Toula Drimonis: No, no one is trying to “erase” Quebec

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As the Parti Québécois attempts to increase support for sovereignty, it is becoming increasingly clear that party leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has turned to fear and bitterness as motivational drivers.

Last weekend, during the PQ’s national council, Plamondon gave a speech in which he accused Canada of deliberately seeking to “weaken” and “even erase Quebec,” suggesting that it “only knows how to Crush those who refuse to assimilate..” He then reiterated his intention to hold a “last chance referendum” if elected.

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Doubling down on their comments, the PSPP later invoked the deportation, execution and denial of French speakers in Canada of the right to a French education. “a constant throughout its history.”

“All is history?”

Yes, the British tried to assimilate the French speakers and the Acadians were deported. Members of the Patriot rebellion (who included English speakers) were executed. Francophones were denied the right to a French education. Without a doubt, it is thanks to the resilience and resistance of the community that persevered and survived.

But it is also thanks to the legal protections granted after the Quebec Act of 1774, which recognized the French language, French civil law and the Christian religion in Quebec. Since 1867, and despite certain provinces trampling on the rights of French-speaking minorities, Canada has made no concerted or substantial effort to “erase” Quebec or French Canadians.

Quebec Liberals have accused St-Pierre Plamondon of fear-mongering, while Quebec Solidarity’s Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois referred to his speech as marked by “resentment, fear and catastrophism.”

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Given that support for sovereignty has barely budged at around 35 per cent, and poll numbers show that 69 per cent of Quebecers believe Canada is “a country I’m proud to live in”, it’s probably It’s safe to say that the majority of Quebecers are less concerned about the possibility of a Yes victory than about the detrimental effect that this type of alarmist rhetoric may have, once again, on Quebec’s social and political climate.

And while this rhetoric might appeal to the PQ’s hardliners, I doubt it will appeal to the majority of Quebecers (certainly not the younger demographic).

Instead of clinging to the supposed socio-economic benefits of Quebec independence, the PSPP is opting for the populist playbook of fear, stoking old grudges and amplifying the stale rhetoric of “melancholic nationalism,” a school of thought described in Jocelyn Maclure’s book, Quebec identity, which perceives Quebecers as a fragile and tired colonized nation, condemned to economic and political subordination.

The problem with that kind of rhetoric is that, for many Quebecers today, that way of looking at Quebec and its relationship with Canada is outdated and no longer relevant.

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Yes, Quebec continues to clash with the federal government on various jurisdictional issues, but that is also part of the constant confederal tug-of-war taking place across the country.

Several Canadian prime ministers come from Quebec. In the Bloc Québécois, we have a political party in Ottawa that exists solely to defend the interests of Quebec at the federal level. Quebec may continue to resist federal centralization (just like any other province), and the relationship between Canada and Quebec may remain contentious on some issues, but to claim with any seriousness that Canada in 2024 is actively trying to erase Quebec is simply a complete mistake.

Quebec has more immigration powers than any other province because French is voluntarily given priority. The Official Languages ​​Law established institutional bilingualism throughout the country. The Canadian government is invest more than 4.1 billion dollars in the next five years in its official languages ​​plan, primarily to reverse any decline of French and promote its vitality, recognizing that the “situation of French is unique.” The Trudeau administration recently announced measures to increase French-speaking immigration to help restore the demographic weight of the French-speaking community in Canada.

Does the federal government always get it right when it comes to Quebec? Of course not. But if Ottawa’s goal is to “weaken” or “erase” Quebec and the French language in Canada, it is doing a spectacularly bad job.

Toula Drimonis is a Montreal journalist and author of We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants and Belonging to Canada. She can be contacted at X. @toulastake

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