The Secret Order

What if one of your loved ones belonged to a powerful secret society? Thousands of Canadian francophones may not realize there's a chance their fathers or grandfathers belonged to a wide-ranging brotherhood whose ranks included prime ministers, bankers and the heads of powerful companies, along with teachers, mechanics and travelling salesmen. It may be forgotten today, but at one time the Ordre de Jacques-Cartier, commonly known as "La Patente," had more than 72,000 initiates in 800 cities and towns across the country. Between 1926 and 1965, this highly secretive organization infiltrated every area of Canadian society and forged the fate of French-language communities. Two days before his death, a father reveals to his son that he was a commander in the Order. The son is filmmaker Phil Comeau, who is stunned by the news. Searching for answers, he criss-crosses the Maritimes and travels to Quebec and Ontario looking for concrete information about the Order-and, more importantly, for witnesses. Eventually, he finds several, and gets them to speak with him. For the first time, these men and their loved ones agree to raise the curtain on the Ordre de Jacques-Cartier and the causes for which it fought. During interviews with Comeau, shadowy men share secrets, witnesses share their stories and historians offer context and explanation. Throughout the mid-20th-century, francophone Catholics and anglophone Protestants found themselves perennially at odds with each other. French Canadians were sidelined by the powerful Freemasons, the Orange Order and even the Ku Klux Klan. English was the country's only official language, and francophones were generally excluded from the federal public service. In the Maritimes, French was forbidden in schools. Outside of predominantly francophone areas, speaking the language in public was frowned upon. In 1926, a small but determined group consisting of Quebecois, Franco-Ontarians and one Acadian decided to found a secret society with the aim of defending the interests of French Canadians. In The Secret Order, one after the other, former commanders of the organization remember the night of their initiation. By following one of the Order's archival manuals to the letter, Phil Comeau draws us into a fascinating historical reconstruction. We follow four 20-year-old men through underground passages, to a candlelit room festooned with standards. Here, the blindfolded young men undergo the five trials of the "journey to the land of the ancestors." Nearly 60 years after the disbanding of the Order, its secret initiation ceremony is finally revealed through meticulous staging that faithfully re-creates the ritual, including the clothing and decor used during the ceremony. Over the years, members of the Ordre de Jacques-Cartier would succeed in infiltrating the machinery of the state and the private sector, along with associations and media. This militant elite would spearhead the push for French-Canadian rights and francophone emancipation. Through its discreet influence, the federal public service would open to francophones, and the French language would come to appear on the Canadian dollar and postage stamps. In the Maritimes, the Acadian population would establish its own French-language education system, and strengthen the co-operative movement in order to develop its own economic and financial tools. In less than 50 years, "La Patente" achieved a stunning turnaround and beat back the threat of assimilation. By retracing his father's secret journey, Phil Comeau shines a spotlight on the Ordre de Jacques-Cartier and paints a gripping portrait of the social and political struggles faced by Canadian francophone-minority communities during the 20th century.