth of big business was due not to economic efficiency but rather to greed. If Catholic teachings were accepted, he believed that this trend might be halted or reversed. Occasionally, he dreamed that society would revert back to being more rural and composed of small firms.

This viewpoint hindered his inability to develop a realistic program to regulate the powerful influence of big businesses in economic life. In the election, Bourassa was defeated by Maurice Lalonde.

However, he would continue to occasionally give public speeches. Bourassa also denounced the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In , he even helped found the Bloc populaire canadien to fight against the prospect of another conscription crisis. In , Bourassa suffered a heart attack that severely limited his capacities. Finally retiring from the public eye, he died on 31 August Originally published as a series of articles in the newspaper Le Devoir.

Henri Bourassa A biography of Henri Bourassa, politician, journalist, newspaper owner, editor-in-chief, publisher, and author. From the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Henri Bourassa and Conscription: Traitor or Saviour? From the Canadian Military Journal. From erudite. Search The Canadian Encyclopedia. Remember me.

He made many speeches, travelling to Ontario, western Canada, and the United States, where he championed, among other things, the French language as guardian of the faith and of confederation.

As an intellectual, he exercised considerable moral authority. On 1 August, as the threat of war was intensifying in Europe, he was in Strasbourg France , a city then under German control. He managed to get back to Paris two days later, in the nick of time. On 4 August World War I broke out. By 21 August he was back home.

An extremely troubled period was about to begin for him. At the outbreak of the conflict, Canada, which was automatically at war by virtue of its status as a colony within the British empire, was bursting with enthusiasm. When the political parties agreed to help the mother country and send volunteer troops overseas, both francophones and anglophones supported these measures.

Since Bourassa had condemned the decisions taken in , , and , he had to react publicly. In other words, he repudiated his past and tried to go along with the prevailing mood. It was worse in , when the war dragged on, requiring ever more soldiers, and when the crisis in Ontario persisted.

He became the public enemy of English Canadians, who urged that Le Devoir be shut down and its editor-in-chief arrested. He manifestly had an impact on francophones, who, subject to other influences as well, had virtually stopped enlisting.

When Borden proposed conscription in May , the province of Quebec was on the brink of violence. He could have taken over the province at a stroke, as Laurier and Borden feared. He repudiated the Union government formed by Borden in the fall and joined forces with Laurier in an effort to defeat him in the election of 17 December. Together, they swept the polls in the angry province of Quebec, but they were crushed in English Canada.

In the divided country, Bourassa tended to support isolation for French Canadians, but not separation from the rest of Canada. More than ever, perhaps, Bourassa viewed politics through the lens of religion. This is where he stood at the end of the war, as his career was about to take another turn.

A man with a touch of mysticism, he was now 50 years old, white-haired, and worn out. He suffered a heavy blow on 26 Jan. He was left with eight children, the eldest of whom was only 12 years old. The death of Laurier, the man he had both admired and despised, whose importance in his life he had always recognized, followed soon after. The former prime minister differed from him by education and in character, as well as in terms of relations with the church, the party system, a spirit of compromise, and political realism.

Less brusque, Laurier was more affable, intensely disliking the clear-cut situations so dear to Bourassa. Of course, these two great humanists were similar in a number of respects as well.

They had the same openness to culture, learning, and humanity in general, the same rational approach, the same attraction to classical liberalism, social conservatism, and British institutions, and finally, the same Canadian nationalism and love of their compatriots, even though from their methods of displaying these had driven them far apart.

It was the end of an era. The war had also wrought havoc. Bourassa saw many dangers facing Canada: Bolshevism, socialism, feminism, secular trade unionism, strikes inspired by revolutionary forces, individual selfishness, extreme materialism, class rivalry, and the failure of parliamentary government.

The Catholic social order was threatened by the desire of individuals to take the place of God. He now decided to promote a program of Catholic social action that would attack the roots of evil. Ever the ultramontane, Bourassa put the finishing touches on his social thinking of yesteryear.

From now on, the ideologist and moralist would prevail over the politician and journalist, but not completely replace them. To ensure the success of his program, he laid out a hierarchy of typically ultramontane duties. The targets of his attacks included growing urbanization and industrialism, proposals for state-funded public assistance, and trusts and monopolies.

He praised agriculture, colonization, and the Catholic trade unions. He made his activities part of the promotion of the Catholic press, with the further objective of filling the empty coffers of Le Devoir.

Bourassa had not been consulted by Groulx, but he had referred to this idea in December and on 23 Nov. I do not think so. Is it desirable? I do not believe so, either from the French point of view or, even less, from the Catholic point of view, which in my opinion takes precedence over the interest of French.

On his return from Europe, Bourassa plunged wholeheartedly into political debates. In he ran as an independent in the federal riding of Labelle, where he was elected on 29 October by 2, votes, and then again in the general election of 14 Sept. In parliament he aroused curiosity because of his reputation. Increasingly taking on the role of conscience of the house, he scorned patronage to concentrate on the big political issues, both national and international.

He welcomed, with some reservations, the results of the Imperial Conference, which recognized Great Britain and the dominions as autonomous communities, equal in law, in no way subordinate one to another, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. For him, it was simply a question of recognizing an accomplished fact. He attacked, among other things, the principle of solidarity in imperial obligations, which, if maintained, would be an obstacle to attainment of national independence.

During these years, Bourassa was active outside the house as well. He wrote articles on current topics, both national and international, and made several stirring speeches, in Montreal in particular, to mark the 60th anniversary of confederation, and, soon after, in the course of a patriotic teaching tour of western Canada.

His most important stand had to do with the agitation that involved the newspaper La Sentinelle Woonsocket, R. Some Franco-Americans, along with their paper, were at odds with the Irish bishop of Providence, William Hickey, who wanted to raise funds among the Catholics of his diocese to build English-language Catholic secondary schools.

This affair, which was followed closely by the nationalist elite, the clergy, and Quebec francophones, went all the way to the pope. They did not lay down their arms, however, and even spoke of schism in It was at this point that Bourassa, a staunch defender of minorities who had long been interested in the French Canadians who had emigrated to the United States, intervened.

Beginning on 15 Jan. He called for submission, explaining that the essential authority of the church had to be preserved and the subordination of Catholicism to nationalism prevented. The effect was far-reaching. The crisis was immediately resolved in the United States, but in Quebec there was an outpouring of reaction. With Groulx at the head, they refused to accept this separation of nationalism and Catholicism so dear to Bourassa. The master was in the process of destroying his past.

Bourassa replied to them in a speech on 3 Feb. During the years from to , Bourassa kept himself, for the most part, above the fray in the House of Commons.

He approached men and things from the lofty height of his principles, often glorifying the pope and commenting on the encyclicals. On 30 June , for example, he welcomed the Statute of Westminster, which granted partial independence to Canada, but he regretted that the country had not been completely separated from Great Britain. In he attacked anti-Semitism and racism, which he had already repudiated, in particular by his support in for the principle of establishing a system of Jewish schools in Montreal.

In he also spoke about the depression; his economic-religious reflections, containing little that was original, repeated many of his dogmas from the past. Bourassa carried on these battles in Le Devoir , and dealt with other topics. Besides nationalists of every stripe, other groups, such as members of the clergy, were also affected. The management of the daily and its board of directors were under great pressure.

In May the board took him at his word, and his resignation came into effect on 2 August. The information, given in a single news item, caused a sensation. Many people wondered what was behind the affair, while some mistakenly referred to a dismissal.