Separate schools in Alberta and Saskatchewan

During the late 1800s there was an ongoing erosion of educational rights for Roman Catholics and language rights for francophones in western Canada. Between 1892 and 1901 the government of the North-West Territories sought to integrate schools into a single non-denominational system and restricted the use of French in schools. The creation of the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1905 caused a crisis to erupt in schools. Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier had guaranteed separate schools for the two provinces but, facing opposition from powerful colleagues and heated Protestant reaction, he was obliged to revamp the legislation. In the end only the Catholics who constituted a majority in their school districts (and these were a minority) were entitled to their own publicly funded schools. The episode concerning western schools was, to some, the culmination of a series of trials for Catholic and French minorities outside Quebec.