Étienne Parent (May 2, 1802 – December 22, 1874) was a Canadian journalist, politician and government official. A French-Canadian nationalist, he wrote extensively on political theory and governance during the 1820s and 1830s in various newspapers, particularly Le Canadien, of which he was editor. He was attracted to theories of constitutional governance based on the British constitution, and opposed annexation to the United States. Born to farming parents, he spent most of his adult life in the French-Canadian political and social elites.
Parent opposed the Lower Canada Rebellion in 1837, condemning the inevitable bloodshed, while also heavily attacking the colonial government for its military repression of Lower Canada's claims for self-government. As a result, he was condemned as a traitor by the advocates of the Rebellion, and imprisoned by the colonial government for "seditious schemings".
An initial opponent of the union of Lower Canada and Upper Canada into the Province of Canada, he gradually concluded that it opened the possibility for a system of responsible government through an alliance between reformers in Lower Canada and Upper Canada. His writings influenced Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, who ultimately achieved responsible government, working in partnership with Robert Baldwin, leader of the Reformers from Upper Canada.
Parent was briefly a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, but with increasing deafness, he resigned his seat. LaFontaine appointed him as Clerk of the Executive Council, the provincial Cabinet. Parent became a public servant for the rest of his life, while providing a series of lectures on social and economic issues at the Institut canadien de Montréal and the Institut canadien de Québec. After Confederation in 1867, he continued as a federal public servant until his retirement.
Family and early life
Parent was born in the parish of Notre-Dame de la Nativité, near the town of Beauport (now part of Quebec City), in 1802. His parents were a farm couple: Étienne-François Parent and Josephte Clouet. He was the eldest of a large family of nine boys and six girls, and grew up working on the farm, acquiring habits of hard work and determination. His parents sent him to a primary school in Quebec, and then in 1814, when he was 12 years old, to the Collège de Nicolet for secondary schooling. He did well at school, winning several prizes. Five years later, in 1819, his parents sent him to the Petit Séminaire de Québec for further studies. Parent again did well, reading as many books as he could, and distinguishing himself for his writing abilities and good judgment.Réginald Hamel, John Hare and Paul Wyczynski, "Parent, Étienne", in Dictionnaire des auteurs de langue française en Amérique du Nord (Quebec: Éditions Fides, 1989), pp. 1068–1069.Éric Bédard, Les Réformistes (Montreal: Éditions du Boréal, 2012), pp. 15–16.
While he was at the Petit Séminaire, he met Augustin-Norbert Morin, a fellow student. Morin was already writing articles for Le Canadien, a newspaper which supported the nationalist political group, the Parti canadien. Morin encouraged Parent to submit articles to the newspaper as well, starting his career as a journalist before he was out of school. However, the seminary authorities forbade him from submitting further articles.
Parent left the Petit Séminaire in 1821, before taking his final examinations. The reason is not known. His family found him a job with his uncle, Michel Clouet, who ran a hardware store in Quebec and was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. Parent worked there for a while, then returned to work on the family farm. While there, he was visited by François Blanchet, the publisher of Le Canadien, and Flavien Vallerand, the editor. Morin, who had been working at the paper, had relocated to Montreal for his studies in law. They offered Parent the post of editor. Parent accepted. For the rest of his life, Parent lived and worked with the French-Canadian political and social elites.
Journalism and politics
At age 20, Parent became the editor and primary writer for Le Canadien, which supported the Parti canadien in its political battles with the governor. He wrote on the issues of the day, but also more generally, on questions of constitutionalism and governance. As editor, he also supported French Canadian journalism and writing. He was a strong supporter of the Lower Canada constitution, set out in the Constitutional Act, 1791, and condemned breaches of political liberties.
He also was a strong opponent of the proposal to reunite Lower Canada with Upper Canada, which the British government was considering in 1822. His writings provided intellectual rigour to the political arguments being made by leaders of the Parti canadien, such as Louis-Joseph Papineau and John Neilson. Ultimately, the British government withdrew the proposed reunification bill.Bédard, Les Réformistes, pp. 40–42.
In 1825, Le Canadien folded, and Parent began looking for other work. He held down a number of positions, including working for the former rival paper, La Gazette de Québec, From 1825 to 1829 he studied law as a student in the office of Joseph-Rémi Vallières de Saint-Réal, and later in that of Charles-Eusèbe Casgrain. He was called to the bar of Lower Canada in 1829, but never practised law. He also obtained positions as a French translator and law officer for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. He later became the Assembly's librarian, and then the Clerk of the Assembly.
During the turbulent politics of the 1830s, Parent was heavily involved in journalism in support of the Parti patriote, as the Parti canadien came to be known. In 1831, he managed to revive Le Canadien for the third time, and became the editor and leading writer. He chose "Notre langue, nos institutions, nos lois" ("Our language, our institutions, our laws") as the masthead motto, which summarised his own personal ideology.
In 1834, the Legislative Assembly, led by Papineau and Morin, passed the Ninety-Two Resolutions, by an overwhelming majority. The Resolutions set out the grievances of French-Canadians, critiquing the powers of the governor and the unelected Legislative Council. Although Parent was not involved in drafting the Ninety-Two Resolutions, many of his ideas from his articles in Le Canadien found their way into the Resolutions.
Parent wrote numerous articles in Le Canadien defending the Resolutions, and responding to criticisms of the Resolutions in the English-language newspapers in Lower Canada. He defended the changes proposed by the Resolutions, such as an elected Legislative Council and control of public finance by the Assembly, as being consistent with British parliamentary government. In Parent's view, the people of Lower Canada, as British subjects, had the right to criticise their government and propose reforms, designed to achieve local self-government while maintaining the link to Britain. Another journalist, Joseph-Guillaume Barthe, summed up Parent's role at this time: "Parent is to journalism what Papineau is to the parliamentary tribune."
Parent and Papineau did not always agree on goals and tactics. In the run-up to the general elections of 1834, Papineau was trying to lead the Patriotes to a more radical nationalist position. Parent, influential particularly in Quebec and surrounding areas, urged moderation.Fernand Ouellet, Lower Canada 1791–1840: Social Change and Nationalism (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1980), p. 246.
Lower Canada Rebellion
In 1837, the British government rejected the Ninety-Two Resolutions. The Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, proposed ten resolutions in response, which were issued and adopted by the British House of Commons. The Russell Resolutions affirmed the power of the governor, as representative of the British government, to control the government and public finances of Lower Canada. The Russell Resolutions created a political firestorm in Lower Canada. Papineau and his supporters began to agitate to challenge the British colonial government, including a series of large-scale public rallies. There was a riot in Montreal between two armed groups, the French-Canadian Fils de la Liberté and the Doric Club, a British loyalist group. Rebellion was in the air.Ouellet, Lower Canada 1791–1840: Social Change and Nationalism, pp. 285–290, 293.Bédard, Les Réformistes, pp. 44–46.
Parent broke with Papineau and Morin at this point. Although he was one of the first to strongly criticise the position of the British government and the Russell Resolutions, Parent was committed to the constitutional structure set out in the Constitutional Act 1791. He argued that the British government had broken the framework of 1791. However, Parent equally rejected the tendency towards republicanism and revolution, which he saw in his former colleagues, because that would lead to civil war. He continued to argue for moderation and reliance on legal and constitutional principles, and predicted that the force of arms would fail. He considered that remaining within the British Empire, and adapting British constitutional principles to the local situation, would give Lower Canada the best chance to develop into a mature political society. Rebellion would lead to the loss of the local parliamentary institutions, rights and freedoms, and a return to an oligarchic council, as had been the case under the Quebec Act, 1774. He rejected arguments for annexation by the United States.Bédard, Les Réformistes, pp. 48–53.
He also foresaw the inevitable bloodshed which rebellion would cause:
In 1837, Morin and Parent, the two former school-fellows, engaged in a battle of political persuasion in the Quebec area. In a significant editorial published on November 13, 1837, Parent summed up his position: "Nous sommes des Réformistes, nous cessons d'être des Révolutionnaires." Morin worked to build up the Patriotes in the Quebec area, while Parent continually urged moderation and attacked the trend towards violence. Parent's writings proved influential in Quebec, the seat of government. On December 4, 1837, Quebec residents issued a public address affirming "... leurs sentiments de loyauté envers Sa Majesté, et d'attachment à la liaison de cette colonie avec le Royaume d'Angleterre et d'Irlande." Morin failed in his attempt to create a group of Fils de la Liberté in the Quebec area. In a letter to a supporter in Montreal, Morin commented on the need to unmask "some formerly presumed friends", a reference to Parent.Ouellet, Lower Canada 1791–1840: Social Change and Nationalism, pp. 291–292.
When the Lower Canada Rebellion broke out in late 1837, Parent was horror-stricken. However, while Parent condemned the Rebellion, he equally fell upon the excesses of the British colonial government, and the oligarchic British colonists, whom he blamed for consistently blocking the legitimate political aspirations of French-Canadians. In 1838 he wrote that Lower Canada had only "the name and shadow of a constitutional government", and began to argue for the establishment of responsible government as the solution to the constitutional impasse. He pleaded the cause of the Patriotes who had been exiled, and the twelve who had been condemned to death.Bédard, Les Réformistes, pp. 64–65.
After the second outbreak of rebellion in late 1838 was suppressed by the British military, he wrote in December 1838:
The net result was that Parent was condemned by both sides. The Permanent Central Committee of the Patriotes, based in Montreal, proclaimed that he was a "traitor to the nation". La Minerve, a newspaper which supported the Patriotes, published the proclamation.