es, but I am
going to name or appoint them for you; or if he arrogated to himself the
right to have your dissentient schools conducted and administered wholly
not by your elected trustees or Commissioners, but by certain persons
chosen by him. Gentlemen, I say in all solemnity that there is no
difference between that and the things that have been done in the
Province of Ontario. Am I not right in saying that this question should
be of the deepest concern to all lovers of British constitutional law
and constitutional history?

Now, as to the second point, the kind, number and description of
schools.

Prior to Confederation there were French schools--not English-French
schools, but exclusively French schools under the Department of Public
Instruction in the Province of Ontario. I use that term advisably,
because it was so called at that time, although it is now called the
Department of Education. Time and again it occurred, with the approval
of the educational authorities, that teachers who could not speak a word
of English, but only German or French, were employed in the schools of
Ontario. There were schools in the Province of Ontario before
Confederation where no English was taught, and that with the sanction of
the Department. In many parts of Ontario there were schools, many of
them, where there was only French, and there were many others where both
the English and the French languages were taught. They had French
teachers and French inspectors, and French text books. I am referring to
this in order that you can fix in your minds what were the conditions in
1867. In other words, what were the conditions which the Act of
Confederation, an Imperial Act, has made perpetual in Ontario, as well
as in Quebec.

We had these rights in 1867; in what way and when have we been deprived
of these rights--on what authority have they been taken away? Absolutely
none. There was only one authority that could deprive the Roman
Catholics French-Canadians of Ontario of their rights in that province,
or the Protestant minority of their rights in the Province of Quebec.
There is only one authority, not the Ontario Legislature, not the Quebec
Legislature, not the Dominion Parliament, but the Parliament of
Westminster. The Act of Confederation is an Imperial Act which no
Canadian Parliament or Legislature can in any way affect. The Imperial
Parliament has not dealt with the question. If I have made it clear to
you that there were rights