Anti-racism minister mistakenly said Lamine Touré is dead… in front of Touré

Article content

Benoit Charette, Quebec’s minister responsible for the fight against racism, made a major gaffe at the Gala Dynastie on Saturday night.

He said in a speech at the gala that he wanted to pay tribute to Black cultural figures who had died this year, including Club Balattou owner and Nuits d’Afrique founder Lamine Touré. The problem was that Touré is alive and well and, in fact, was in the audience at the gala intended to honor Black excellence in Quebec.

People in the audience at Théâtre Maisonneuve immediately jumped up to say that Touré was alive and indeed right there in the theatre.

Article content

The minister’s spokesperson said Charette apologized to Touré for the mistake.

“The minister was reading a speech that had an ambiguous phrase, and he tried to paraphrase the text, and unfortunately he misinterpreted the phrase,” said Rosalie Tremblay-Cloutier. “That’s what led to the incident in question. The minister is very unhappy that this happened. It later turned into a joke amongst many of the participants, including M. Touré. The minister and Touré spoke later that night and both were laughing, and the minister apologized. … It was not intentional, and there was no contemplation on his part of it.

In fact, Charette’s speech was meant to highlight that Touré was being given the Grand Prix Dynastie during the gala.

Article content

But not everyone thought it was funny. Organizers of the gala were not giving interviews on Monday, but the gala released the following statement: “Last Saturday, during the sixth edition of the Gala Dynastie, the speech by the Minister Charette definitely created a certain malaise. This incident reminds us of the unacceptable gulf that separates our two communities. It shows the urgency facing this government to make real links with the different communities that it has abandoned, to listen to them and to recognize their excellence.”

There was much discussion of the incident on social media, including some criticism of Charette.

Fabrice Vil — founder of Pour 3 Points, an organization dedicated to helping young people — wrote a strongly worded post on Facebook: “I underline this incident because M. Charette had no right to make this clownish error, that is in my view a symbol of the small amount of consideration this government has for the Black communities.”

Fourteen prizes were given out at the Gala Dynasty. Kaytranada won as the musical artist having the most success internationally, Pierre Kwenders took the honors as world music artist, Dominique Fils-Aimé won as anglophone musical artist, and Gayance won as musical discovery of the year.

[email protected]

twitter.com/brendanshowbiz