I absolutely want to react to that unfortunate article written by Graeme Hamilton. First of all, I don’t know where Mr Hamilton resides. For myself, I have been residing in Quebec for the past 40 years, both in rural and urban areas, so I know my province. Last week, a story was presented by the Quebec media on certain bylaws prohibiting noize, such as construction or lawn mowing, in the city of Hampstead in the heart of Montreal, populated mainly by Jews. It was run, among others, by hosts like Richard Martineau and Benoit Dutrizac, as Hamilton’s article points out. However, I must disagree with the treatment of the facts presented by Hamilton. I know these folks. Being myself a strong opponent of anti-semitism, I wouldn’t hesitate to denounce them if they were guilty of that terrible psychological disease. If they were anti-semites, I think I would know.

To understand correctly the core of the argument, you have to go back in time to the centuries and decades during which the French-Canadian identity and spirit were formed. Following the takeover of New France by England in 1760, the French elite was either deported or left by itself for France, which let the people with only catholic priests as leaders. So the Catholic Church was given, by the circumstances, a carte blanche to do whatever they want with the population and its education. French-Canadians continued to evolve with only the voice of the Church to guide them, without any room for any other points of view. And that monopoly was only broken in the 1960s, when the Révolution Tranquille occured. Continuer la lecture →