Yes, Canadians need a fresh look at how our children are taught their history. But the House of Commons Canadian heritage committee that the federal government recently charged with the task represents the wrong approach. Federal politicians have won their reputation for bitter partisanship and reckless muck-raking, and this fact surely would taint the committee’s conclusions.

But there’s an alternative. July 19 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. At the time, the bombs of the Front de Libération du Québec, combined with the alienation expressed through Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, convinced Lester Pearson that the country’s historical roots must be reconsidered.

That decision in 1963 launched five years of passionate debate and intense self-scrutiny. Thirty-four public meetings were held in 10 cities, from Halifax to Vancouver, with thousands participating. Individuals and organizations from every sector of society submitted 451 briefs. The commission’s monumental final report appeared in six volumes between 1967 and 1970. There were also dozens of scholarly studies – including some that studied the question of how Canadian history was taught entirely differently in English and French.

“There is a general consensus that the history of Canada, as it is taught today, tends to maintain and even to exacerbate cultural antagonisms,” the commission reported on page 281 of Volume II. “All the briefs convey that the omissions, and especially the prejudices, foster a division and animosity between the two major cultural communities of Canada.”

The commission fostered an ambitious movement to reconcile Quebec with the rest of Canada. For the first time, it brought to national consciousness the reality and importance of Canada’s cultural diversity. Volume IV, titled The Cultural Contribution of Other Ethnic Groups, would inspire Pierre Trudeau to announce his policy of multiculturalism as part of the fabric of Canada.

Now, half a century later, we need a royal commission to reconcile the fundamentally incompatible national historical narratives propagated in French and English

The commission encouraged such policies as “co-operative federalism,” the Official Languages Act, and the vast undertaking to rewrite the Constitution that would culminate, after many failures, in the Constitution Act, 1982, conferring full sovereignty on Canada and entrenching the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which, among other things, extended the right to French schooling across the country).

Now, half a century later, we need a royal commission to reconcile the fundamentally incompatible national historical narratives propagated in French and English. This was demonstrated on April 16, when Quebec’s National Assembly adopted unanimously this motion from Premier Pauline Marois: “The National Assembly asks the Government of Canada to provide access to all information contained in its archives, and demands that the full light of day be cast on the events that led to the proclamation of the Constitution Act, 1982.”

The National Assembly was inspired by a book published by Dawson College history professor Frédéric Bastien, La Bataille de Londres. He drew hysterical conclusions from slight evidence, arguing that two Supreme Court of Canada justices of the period had conspired with the Trudeau government and British authorities. The patriation of 1982 was, he concluded, “a coup d’état.”

The motion revealed that the National Assembly felt quite comfortable questioning the very legitimacy of Canada’s Constitution. François Legault, leader of the opposition Coalition Avenir Québec party, stated: “We will never be able to accept, in Quebec, the way those events took place. And it is not normal that the Canadian Constitution was imposed in that way on a nation, the nation Québécoise. And so, some day, that problem will have to be settled.”

Because of the Other, our destiny was side-tracked and our collective quest took the shape of a struggle for survival.

The Liberal House leader, Jean-Marc Fournier, delivered comment in a similar vein: “Since the patriation of the Constitution, no premier of Quebec has given it his signature … I will presume to quote a few words by [former premier] Robert Bourassa that still resonate in this Assembly: ‘Whatever is said and whatever is done, Quebec is today and forever a distinct society, free and able to take control of its destiny and its development.’”

The quarrel over the legitimacy of the Constitution is fundamental in other ways. Relying on constitutional principles, the Supreme Court of Canada spelled out the conditions for Quebec to secede legally — yet no Quebec government has recognized those conditions. Ottawa passed the Clarity Act, which gave legislative effect to the Court’s logic. But Quebec countered with Bill 99, claiming the right to secede unconditionally.

Quebec students are taught that the economic and educational inferiority of French Canadians before the Quiet Revolution was caused by the Conquest, and by Quebec being treated as a colony by English speakers. Laval University political scientist Jocelyn Létourneau gave an assignment to more than 4,000 students, asking them to summarize the history of Quebec. Here’s how he describes their vision: “Among the francophones, [their vision of Quebec’s history] is expressed roughly as follows: ‘Because of the Other, our destiny was side-tracked and our collective quest took the shape of a struggle for survival.’”

As there was a serpent in the Garden of Eden, so Quebec’s destiny supposedly was derailed by the “Other” – the Anglo. Létourneau reports that the young Québécois view New France as “the Golden Age.” Then, from the original Fall of the Conquest, all the painful history of Quebec follows.

Quebec’s literature has taken up the theme of its historiography: It displays Anglophobia as its most central theme, as I demonstrated in my 1991 book, published in French, Anglophobie made in Québec. Many of the authors who are considered provincial greats, such as Gaston Miron, Jacques Ferron, Hubert Aquin and Yves Beauchemin, are also the most ardently Anglophobic.

The fact is that France itself was a colonizer — and it kept New France in a state of extreme under-development. No industry was allowed to start up that competed with that industry in France. So, as contemporary observers agreed, New France remained poor while New England grew rich. This, not any Anglo plot, generated the legacy of economic and cultural under-development that retarded French Canadians until the Quiet Revolution.

A new royal commission is needed to demystify Quebec’s founding Anglophobic myth, to shine the light of reason and scientific scrutiny on the dark beliefs that poison the historic consciousness of Quebec’s youths, their teachers and most prominent authors.