Sherbrooke, September 23, 2007
Notes for an address for the 27th Townshippers’ Day
Graham Fraser – Commissioner of Official Languages
Check against delivery
Good morning, bonjour,
I always feel as if I am coming home when I return to the Townships – and this is partly justified. I have been coming here for as long as I can remember.
My first visit was when I was an infant. My parents had rented a cottage in North Hatley, and used a bureau drawer as my crib. When I was told this as a child, I imagined them keeping the drawer in the bureau – and closing it when it was time for me to sleep!
My parents later bought a place in North Hatley with Frank Scott’s family – and I spent a month there every summer of my childhood.
Two decades ago, when Frank Scott died, I was able to buy the house, and it has been our haven every summer since 1986. This summer, our seven-year-old grandson announced that when he grows up, he wants to live in North Hatley.
I have always thought of the Eastern Townships as a model for relations between English- and French-speaking Canadians. This is no accident. The poet and constitutional lawyer, Frank Scott, who was also a graduate of Bishop’s and a member of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, was among many who had formative experiences in the Eastern Townships. Others include Hugh MacLennan, of Two Solitudes fame, and Mason Wade, the writer of the acclaimed history The French-Canadians, as well as pacifist Julia Grace Wales. And the tradition is continuing: the Eastern Townships is shaping journalists, writers, lawyers, artists, academics, community leaders, educators and politicians as varied as Norman Webster, Ron Graham, Marion Phelps, Ronald Sutherland, Royal Orr, Alex Paterson, Sharon McCully, Marjorie Goodfellow, Aline Visser, Doug Mitchell, Doug Bradley, Reed Scowen, and, of course, the Premier of Quebec, Jean Charest.
The English-speaking community has made significant contributions to this region with such important historical institutions as Bishop’s University and the Sherbrooke Hospital, which laid the groundwork for the community’s education and health care systems. Going further back, some of your ancestors may have been among the surveyors who, in the 1790s, divided the lands into those 10-mile squares people from elsewhere in Quebec find so puzzling.
English-speaking Townshippers are still building, although perhaps less often with the surveyor’s compass. You are now enhancing the vitality of the community by building partnerships: with universities, with government agencies and with the French-speaking community. And, I’m proud to say, with my office: staff from my Quebec regional office were here earlier this summer to conduct one of a series of case studies on community vitality in various regions around the country. My hope is that by identifying clearly what makes a community grow and by understanding what specific communities want to achieve, these case studies will be a useful tool to all of you in evaluating your progress and giving federal institutions the tools they need to be more effective in supporting official language communities such as yours.
I want to thank the volunteers of Townshippers’ Association for their valuable cooperation and advice on this project. I congratulate you for your leadership within the community. Whenever I travel to Quebec’s English-speaking communities, or to French-speaking communities elsewhere, I see people coming together to plan their future with deliberation and consensus. Helping establish common goals for the community is one of the most important functions your Association can have.
The contribution of a minority – linguistic or otherwise – should not be measured by numbers. It is rather by the thousand and one ways in which the minority enriches and gives a society its distinct character.
There is no doubt that English-speaking Townshippers, through their artistic and economic creativity and by working together, contribute to the vivid character of this beautiful region. Like the larger English-speaking community of Quebec, the English community being celebrated here today plays a unique role in the dialogue on the nature and future of Canada.
The harmony between English- and French-speaking Townshippers is in fact a model that should be studied more closely. The secrets of your success should be shared with everyone in Canada. You can help improve our national dialogue. Just as some politicians will travel to Chicoutimi to learn French, perhaps all Members of Parliament should travel to Sherbrooke or Stanstead to learn about being good neighbours!
Thank you for inviting me.
