Canada–France relations are the diplomatic and bilateral relations between Canada and the French Republic, the importance of which centres on the history of French immigration to Canada. Canadians of French heritage make up the majority of native speakers of French in Canada, who in turn account for about 22 percent of the country's total population. The small French Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is situated off the coast of Atlantic Canada. Both nations are mutual members of the G7, G20, OECD, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, NATO, United Nations and the World Trade Organization.
History European colonization
In 1720, the British controlled Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Northern and much of Western Canada, but otherwise, nearly all of Eastern Canada, from the Labrador shore and on the Atlantic coast to the Great Lakes and beyond was under French domination. The gradual conquest of New France by the British Army, culminating in James Wolfe's victory at the Plains of Abraham in 1759, deprived France of its North American empire. The French of Canada, (the Québécois or habitants, Acadians, Métis, and others) remained.
After the British conquest, French immigration to Canada continued on a small scale until the start of the wars between France and Britain from 1792 to 1815. French books circulated widely, and the French Revolution led many conservative refugees to seek asylum in Canada. The English-speaking population of Canada also grew rapidly after the American Revolution. Francophone opinion among the rural inhabitants towards France turned negative after 1793. As British subjects, the inhabitants, led by their conservative priests and landowners, rejected the French Revolution's impiety, regicide, and anti-Christian persecution. The inhabitants supported the British Empire in the War of 1812 against the United States.Claude Galarneau, La France devant l'opinion canadienne, 1760–1815 (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1970) Many Canadians have also spoken French since their settlement began in 1534.
After Confederation In early Canadian history, foreign affairs were under the control of the British government. Canada pushed against those legal barriers to further its interests. Alexander Galt, Canada's informal representative in London, attempted to conclude a commercial treaty with France in 1878, but tariff preference for France violated British policy. The Foreign Office in London was unsupportive of sovereign diplomacy by Canada, and France was moving to new duties on foreign shipping and was embarking toward a general policy of Protectionism. Galt's efforts, however, set the stage for a successful treaty in 1893 negotiated by Sir Charles Tupper (1821–1915), Canada's High Commissioner in London. However, that treaty was signed by the British ambassador to France.Robert A. M. Shields, "The Canadian Treaty Negotiations With France: A Study In Imperial Relations 1878-83," Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research (1967) 40#102 pp 186-202
In 1910, the Province of Quebec dispatched its own representative to Paris, Hector Fabre. The federal government responded by asking him to become Canada's agent-general in France. He and his successor, Philippe Roy, represented both levels of government informally until 1912, when the new Canadian government asked Roy to resign from the Quebec position because of fears of a possible conflict of interest.
World Wars A realignment of the great powers made allies of Canada, which was part of the British Empire, and France just in time for the two World Wars that would dominate the first half of the 20th century. The Canadian Expeditionary Force spent much of the First World War on French soil and helped France to repel the German invasion. It was in France, at Vimy Ridge, that one of the most famous battles in Canadian military history took place. In December 1917, the accidental explosion of the French freighter Mont Blanc, carrying five million pounds of explosives, devastated Halifax, Nova Scotia, killing 2,000 and injuring 9,000. The SS Mont-Blanc had been chartered by the French government to carry munitions to the Western Front; France was not blamed, and charges against its captain were dropped.Alan Ruffman, The Halifax Explosion: Realities and Myths (1992)
During the Second World War, Canada and France were initially allies against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. After the Fall of France in 1940, most Western governments broke off relations with the Vichy regime, but Canada continued to have relations with Vichy until 1942.
Canada had planned a military invasion of the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. Controlled until the end of 1941 by Vichy France, it was the liberation by the Free French under Admiral Muselier that put an end to any invasion by Canada. Eventually, Canada became an important ally and staunch supporter of General Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces. De Gaulle himself re-entered France after the Invasion of Normandy via the Canadian won Juno Beach, and during a lavish state visit to Ottawa in 1944, he departed the assembled crowd with an impassioned call of "Vive le Canada! Vive la France!"
Suez Crisis During the Suez Crisis, the Canadian government was concerned with what might be a growing rift between the Western allies. Lester B. Pearson, who would later become the Prime Minister of Canada, went to the United Nations and suggested creating a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) in the Suez to "keep the borders at peace while a political settlement is being worked out." Both France and the United Kingdom rejected the idea, and so Canada turned to the United States. After several days of tense diplomacy, the United Nations accepted the suggestion, and a neutral force not involving the major alliances (NATO and the Warsaw Pact although Canadian troops participated since Canada spearheaded the idea of a neutral force, was sent with the consent of Nasser, stabilizing conditions in the area. The Suez Crisis also contributed to the adoption of a new Canadian flag without references to that country's past as a colony of France and Britain.
1967 controversy by de Gaulle In July 1967, while on an official state visit to Canada, the then president of France, Charles de Gaulle, ignited a storm of controversy by exclaiming, before a crowd of 15,000 in Montreal, Vive le Québec Libre! (Long live free Quebec!). Coming on the centennial year of Canadian Confederation, amid the backdrop of Quebec's Quiet Revolution, such a provocative statement on the part of a widely respected statesman and liberator of France had a wide-ranging effect on Franco-Canadian relations and on relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada as well.
De Gaulle, a proponent of Quebec sovereignty, proposed, on several subsequent occasions, what he termed the "Austro-Hungarian solution" for Canada (based on the Austria-Hungary dual-monarchic union shared between Austria and Hungary from 1867 to 1918), which appeared to be similar to the "sovereignty association" model that was later championed by René Lévesque. France's intervention in Canadian intergovernmental relations remained largely in the realm of diplomatic rhetoric. Indeed, as Quebec, under the reformist Liberal government of Jean Lesage, was turning away from a more isolationist past and attempting to find for itself a new place within the Canadian federation and the wider francophone world, a willing and enthusiastic de Gaulle was eager to give aid to Quebec's newfound nationalist ambitions.
Master Agreement The first step towards Quebec developing an "international personality" distinct from that of Canada, viewed by many as a stepping stone towards full independence, was for Quebec to develop relations with other nations independent from those of Canada. That effort began in earnest after de Gaulle's return to power, when France and Quebec began regularly exchanging ministers and government officials. Premier Lesage, for example, visited de Gaulle three times between 1961 and 1965.
Lesage's statement to the Quebec National Assembly that the French Canadian identity, culture, and language were endangered by a "cultural invasion from the USA," which threatened to make Canada a "cultural satellite of the United States," mirrored exactly the Gaullists' concern for France's cultural survival in the face on an English onslaught. In that light, France and Quebec set about in the early 1960s negotiating exchange agreements in the areas of education, culture, technical co-operation, and youth exchange. Under Lester B. Pearson, the federal government had just appointed a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and was taking other steps to ensure the place of French within Canada, would not stand for a province usurping a federal power (foreign policy) and so signed a Master Agreement with France in 1965 that allowed for provinces to cooperate directly with France but only in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction (such as education).
"Quebec Mafia" The significant contingent of sovereigntists within the French government and the upper levels of the French foreign and civil services (especially Gaullists), who came to be known as the "Quebec Mafia" within the Canadian foreign service and the press, took full advantage of the Master Agreement of 1965 to further their vision for Canada.
Direct relations with Quebec
Shortly after de Gaulle's 1967 Montreal address, the French Consulate-General in Quebec City, already viewed by many as a de facto embassy, was enlarged and the office of Consul General at Quebec was replaced, by de Gaulle's order, with that of Consul General to the Quebec Government. At the same time, the flow of officials to Quebec City increased further, and it became accepted practice for high officials to visit Quebec without going to Ottawa at all, despite Ottawa's repeated complaints about the breaches of diplomatic protocol.
Many of the French officials, notably French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Jean de Lipkowski, greatly angered and embarrassed the Canadian government by vocally supporting Quebec independence while they were in Canada. The media spoke of a "Quebec Mafia" in Paris. The Québec government maintained a Provisional Government Office in Paris.
La Francophonie One issue that sparked tensions between France and Canada began shortly after the creation of la Francophonie, an international organization of wholly and partially French-speaking countries that is modelled somewhat after the Commonwealth of Nations. While Canada agreed in principle to the organization's creation, it was dismayed by France's position that not only Quebec should participate as an equal, independent member, but also the federal government and, by omission, the other Canadian provinces with significant French minorities could not. That was seen by many French-Canadians outside Quebec as a betrayal and was also seen by some Canadians as France supporting the Quebec sovereignty movement. Some went as far as saying the Francophonie was created to help push the international recognition of Quebec, but the Francophonie was created to promote international co-operation between all French-speaking nations, including many newly independent former French colonies in Africa.