Regulation 17

The Regulations 17 (german regulation 17, French Government regulation 17) was a regulation of the Ministry of Education of the Canadian province of Ontario, which was adopted in July 1912 by the Conservative government of Prime Minister James Whitney. They restricted the use of French as a language of instruction after the first school year and forbade the teaching of the French after the fourth year. 1913, the regulation was adapted to allow French for one hour per day.

Effects

The provincial government adopted Regulation, as in much of the population the prevailing view, the use of French endangering the Anglophone, Protestant Status of Ontario. In particular, the separate French Catholic school boards were regarded as inefficient. The French Canadians reacted with outrage to the demotion of their language. The influential journalist Henri Bourassa called Whitney's government as " the Prussians of Ontario ", an allusion to the Franco-German enmity.

In a particularly strong resistance Regulation came into the national capital, Ottawa, where the francophone school board had initially been overthrown, but through legal ways regained control of the École Guigues. The still existing newspaper Le Droit was founded in 1913 to combat the Regulation. In order to break the resistance, the Ministry issued in August 1913, Regulations 18, which provided for harsh sanctions against uncooperative teachers. The Government of Whitney's successor William Howard Hearst replaced the elected council of Ottawa by an appointed Commission. However, because the Association canadienne - française d' éducation de l' Ontario conducted a long-running legal dispute, this measure could never be fully implemented.

Finally, the administration of George Howard Ferguson sat in 1927, the Regulations repealed. Although Ferguson was an opponent of bilingualism, but he had with Louis -Alexandre Taschereau, the prime minister of Quebec, received a letter addressed to the Federal Government political alliance. The conservative provincial government reluctantly accepted bilingual schools, the regulations clouded but for decades the relationship between Ontario and Quebec. Pure French-language schools were allowed only with the new Education Act in 1968 again.