Trudeau Soft-pedals On Quebec Issue

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 22

Trudeau Soft-pedals On Quebec Issue

m.Z.P.A.-Xtuter—gopyrighU OTTAWA, May 7. After two weeks <rf deliberation on the most sensitive question confronting his new Administration, the Canadian Prime Minister (Mr Pierre Trudeau) has decided to soft-pedal Ottawa’s concern about France’s wooing of Quebec, the “New York Times* News Service reports.

The note sent to Paris on Friday afternoon was, according to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr Mitchell Sharp), not the stiff protest that many Canadian journalists had expected. It was, rather, a message “to promote closer relations with France and Frenchspeaking countries." Mr Trudeau’s note drew attention to Canada’s concern about recent direct contacts between the province of Quebec and the French republic, but it was in no sense a rebuke, Mr Sharp said, adding that it would keep Canada’s diplomatic relations with France "a dialogue, not a monologue.” Diplomatic sources regard this as a reference to Quebec’s. insistence that it, not the Federal Government, had the right to deal With foreign powers in areas within its provincial jurisdiction. Education is one of theie fields. Ottawa has been apprehensive since President de Gaulle’S visit last summer. In speeches in Quebec, and later in Paris, the President of France has encouraged the

French separatist movement, aimed at divorcing the French-speaking province from the rest of Canada-

In recent months Ottawa has been particularly annoyed that, flrtt,. Gabon, in West Africa, and then the French Government should Invite Quebec, without consulting Ottawa, to international conferences, even if only on education. Quebec accepted both invitations, and its delegations, insisting that they were from Quebec, not Canada, "Mt as equals” with more than a dozen independent States. All except France wore former French colonies; and Quebec, it is remembered, was a French colony lost to Britain in 1759.

Ottawa officials this week pointed out how, in contrast, Quebec and Louisiana are planning cultural and educational co-operation under an arrangement wholly acceptable to the Federal Governments in Ottawa and Washington. This plan is designed to promote bilingual education in Louisiana’s Acadian communities.

Mr Trudeau, facing a general election at the outset of his Administration, does not wish to let President de Gaulle's courtship of Quebec get in the way of his ideas for long-range solutions to Canada's broad problem of keeping the country whole and united.

The new Prime Minister, a French Canadian who is an ardent Federalist, must campaign in the coming weeks, Sivihg reasons why he feels uebec’s future is more promising within Canada than without

The immediate difficulty with France over Quebec must be dealt with firmly but later—after the election has given his Liberals a majority in the Houm of Commons. Mr Trudeau hopes.