Despite the compromise, the debate over separate Catholic schools continued to be an issue in the new country. Manitoba's adoption of a single, secular school system in 1890 resulted in a national political crisis. The Manitoba Schools Question was a political crisis in the 1880s and 1890s, revolving around publicly funded separate schools for Roman Catholics and Protestants in Manitoba. The crisis eventually spread to the national level, becoming one of the key issues in the federal election of 1896. Due to the close link between religion and language during this period in Canada, the Schools Question represented a deeper issue of French survival as a language and a culture in Western Canada. The secular system was upheld, with the guarantee of French instruction later being revoked in 1916, leaving English as the only official language in use in the province until it was reinstated in 1985.