Features
Two Languages, One Country
U of G history prof turns thesis into book on Canada's language policy
BY TERESA PITMAN
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| Prof. Matthew Hayday holds a copy of his book Bilingual Today, United Tomorrow, a finalist for the Harold Adams Innis Prize for best Canadian book in English in the social sciences. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
After defending his doctoral dissertation, Prof. Matthew Hayday, History, stuffed it in a drawer for six months so he could “come back to it fresh.” That helped him with the editing process, he says, but the process of turning his thesis into a book was still hard.
“I've heard writing a thesis compared to giving birth to a child,” Hayday says. “To extend that metaphor, turning it into a book is like giving birth and then being told you have to cut off one of the child's legs. I know that sounds kind of gruesome, but it's a painful process to eliminate any of those words you've sweated over.”
The pain and plastic surgery seem to have been worth it, though, because Hayday's now-published book, Bilingual Today, United Tomorrow, was a finalist for this year's Harold Adams Innis Prize, awarded to the best Canadian book in English in the social sciences. The award is administered by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Although another book was chosen as the winner, he says he feels honoured to have been a finalist.
The book, an examination of language policy under former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, focuses on the educational programs established to promote bilingualism. The topic seems a natural one for Hayday, who did a double major in history and French as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto and has been interested in Canadian politics since he was a child.
“One of my earliest political memories is of watching election results with my father when I was about seven. He got very upset because Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives had won a majority. I didn't really know much about politics or the different parties at the time, but I always remembered his reaction.”
After completing his BA at Toronto, Hayday moved to the centre of Canadian politics and earned his MA and PhD at the University of Ottawa. He followed that up with two-year post-doctoral stints at both Concordia University and Mount Allison University. He arrived at Guelph this summer, happy to join a department that has a solid core of Canadian history expertise.
Here at U of G, he's looking forward to doing more research and publishing. One of his future projects, related to his book, will focus on how English-speaking Canadians have responded to the promotion of bilingualism.
Another major project investigates a second aspect of Canadian identity: how Dominion Day and Canada Day celebrations have evolved since the Second World War.
“These celebrations provide a lens through which we can look at national identity and public policy,” he says. “Because these events are often broadcast across the country, they're an opportunity for the government to try to influence public thought. I'm looking, for example, at who is chosen to perform at the big celebrations in Ottawa and why. Are there First Nations, French-Canadians, multicultural groups? I'm also reviewing the speeches made by the prime minister and others — what points are they emphasizing?”
In addition to this research and a half-dozen articles scheduled for publication, Hayday has two books, both collections of articles, going through the editing process. One is intended as a reader for undergraduate courses on Quebec history since 1945; the other contains articles on social movements in Canada from the 1930s to the present, based on a conference he organized at Mount Allison earlier this year.
For now, Hayday is pleased with the warm reception Bilingual Today, United Tomorrow has received, and he continues to research and write about the topic.
“I'm interested in the goals and outcomes of the government's efforts to promote bilingualism through education. During the period I wrote about in the book, a few school boards were experimenting with French immersion, but once the government began to provide funding, French immersion went full speed ahead, and tens of thousands of kids were enrolled in programs.”
Ottawa also provided new funding for minority-language teaching, so children who lived outside Quebec but spoke French at home could attend French schools. And “core French” classes became part of every school's curriculum.
“Opportunities to learn a second language were created coast-to- coast,” says Hayday.
But bilingualism didn't appeal to all Canadians.
“Unilingual Canadians thought it threatened their ability to get government jobs, and some took their concerns even further — they saw it as a plot to change the country. The title of my book is a play on the title of another book written in the 1970s called Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow: Trudeau's Master Plan and How It Can Be Stopped.”
Complicating the situation even more was the fact that, while Ottawa was busily trying to promote bilingualism, Quebec was passing Bill 101 and trying to make the province as “French-only” as possible, he says.
These issues have dominated Canadian history, says Hayday. “We are a country of two major languages, and neither one is going away.”
As if his research, writing, editing and teaching weren't enough to keep him busy, the historian maintains a blog of Canadian political commentary and book reviews at http://pamplemoose.blogspot.com.
He's also a film buff who was on the board of a gay and lesbian film festival when he lived in Ottawa. Other interests include travel, musical theatre (he likes to combine those two by heading to New York to attend Broadway performances) and cooking (with Christmas nearing, he has at least a dozen different types of baking planned).