BY JOE YOUNG
CARAQUET, New Brunswick - Resistance has broken out against school closures in Acadian communities in New Brunswick, an eastern province in Canada. The response of the provincial government has been violent attacks by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) riot squad.

The Acadians are an oppressed French-speaking nationality numbering about 250,000 out of a total population of 724,000 in New Brunswick. Acadia was conquered by the British empire from France in 1710. In 1755 there was a massive deportation of the Acadians primarily to the American colonies as the rulers grabbed their lands.

Throughout their history the Acadians have had to fight for the right to have schools and other institutions in their language and under their control. While the province was declared officially bilingual in 1981, the struggle continues to this day.

The highest levels of unemployment are in the Acadian areas of the province, at times rising to 25 percent in the Acadian peninsula in north east New Brunswick. The recent moves by the federal government to make it harder for seasonal workers to get unemployment insurance have hit Acadian workers particularly hard. Some 49 percent of the population in non-Acadian areas of the province have attended post-secondary schools, while in Acadian areas the percentage is only 41.2.

A Militant reporting team visited parents fighting to keep their primary schools open at Saint Simon and Saint Sauveur, both situated in the Acadian peninsula. The team met with Mireille Manuel, the president of the Saint Simon parents committee; Vice President Denise Mallet; Secretary Isabelle Léger; as well as The'rese Albert, president of the Saint Saveur defense committee, and Monique Ferron, the former president.

In New Brunswick, the provincial government is proposing to close 18 schools this fall as a way to save money. In the case of Saint Simon, this means busing children a distance of up to 27 kilometers (1.6 km=1 mile) to a school in Bas- Caraquet. At Saint Sauveur, the province is closing a school for 80 children built only ten years ago. The students will be bused to Allardville, which in some cases will involve a trip of 25 km.

There are important stakes for the survival of the Acadian communities in keeping the schools open. At the end of a leaflet distributed by the parents committee in Saint Simon there are the following words in bold letters: "AWAKE ACADIAN PEOPLE. TO SAVE OUR SCHOOL, OUR COMMUNITY, OUR HERITAGE."

A May 20 press release by the defense committee in Saint Sauveur states, "We are accused of being violent. We don't agree. We are simply demanding our rights as parents concerning what affects the education of our children. The decision to close our school and several others will influence families to move to or near the towns where there is a school. That means a massive deportation that will leave behind it half empty communities, which will finally disappear from the map of New Brunswick."

Since the beginning of the year, the parents have organized demonstrations including blocking roads, school boycotts, and meetings. There have been several meetings with Minister of Education James Lockyer, and other government representatives, with no results.

The provincial government sought to crush the movement with violent assaults by the RCMP riot squad. On the evening of May 2, after another meeting with Lockyer, the defense committee in Saint Sauveur held a meeting of 350 out of 987 inhabitants at the school to report on the refusal of the minister to back down. The families present decided to demonstrate on highway 160, a road that goes through the village and is only used by local people. After leaving the school, they were assaulted by the riot squad using tear gas, dogs, and clubs.

The protesters were forced back into the school and only allowed to leave with their hands behind their heads. Ferron described the scene, "When I was at the window [of the school] and I watched, it was how I felt when I watched the Gulf War on the television but it was going on in our community - balls of fire, booms, then shouts. That was what was happening."

Two days later in Saint Simon, the cops launched a similar attack resulting in 13 arrests and some people being hospitalized. Léger described one police attack. "There was a young person, 15-years-old," she said, "whom the police pulled out of a car. Then there were two dogs who were biting him while the police clubbed him."

If the authorities thought that this assault would break the spirit of the Acadians fighting for their rights, the impact has been the opposite. "We are living through a dictatorship like Hitler's," Albert asserted. "Shut your mouth because you are afraid to get killed. But, we demand our rights. We are Acadians, we are a minority and we don't want to be crushed."

The committees fighting to keep their schools open have reached out for support. They have received support from the Acadian Society of New Brunswick (SAANB) and the provincial parents committee. After the attack at Saint Sauveur, representatives of the defense committee went to Bathurst, to speak to a demonstration of 1,500 organized by the Canadian Labor Congress on May 3.

On May 25, the defense committee organized a march called "Hand in Hand" at the same time as activities in many other towns across New Brunswick were organized against cutbacks. Three hundred people demonstrated despite heavy rain and cold to show their determination to keep their school open. Over and over they chanted "We won't give up." At the head of the march was an Acadian flag and seven students from Vieux Montreal College, who had driven 11 hours to show their solidarity.

The march was followed by a rally and community supper. Albert told the crowd, "If the government wants to close the school it will have to deport it, because as long as it remains in Saint Sauveur it will be ours."

To show support for the fight to keep the schools open you can call the following people: Mireille Manuel, president, parents committee, Saint Simon 506-727-9191; and The'rese Albert, president, survival committee, Saint Sauveur, 506-725-5895.

Messages can be faxed to Saint Sauveur at 506-725-5559.

Joe Young is a member of Local 1103 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers in Montreal. Stéphanie Morissette, Marie-Claire David, and Guy Tremblay also contributed to this article.  
 
 
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