Utilisateur:Bouchecl/Brouillons/Quebec bashing

Intro

Le Quebec bashing est une attitude de dénigrement du Québec et des francophones qui l'habitent dans le monde anglo-saxon, et plus particulièrement dans la presse canadienne d'expression anglaise. Le Dictionnaire québécois-français propose comme équivalents : dénigrement systématique du Québec, critiques anti-Québec, cassage de Québécois ou québécophobie, mais c'est le terme Quebec bashing qui paraît de loin être le plus utilisé. Bien que l'expression suive les règles d'usage de l'anglais, elle est surtout utilisée en français, dans des textes et des déclarations publiques de journalistes, politiciens et intellectuels québécois.

Le Quebec bashing a été dénoncé comme malhonnête faux,, diffamatoire , bourré de préjugés raciste, ou de la propagande haineuse par un grand nombre de Québécois de différentes origines ethniques , toutes tendances politiques confondues .

Contexte

Bien que le français est la langue d'une grande majorité la population au Québec depuis le XVII^e siècle, la place réservée à la langue de la majorité dans le domaine de l'emploi, de l'affichage et des affaires est pratiquement inexistante, au profit de l'anglais, langue majoritaire au Canada depuis la conquête de 1760.

La rue Saint-Jacques de Montréal en 1935. Bien que le français est la langue majoritaire au Québec depuis le XVIIe siècle, l'affichage ulilingue anglais a prédominé dans la plus grande ville québécoise jusque dans les années 1970.

Jusqu'en 1960, l'anglais était la langue d'usage de la promotion sociale et de l'emploi, ainsi que la langue d'intégration d'un demi-million de nouveaux arrivants, immigrés de l'Europe du sud et de l'Est au cours de la première moitié du XX^e siècle. Cette situation d'infériorité des Canadiens-français se manifestait notamment dans des salaires moyens plus bas, leur absence complète des postes de supervision dans les entreprises et l'affichage commercial uniquement en anglais.

La mort du premier ministre Maurice Duplessis en 1959 et le début de ce qui sera appelé la Révolution tranquille marquera l'amorce d'un renversement de tendance. Le mouvement nationaliste québécois revendique le droit à pouvoir utiliser la langue de la majorité au travail et dans sa vie de tous les jours et demande la fin de l'anglicisation des populations nouvellement arrivées.

Ces revendications trouvent écho dans les rapports de la Commission royale d'enquête sur le bilinguisme et le biculturalisme, mise en place en 1963 par le gouvernement fédéral canadien dirigé par Lester B. Pearson. Dans son rapport préliminaire, publié en 1965, la commission, connue sous le nom de Laurendeau-Dunton, note que les francophones vivant au Québec sont victimes de discrimination au plan économique, leur salaire étant de 35 % inférieur à celui des anglophones. Les Canadiens-français se retrouvent en 13^e place sur 15 groupes ethno-linguistiques recensés.

L'arrivée au pouvoir du gouvernement du Parti québécois de René Lévesque en 1976 marqua un changement de cap dans la politique linguistique au Québec. L'adoption de la Charte de la langue française ou loi 101, qui impose l'usage du français dans toutes les spères de la vie publique, y compris en matière de langue de travail et d'afifchage commercial, tout en balisant certains droits de la communauté anglophone, est le mesure-phare du premier gouvernement péquiste. La Loi est dénoncée âprement par plusieurs groupes représentant la communauté anglo-québécoise ainsi que par la population et les médias du Canada, qui voient dans cette loi une contrainte inacceptable à leur liberté d'expression.

Thèmes

De manière générale, un grand nombre de propos relevant du Quebec bashing soutiennent qu'il existe au Québec un fort courant de racisme et de discrimination à l'endroit des Québécois d'origine anglophone, des Autochtones et des minorités (par opposition à la population descendante des colons français qui ont peuplé le Québec à compter du XVII^e siècle que certains décrivent comme les «pure laine», appellation par ailleurs rejetée par plusieurs personnalités québécoises) .

Pour illustrer leurs propos, ces auteurs affirment qu'un fort sentiment anti-sémite a animé le Québec au cours de la première moitié du XX^e siècle. Ces allégations sont souvent fondés sur certains écrits polémiques de l'historien Lionel Groulx et du leader fasciste Adrien Arcand. Plusieurs textes qualifiés de Quebec bashing feront un lien entre la société québécoise contemporaine, son gouvernement provincial et le mouvement souverainiste du Québec et l'idéologie fasciste, et en particulier avec le national-socialisme.

Certains auteurs s'attaquent aussi aux leaders politiques québécois. Durant les années 1990, les anciens premiers ministres du Québec Jacques Parizeau et Lucien Bouchard ont souvent été qualifiés de criminels , associés à des dictateurs de la trempe de Pol Pot ou même au Diable..

Les textes qualifiés de Quebec bashing dépeignent une vision très défavorable du nationalisme québécois, des partisans de la souveraineté du Québec et de la Charte de la langue française (loi 101). L'organisme public responsable de faire respecter la Charte, l'Office québécois de la langue française sera souvent qualifiée de "police linguistique" et condamnée pour ce que ces auteurs qualifient d'«opression» des minorités anglophone et allophone. Reprenant le thème du national-socialisme, les fonctionnaires de l'OQLF seront traités dans le même souffle de membres de la Gestapo ou de chemises brunes.

Les auteurs de ces textes arguent généralement de la supériorité des Canadiens d'expression anglaise ou des conceptions anglo-saxonnes de la démocratie, de la liberté individuelle ou du multiculturalisme ainsi que la grande tolérance du Canada anglais face à la dissension ou à la «trahison», ajoutant que seul un pays aussi accueillant que le Canada tolère de tels comportements. En fait, selon ces auteurs, seule l'appartenance du Québec au sein du Canada peut empêcher le Québec de sombrer dans le totalitarisme.

Examples

Asserted examples are to be found in English Canadian media but also around the world, often in otherwise respected publications that take their sources in English-speaking Canada. Within Canada, people such as former radio personality Howard Galganov and journalist Diane Francis have gained a reputation for anti-Quebec depictions. Elsewhere, someone like author Mordechai Richler has published such articles, most especially in the United States and Great Britain. From outside the English-speaking world, for example, three anti-Quebec articles in German newspapers were made public in Quebec during the 1990s, notably "A Quebec as antisemite as 50 years ago" from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, "Empty shop windows, barricaded doors and hate graffitis" from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and "Hello Montreal, and goodbye forever !" from Die Welt, in the three largest newspapers in Germany.

Unfavourable depiction of Quebec has additionally been observable in books, as well as political cartoons, which has been documented in the book Oka par la caricature: Deux visions distinctes d'une même crise by Réal Brisson, a compilation of cartoons from the era following the Meech Lake Accord failure and the Oka Crisis. Recent articles labeled "Quebec bashing" have sparked notorious controversies: Barbara Kay's August 9, 2006 "The rise of Quebecistan" in The National Post and Jan Wong's September 16, 2006 "Get under the desk" in The Globe and Mail. Both pieces were from Toronto-based publications.

Mordecai Richler

Well-known Quebec author Mordecai Richler made numerous assertions vilifying Quebec that were criticized and to some extent proven false. Because of his prestige as an author of fiction, he got to access forums around the world in such prestigious publications as The New Yorker. His negative portrayal of Quebec got coverage notably in the United States and Great Britain, where the voice given to French-speaking Quebecers was considerably smaller than that of English Canadians. In The Atlantic Monthly, around the first election of the Parti québécois (PQ) in 1976, Richler linked Quebec Premier René Lévesque to Nazism, asserting that the theme song of the 1976 PQ campaign "À partir d'aujourd'hui, demain nous appartient" was a Nazi song, "Tomorrow belongs to me... the chilling Hitler Youth song from Cabaret". This was drawn on the fact that the two have one single similar line in common, "demain nous appartient" and "tomorrow belongs to me", respectively.

Neither the remainder of the text, nor the music, are related. Furthermore, the Cabaret song, never sung in Nazi Germany, was written in the 1960s by a Jewish American lyricist and composer, not German fascists. "À partir d'aujourd'hui" was written by well-known songwriter Stéphane Venne when he was asked to compose a song for an advertisement of the Caisses populaires Desjardins credit union. The institution turned it down and, some months later, Venne then gave it to a following client, the Parti Québécois. Richler subsequently repeated the assertion on the CBC, and the Jewish American magazine Commentary. Co-writer of the Commentary article Irwin Cotler eventually issued a written apology to René Lévesque, but Richler did not.

Because of allegations brought upon him by Mordecai Richler, René Lévesque was the target of charges of anti-semitism in the United States and was barred from speaking at an American university because the Dean believed he was an anti-semite. Political analyst Jean-François Lisée, an admirer of Richler's fiction but critic of his political essays, noted that René Lévesque, one of the first journalists to enter the Dachau camp, was "a friend of the Israeli cause". Lisée wrote in his book Dans l'oeil de l'aigle that being called an anti-semite, in the United States that he so loved, was Lévesque's "greatest chagrin". Richler has asserted: "My enduring feeling about René Lévesque is that if he had chosen to hang me, even as he tightened the rope round my neck, he would have complained about how humiliating it was for him to spring the trapdoor. And then, once I was swinging in the wind, he would blame my ghost for having obliged him to murder, thereby imposing a guilt trip on a sweet, self-effacing, downtrodden Francophone." In the pages of Saturday Night Richler has called the Quebec situation "non-violent ethnic cleansing".

In 1992, Richler published a book dedicated to alleged discrimination in Quebec, Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! Requiem for a Divided Country. On the work, Jean-François Lisée said "The contempt that he has for Quebecers, and for the facts, that trickles from every page, hurt me, as a Quebecer, [...] as a journalist also, as an author, the intellectual dishonesty with which he plays with the facts, he makes comparisons that are absolutely unacceptable, it gave me an enormous headache to read this book, it stopped me from sleeping. [...] Evidently, here in Quebec, we know that he exaggerates, but someone has to say it to English Canadians." He did so in a televised debate on the then-fledging CBC Newsworld network, facing Richler. Lisée also said: "A part of the logical artifices, the sophisms that he employs in this book, he uses them on purpose."

Richler wrote in his book, as if it were common knowledge, that Louis-Joseph Papineau's Parti patriote of the 19th century had the "stated aim" of slaughtering Jews. (the same man and party were responsible for the Act of June 5, 1832 that granted for the first time in the British Empire, full civil and political right to Jews, in a document that was called a "Magna Carta" of Jewish rights). No serious proof of this exists. Jewish professor Ben Shek, in the Jewish magazine Outlook, said the assertion was not only false, but an attempt to smear francophones. He also noted a double standard where Richler downplays the bigotry of fellow English speakers, which he "never refers to as racist, a term reserved for the Québécois." English Canadian journalist Ray Conlogue has also criticized his writings. Richler was condemned for his depiction of Quebecers by the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) in 1992.

Jean-François Lisée stated "Here is someone that is so convinced that his cause is just, that he is ready to lie ― for his cause." In the aformentioned debate, Richler said he was "troubled" that people could not react to such attacks with "humour". Speaking of statistics Richler wrote of (and which he used despite the CJC telling him they were false), Lisée responded to Richler: "I, myself, find nothing funny about knowing that in California, and Manchester, people will read that, in my family, seven out of ten are highly antisemite, when it is a vulgar fabrication, I find nothing funny about it". Despite this, he recieved generally positive treatment in French-speaking Quebec media at his passing, while it often made a distinction bewteen Richler the author and Richler the polemist.

Esther Delisle

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Richard Lafferty

In a 1993 financial analysis bulletin sent to 275 people, broker Richard Lafferty compared then-leader of the Bloc Québécois Lucien Bouchard and then-leader of the Parti québécois Jacques Parizeau to Adolf Hitler and his tactics. Parizeau was said to have been especially affected, being the widower of Polish author Alice Poznanska, who saw the horrors of the Third Reich first hand. The two politicians sued Lafferty for defamation, demanding 150,000 C$ in reparation.

In March 2000, Lafferty was found guilty by the Superior Court of Quebec and sentenced to give 20,000 C$ to both men (also reported as 40,000 C$). Lafferty appealed, but passed away in 2003. In October 2004 the Superior Court of Quebec maintained the guilty verdict but raised the amount to 200,000 C$ (also reported as 100,000 C$). In 2005, before the case was heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, the politicians and Richard Lafferty's estate reached an out-of-court agreement. As commonly seen in such cases, the details of the agreement remained confidential. As announced at the beginning of the proceedings, Bouchard and Parizeau donated the money to charity.

Diane Francis

Claiming Canada to be "at war", Financial Post editorialist Diane Francis has a history of fiery writings denounced as Quebec defamation, writings virulently attacking Quebec, its protective language laws and its nationalist movement. For example, she wrote in an editorial on April 11, 2000: "The rednecks who run the Parti Quebecois have escalated the harassment of immigrants in business for using too much English. It's no coincidence that the government is displaying such overt intolerance as it heads for the Parti's annual convention next month. This is brown shirts a la Quebec who hope to fan fears about the future of the pur laine Super Race.", then calling the English language in Quebec "besieged" and then-Parti Québécois administration a "government comprised of language bigots". Additionally to such references to National Socialism and their stormtroopers, she also uses the terms "pure laine" and "language police", as have done other examples of asserted "Quebec bashing".

Using herself a strong patriotic (and therefor nationalist) tone, she authored on the subject the books Fighting for Canada and Maîtres chanteurs chez-nous!, also denounced. Found on the book and her official website, the official summary for Fighting for Canada, says Francis to have "pleged to become Lucien Bouchard's worst nightmare". It adds: "Outraged by the ruthlessness, lying, racism, and manipulation that she believed lay at the heart of the separatist campaign, Francis decided to dig a little deeper. What she discovered shocked even her, a seasoned journalist. Separatism, she asserts, is not a political movement, but a criminal conspiracy that has run rough shod over human rights, fair play, and democracy in an illegal attempt to destroy Canada." It continues, stating: "Worse yet, the separatists' not-always-unwitting accomplices range from mainstream federalist politicians to lazy and biased members of the media. [...] Through a combination of thuggery, sheer stupidity, and unrelenting ambition, these forces have conspired to capitalize on the separatist movement and the intense feelings it engenders. [...] There's a war on, she declares, and Canada is worth fighting for." Francis indeed developped a notable antagonism for former Premier Lucien Bouchard. On October 14, 1995, during the 1995 Quebec referendum campaign, she wrote: "Bouchard must go. The man is a menace, a demagogue and, possibly, a criminal."

On May 21, 1996, a group of about a hundred Anglo-Quebecers, Forum Québec, filed a complaint to the Press Council of Ontario about Diane Francis. In November 2000, another complaint against Francis was validated by the Quebec Press Council. Commenting the examples brought upon the body, it declared: "They are [...] unacceptable abuses of language that should not be tolarated in the pages of a great national daily publication. [...T]he Quebec Press Council can only validate the complaint". Specialist of racism-related issues and sociologist Maryse Potvin, in a study on anti-Quebec depictions in the media, argumented that the foundations and tone of Francis' writings against Quebecers were similar, in many regards, to the anti-semite discourse of the 1930s and 1940s: the idea of a conspiracy unrecognized by the population, one that is led by sovereigntists that "lie", that cheat, that infiltrate the Canadian Army.

Howard Galganov

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William Johnson

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Howard Stern

American radio shock jock Howard Stern was briefly available on terrestrial radio in Canada, including a few stations in Quebec. On the first day his broadcast was carried in Montreal, he used numerous slurs about French-speaking Quebecers including "scumbags" and associated them with Anti-France stereotypes. When a listener asked if he thought the French in Quebec and the French in France were different, he responded negatively and denigrated them both. He also validated discriminatory comments about Quebecers made by listners. His words brought many complaints to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC); as ultimately removed from the air because of these, and many other offensive remarks.^{[réf. nécessaire]} Whether his remarks are critical of Quebec, or simply the typical offensive comments of a shock jock, is debatable.

Daniel Sanger

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Süddeutsche Zeitung

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Lawrence Martin

Lawrence Martin published in 1997 the book called The Antagonist: Lucien Bouchard and the Politics of Delusion. In it, he painted a psychological portrait of disputed merit of Lucien Bouchard, then Premier of Quebec. In its pages, Bouchard is described as "mystical", and his culture "most uncanadian". Martin based his book on the psychological analysis, itself disputed, of Bouchard made by Dr. Vivian Rakoff. However, Rakoff never met the subject. Martin's book called the Premier: "Lucien, Lucifer of our land", something repeated by Lawrence Martin in 1997, on the pages of The Globe and Mail. Maryse Potvin, a sociologist specialized in racism-related issues, asserted in a study on anti-Quebec media representation that this type of demonization is a known and documented process of racism.

Affaire David Levine

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Kristian Gravenor

In the Montreal Mirror of November 28, 2001, Kristian Gravenor compared the inspectors of the Office de la langue française (OLF, now known as the OQLF) to the Taliban in the "Tongue Taliban hits NDG". Gravenor claimed that the inspector used tape to measure letters on sign, could give monetary penalties to business owner, and could seize the properties of business owners. However, only the tribunal can decide monetary penalties and whether properties can be seized. The Quebec Press Council received a complaint on the subject. The Couoncil did not retain the complaint but found the amalgamation to be inappropriate.

Don Cherry

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Controverse autour de Late Night

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Barbara Kay

The August 6, 2006 demonstration in Montreal.

On August 6, 2006, Parti québécois (PQ) leader André Boisclair, Bloc Québécois (BQ) leader Gilles Duceppe, Québec solidaire (QS) spokesperson Amir Khadir and Liberal Party of Canada Member of Parliament (MP) Denis Coderre participated in a march for "justice and peace" regarding the Israel-Lebanon conflict of 2006. On the following August 9, Barbara Kay published "The rise of Quebecistan" in The National Post, painting the politicians (three of which, Boisclair, Ducceppe and Khadir, being pro-independence) as having tacitly supported terrorism, the Hezbollah and anti-semitism for votes in the Arab community.

Article

She wrote that "[t]he devil is always on the lookout for the moral relativism that signals a latter-day Faust, and it seems he has found some eager recruits amongst Quebec’s most prominent spokespeople." Kay claimed that they only condemned Israel's actions in Lebanon while not condemning actions on the part of Hezbollah. It also mentioned the presence of Hezbollah flags (illegal in Canada, where Hezbollah is considered to be a terrorist organization). She claimed that an independent Quebec, separated from English Canada, would remove the Hezbollah from the terrorist list "by day two". "Think about what this would mean if Quebec ever were to become independent, and detached from the leadership of politicians who know the difference between a democracy and a gang of fanatical exterminationists. [...] By Day three, word would go out to the Islamosphere that Quebec was the new 'Londonistan' ".

Advancing that Quebec intellectuals and politicians had a "fat streak of anti-Semitism", she also claimed that terrorism in 1960s Quebec gave these intellectuals and politicians a "frisson (shiver) of pleasure". However, the latter generally denounced these tactics, including Pierre Bourgault, Claude Ryan and modern Quebec sovereigntism founder René Lévesque, who was traumatised by the October Crisis to the point of tears. She advanced that "These politicians [...] have no political support from Jews (who are all federalists)". This generalization is incongruous to the point of the article because of the presence of federalist Coderre and ignores Jewish sympathizers of Quebec sovereigntism such as David Levine (PQ candidate in 1979 and 2003), Salomon Cohen (PQ candidate in 1994), Victor Teboul (in charge of communications for Cohen in 1994), Paul Unterberg (PQ candidate in 1970), Henry Milner (member of the national executive of the PQ in the 1980s) and Armand Elbaz (PQ candidate in 1996).

Reaction

The targeted politicians defended their presence. Gilles Duceppe stated that he was there in the interest of the Israeli and Lebanese civilian populations alike and André Boisclair said the Hezbollah flag had no place in Quebec. A press release from Duceppe's Bloc Québécois pointed out the presence of Jews in the march and noted that Duceppe's presence was conditional to no pro-Hezbollah demonstrators and no anti-Israel slogans.

The Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society lodged a complaint regarding Kay's piece to the Quebec Press Council. Kay was criticized by federalist La Presse editorialist André Pratte and sovereigntist The Gazette columnist Josée Legault, as well as La Presse journalist Vincent Marissal, amongst others. Federalist Premier of Quebec Jean Charest called the expression "Quebecistan" "une grossièreté" (something rude, crude, a "vulgarity"). Activist Gilles Rhéaume announced his intention to lodge a complaint to the police for hate speech. William Tetley, a McGill University professor and past Robert Bourassa minister, wrote a letter to The National Post where he said that, as an anglophone himself, he deemed the Quebec society as holding a historic tolerance for Jews. He reminded people that, at a time when his own English-speaking McGill University imposed quotas on Jews, the French-speaking Université de Montréal welcomed them. As a past alderman of the Town of Mount-Royal, he also evoked the existence of Jewish quotas in the English-speaking Mount-Royal, which was not the case for neighbouring French-speaking Outremont. He supported the opinion that the manifestation was legitimate. Tetley, recipient of the Order of Canada, was vice-president of the federalist Liberal Party of Quebec.

Reacting to the controversy, National Post Comment Pages Editor Jonathan Kay declared that his newspaper had no reason to offer apologies. He stated to La Presse that "[t]here is no doubt that Quebec has an anti-semitic past." As in many other examples of said "Quebec bashing" he brought the example of Lionel Groulx. An article from Jonathan Kay, blaming the departure from Montreal of the Expos baseball team on sovereigntism, was also met with "Quebec bashing" denunciations in 2002. Barbara Kay was also defended by Howard Galganov (himself accused of "Quebec bashing"), Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal president Beryl Wajsman and Ottawa Citizen journalist Brigitte Pellerin. Barbara Kay reiterated the same opinion in an August 17, 2006 piece called "Quebecers in denial : Counterpoint".

Jan Wong

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A shooting at Dawson College occured in Montreal, Quebec on September 13, 2006, resulting in two deaths (a student, Anastasia Rebecca de Sousa, and the perpetrator, Kimveer Gill) and many injured. Only three days later, the national newspaper The Globe and Mail, called Canada's newspaper of record, published on its front page Jan Wong's "Get under the desk" article. In it, all three school shooting tragedies of the last decades in Quebec, those of the École Polytechnique (14 deaths), Concordia University (4 deaths) and Dawson College (2 deaths, as noted), are linked with the purported alienation brought upon by "the decades-long linguistic struggle". Public outcry and political condemnation soon followed.

Article

The author implied in the article that the murderous actions of the three perpretrators were somehow related to the fact that they were not old-stock French Quebecers (Marc Lépine, half-Arab, Valery Fabrikant, born Russian and Kimveer Gill, of Indian heritage, respectively) and therefor alienated by a Quebec society concerned with "racial purity". Citing the deprecated term "pure laine" as if it were a contemporary fashion of seeing races in Quebec, it painted Quebec as unique in the world for racism: "Elsewhere, to talk of racial 'purity' is repugnant. Not in Quebec."

The article displayed factually wrong statements. It claimed Montreal to be a "once-cosmopolitan city" while the metropolis is at a high level of diversity in its history (in the 2001 Census, it was said to be composed of 69% French speakers, 12% English speakers and 19% native speakers of other languages). It portrayed school shootings in Canada as a Quebec phenomenon, citing Jan Bryan, columnist for the Montreal Gazette, saying "Three doesn’t mean anything. But three out of three in Quebec means something.", however five out of eight have actually occurred outside Quebec, according to Bryan's own newspaper and criminality in Montreal is among the lowest in North American cities.

It claimed the Montreal English community to be a small-town community where everyone knows everyone, while the community is composed of over 400,000 individuals, controling five CÉGEPs, two universities and a vast number of health, media and other various organizations. Also, linguistic factors were never claimed by the assassins. Lépine had a grudge against women and feminists, Fabrikant against rival scholars and Gill, a bullied child, targeted students and said in his notorious internet blog that Quebec was a "good place to live in". Furthermore, it is dubious to consider Lépine as not a part of the francophone Quebecois society, him being estranged from his Algerian-born father and raised mainly by his Quebecoise mother, whose name he adopted (he was born Gamil Gharbi). Both Fabrikant and Gill targeted anglophones, not francophones.

Public reaction

Hundreds of letters of complaints were received by The Globe and Mail. Like in Barbara Kay's case, the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society (SSJB) lodged a complaint to the Quebec Press Council. SSJB president Jean Dorion declared "There is no obsession for racial purity in Quebec, definitely not. [...] The expression 'pure laine' is absolutely obsolete." The "blogosphere" soon saw a flood of posts against Wong's allegations. Researcher Micheline Labelle, director of the Centre de recherche sur l’immigration, l’ethnicité et la citoyenneté (CRIEC, "center of research on immigration, ethnicity and citizenship") at the Université du Québec à Montréal, said "I do not understand that the Globe publishes something so low." She stated that she saw in the arguments something akin to "neoracism", that is to say a generalization of a cultural trait applied to a given population. "For less than that, minorities go to the courts", she said.

A vast number of Quebec journalists denounced Jan Wong's article. French-born journalist Michel Vastel, in his blog for news magazine L'Actualité, called the article "deceitful racism" and the interpretation "repugnant". His opposition was advanced again in a following Journal de Québec piece by Vastel. The article was condemned by federalist La Presse editorialist André Pratte (in an letter to the Globe and a La Presse editorial), journalists Michel C. Auger of Le Journal de Montréal, Michel David and Michel Venne of Le Devoir, Yves Boisvert and Stéphane Laporte of La Presse, Josée Legault of The Gazette, Jean-Jacques Samson of Le Soleil, sovereigntist militant and author Patrick Bourgeois of Le Québécois and Gérald Leblanc, retired journalist of La Presse.

Montreal's English-language newspaper The Gazette called it "nonsense" in an editorial and its journalist Don Macpherson wrote "By the standards of Wong’s article, one could just as easily blame the [three] shootings on federalism, since all three happened to occur while the Quebec Liberals were in power". Barbara Kay, author of the "Quebecistan" controversy, herself criticized Wong, calling the analysis "bullshit". Jack Jedwab, director of the Association of Canadian Studies in Montreal and member of the Jewish community, noted that the expression "pure laine" is "no longer quite common". He also called the analysis "nonsense". The Globe and Mail remarked that "[i]n English Canada, unsurprisingly, the response has been considerably more muted".

Political reaction

On September 19, 2006, the Canadian Press reported that federalist Premier of Quebec Jean Charest (himself half-Irish), demanded an apology, calling the article a "disgrace". He sent an open letter to the Globe vigorously defending the Quebec society and its language protection.

« In this kind of situation, anyone who ventures to put forward explanations or comparisons at the very least risks making a fool of himself. Jan Wong has certainly discredited herself with her gamble.
I was shocked and disappointed by the narrow-minded analysis published in the Saturday, September 16 edition, in which Ms Wong sought to identify the affirmation of French culture in Québec as the deeper cause of the Dawson College shootings and the killings at the Polytechnique in 1989.
Quebecers make up less than 3% of the North American population. Over the centuries, through the vicissitudes of history, we have managed to preserve our language and culture, and in so doing, cherished the highest democratic ideals. Every year, we welcome tens of thousands of individuals from the four corners of the earth, people who contribute to building a free society in Québec, a society that is proud of its difference. [...]
Ms Wong’s article is a disgrace. It betrays an ignorance of Canadian values and a profound misunderstanding of Québec. She should have the decency to apologize to all Quebecers.|quote height in pixels|Jean Charest »

It was then Conservative Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper's turn to lambast the article, calling the argument "prejudiced", "absurd", "irresponsible" and "without foundation". He sent the Globe a similar letter. "These actions (the killings) deserve our unqualified moral condemnation, not an excuse for printing prejudices masked in the language of social theory," Harper wrote. Parti québécois leader André Boisclair declared that the journalist had, on the intellectual level, "slipped into the dregs" ("glissé dans les bas fonds"). Former Premier of Quebec Bernard Landry declared to La Tribune "if she is of good faith, she will have to apologize [...] It is incredible that it is still possible today of conveying so delirious opinions on Quebec. Especially at an era when Quebec is more cosmopolitan than ever. [...] It is insulting for Quebec and dishonouring for Canada. In the same way as if I saw a similar article about Ontario in La Tribune, I would be ashamed for La Tribune."

Cameroon-born Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament and pro-independence militant Maka Kotto issued a declaration at the Canadian House of Commons stating "to pretend that there could be a link of any kind of cause-and-effect between the dramatic episode of Dawson College and Bill 101 — described as infamous by the journalist — pertains of a defamatory delirium disconnected from the Quebec reality. [...] Quebec is an inclusive, welcoming society where it is pleasant to live. As an immigrant, I felt very rapidly welcome there and I deplore that the openness of the Quebec people can be put into question." He invited the federal government to denounce the writings of Jan Wong as well. On September 20 the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion requesting an apology "to the Quebec people" for the column. Denis Coderre, the Liberal MP who tabled the motion, called the column "classless". "People feel there's a sort [...] of trend.", he said. "I think that it's enough. We're not "Quebecistan", we're not a people that ostracizes, we're a model of integration." Coderre was in the group of politicians attacked by Barbara Kay in the "Quebecistan" controversy, also accused of "Quebec bashing". Marie-Hélène Paradis, press attaché of Quebec Minister of Immigration Lise Thériault, said "No data can support what Ms. Wong advances." She declared that such allegations feed "the type of fast judgements that lead to discrimination."

Despite having voted for the motion, Conservative Member of Parliament Daniel Petit declared that there might be a link, as Wong suggested. "I think that the billion (dollars) that we put in the registery (the Canadian gun registry) should have been put into education and integration of immigrants in Montreal", Petit said. Dimitri Soudas, press attaché for Conservative Prime Minister Harper, said "The comments of Mr. Petit are unacceptable, he should retract them and it does not reflect in any case the position of the government", adding that Petit was met by the Prime Minister's cabinet on the subject. MPs of the House of Commons criticized him for his statements, including Michel Gauthier, of the Bloc Québécois, and Denis Coderre, of the Liberal Party of Canada, who demanded apologies. He offered them promptly. "I made inappropriate remarks," Petit said in a statement. "I withdraw them entirely because you cannot draw any link between the integration of immigrants in Quebec and the terrible tragedy at Dawson College."

Globe and Mail response

On September 21, 2006, The Globe and Mail published an editorial on the affair. Calling the controversy a "small uproar", it defended the right of the journalist to question such phenomena, the "need to ask hard questions and explore uncomfortable avenues", saying that it "merely wondered". The editor claimed not to be surprised from the hundreds of letters of protest received, including those of First Ministers Charest and Harper. The editorial validated Wong's heavily disputed claims of alienation in Quebec, which the Globe called "politics of exclusion". Asking whether this so-called exclusion led to marginalization and perhaps alienation, it said that the answer is "arguable". However, it called the marginalization and alienation of the three shooters "obvious". About whether it could be associated with the murders, it answered that "[n]o such evidence exists". In a sentence apparently intended to balance the assertions, it implied at the same time that an even worse discrimination existed in the Quebec of the past, as it wrote: "By the same token, it would be remiss to forget that today’s Quebec is not the Quebec of yesteryear." The Globe and Mail did not issue an apology for Jan Wong's piece, as requested by many, including the unanimous House of Commons.

Leader of the Bloc Québécois Gilles Duceppe declared that he considered the editorial an attempt at justification. "It even suggests there might be some problems in Quebec because of the language laws. It's unacceptable and it's deplorable and it's shameful for a newspaper of that stature", he said. "Try imagining the opposite — If I'd made such nonsensical, absurd remarks (about English Canada). Then all the editorial writers across Canada would get involved." Jan Wong declined the invitation of host Guy A. Lepage to explain herself at the popular Quebecois talk show Tout le monde en parle. She has declared: "I brought forward a point of view [...] and I maintain it." Premier of Quebec Jean Charest was said to be disappointed by the Globe and Mail response. He was also said to be offended by the little consideration the paper gave his open letter, that was published in the readers' opinion page (like the one from Prime Minister Harper). "The (House of Commons) motion is totally ignored", said the Premier's press attaché. On September 23, 2006, the Canadian Press reported that Edward Greenspon, editor of The Globe and Mail, expressed regrets. In a Globe and Mail column, without making formal apologies, he wrote that the personal opinions of Wong should have been excised from the piece, not because they were unacceptable, but because they constituted a "thesis", not a "statement of fact". He wrote that "they should have been put into a separate piece clearly marked opinion". He however believed the reaction to be clearly disproportionate.

Response

Critics counter that Quebec is a tolerant and inclusive society and bring a number of arguments, some of which are mentioned in the Examples section. On anti-semitism, they point out the fact that, in history, it was English Canadian bars that displayed "no dogs, no Jews" notices and that it was English-speaking Montreal McGill University that held Jewish quotas, not French-speaking ones (although as the French speaking primary and secondary schools were closed to non-Catholics, few Jews were part of the French community and so few chose to go to French schools). Also, they mention the fact that Quebec was the first part of the British Empire to grant Jews full civil and political rights in the Act of June 5, 1832, after the debate over Jewish Trifluvian Ezekiel Hart. Historians argue that some anti-semitism existed in Quebec during the 1930s but that it was not a Quebec specificity, was mostly not organized and that the era saw anti-semitism in many societies, often at a higher level.

Organizations, such as the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society (SSJB), defend the Quebec society and lodge formal complaints. Guy Bouthillier, then-president of the SSJB, stated that "I had fixed myself the task of working to defend and support the good reputation of Quebec abroad — and within naturally — as a country of welcome, of diversity and as land of future [...]" In 1999, Bouthillier, lamenting the phenomenon, pointed out that the "right to good reputation" was a recognized right by the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms inspired by the great international declations of the post-war era. In 1998, under the leadership of Gilles Rhéaume (a former SSJB president), the Mouvement souverainiste du Québec filed a memorandum to the International Federation of Human Rights in Paris that included the mention of anti-Quebec press articles. In 2000, Rhéaume filed a memorandum to the United Nations regarding "violations by Canada of the political rights of Quebecers", including media defamation. He also founded the Ligue Québécoise contre la francophobie canadienne ("Quebec league against Canadian francophobia") to answer to "Quebec bashing". English Canadian journalist Ray Conlogue has denounced the anti-Quebec press.

Journalist Normand Lester wrote three volumes of The Black Book of English Canada in which "Quebec bashing" is denounced. In the books, Normand Lester (of mixed Jewish and Quebecois heritage) noted "It is one of the caracteristics of racist discourse to demonize the group that is condemned, all the while giving oneself all vertues, to pretend representing universalism while the group targeted by hateful discourse is denounced as petty, and its demands, without value, anti-democratic and intolerant". The book offered a counter-point by chronicling the racist and anti-semitic history of English Canada. The author argued that Quebec was never more anti-semitic than English Canada. Most notably, it underlined the fervent federalist opinions of facist Adrien Arcand and revealed for the first time that his former facist National Social Christian Party was funded by Prime Minister of Canada R. B. Bennett and his Conservative Party of Canada (see R. B. Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett#Controversy). He argued that the facist party was so marginal that it would never have been viable, had it not been for the funding. Lester was suspended from his job at the federal Société Radio-Canada for publishing this book; he subsequently resigned.

Debate

While examples of anti-Quebec coverage in English Canada is recognized by a number of people, whether this represents a wide phenomenon and an opinion held by many people in English Canada is debated. The Black Book of English Canada was, for example, criticized by Chantal Hébert. She noted that people such as Graham Fraser, Jeffrey Simpson and Paul Wells, fairer with Quebec, were often called upon by Canadian media since the 1995 referendum. She also mentioned Edward Greenspon, who ended up defending himself a "Quebec bashing" incident in 2006, Jan Wong's "Get under the desk".

Also, Graham Fraser, an English Canadian journalist noted for his sympathy for Quebec, has tempered both sided. "This phenomenon (of English Canadian francophobia) exists, I do not doubt it; I have read enough of Alberta Report to know that there are people that think bilingualism is a conspiracy against English Canadians to guarantee jobs for Quebecers — who are all bilingual, anyway.", he wrote. "I have heard enough call-in radio shows to know that these sentiments of fear and rage are not confined to the Canadian west. But, I do not think these anti-francophone prejudices dominate the Canadian culture."

Different depictions

Regarding Quebec, the English Canadian media is not solely comprised of such representations. Some English-speaking journalists have, for example, earned a notable reputation for a much fairer and sympathetic view of Quebec, in sovereigntist and federalist circles alike, such as Ray Conlogue, Peter Scowen or Graham Fraser.

Quotes

On the phenomenon

• Of course, Quebec-bashing is nothing new for the anglophone press, but it is so widespread these days that one wonders if it hasn't become a natural and acceptable expression of Canadian patriotism.
  • Michel David, journalist for Le Devoir
• They (the English Canadian media) cover Quebec as exploiters, stirring up the prejudice of the population. It is not to shed light upon the question that Mordecai Richler makes his comments in Saturday Night, it is to fan the flames of hatred and prejudice. After the referendum, spirits hardened up in Canada, even in the newspaper in which I write. More space was reserved to complaints of Anglo-Quebecers concerning their so-called persecution. Anglo-Canadians believe more and more that they have the right to interfere in Quebec life. It is very embarassing.
  • Ray Conlogue, English Canadian journalist
• Our English media really hurt us. It's very seldom that we hear about the good things rather than bashing us about the same 35-year history of 'when are we going to separate?' and 'when is the sky going to fall?' [...] We have a lot to offer if we only believed in ourselves and promoted ourselves better. [...] If our English media would take a more positive outlook on what happens in Quebec and Montreal, we'd do a lot better. The outside world does not view us the way we do ourselves.
  • Howard Silverman, president of Corporate Affairs International Inc., speaking at a lunch organized by the Jewish Business Network

Bibliographie

• Normand Lester. Le Livre noir du Canada anglais Éditions Les Intouchables, Montréal. 2001. (ISBN 2-89448-160-8)
• Guy Bouthillier. L'obsession ethnique by , Lanctôt Éditeur, 1997, (ISBN 2-89485-027-1)
• Réal Brisson. Oka par la caricature: Deux visions distinctes d'une même crise by , Septentrion, 2000, (ISBN 2-89448-160-8)
• Maryse Potvin. "Les dérapages racistes à l'égard du Québec au Canada anglais depuis 1995" by , Politiques et Sociétés, vol. XVIII, n.2, 1999
• Michel David. "Bashing Quebec fashionable in anglo media". The Gazette, 21 avril 2000. Page consultée le 20 septembre 2006.
• Liste d'articles accusés de Quebec bashing dans Vigile.net
• Différents exemples dans le site republiquelibre.org

See also

• Speak white
• The Black Book of English Canada