What about those humiliations? Or is it just colonial history that creates nations?

But that said, and since it’s been mentioned: I suspect that if the U.S. government were to publicize the anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, Fla., by treating it as synonymous with the founding of the USA, it would receive some pretty spirited criticism from a lot of sources, quite possibly including both Texas and South Dakota.

But that’s not what I came here to say. I would have thought that experience in this country would have taught us a couple of things. One is that money spent buying the loyalty of Quebeckers is money wasted. By which I mean, that even if you really need the loyalty of Quebeckers and you’d benefit greatly from having it, and even if you pay for it generously, you’re not going to get it that way.

And another would be that money spent peddling false history is money mis-spent. By which I mean that, even if that money very effectively convinces a whole lot of people of your false view of history, you’re not going to get any benefit out of the achievement, only harm.

With those principles in mind, I can see some pretty good grounds for criticizing the Harper government’s handling of the Quebec anniversary. And I note these criticisms aren’t coming merely from the losers of the Quebec sovereignty debate, but from Newfoundland and the West. From people who know their history and know that Quebec is irrelevant to it. People, that is, whom Paul Wells will never understand.

And a closing remark to Mr. Grenier: at any given time, about 15% of Canadians outside Quebec speak French. But two-thirds of those who can speak it today will have forgotten it in ten year’s time. Their numbers will be made up for by another generation who hasn’t yet understood that French isn’t worth knowing. If you wanted to turn that situation around, you could actually make French a language worth knowing; but you’ve never quite managed to do that, have you?

You are a French Canadian like they are an Irish American. Enjoy your slow cultural death into a mere regional peculiarity with fancy parades.

95% of francophones outside of Quebec speak English, while 14% of anglophones outside of Quebec speak French, according to Statistics Canada. That says it all.

You can think what you like, Ted and Loraine, but having other people take the history of my nation and my people for their own is incredibly insulting.

A Texan or Californian or South Dakotoan would never consider that the arrival of Columbus or Plymouth Rock was irrelevant to their history. The Norman conquerers were a fundamental party of the history of Britain too.

Champlain was the founding father of Canada. French and English Canada. His history is inextractible from the history of the whole nation.

It means something to me to say that I am a Canadienne. Some Québécois now refuse to write the word, preferring to use the English ‘Canadian’ in French texts. These Québécois writers insult and disparage the descendants of the French who live in other provinces with their association of the term Canadien-français to servitude, lack of courage and intelligence. You are a Canadian, Mr. Wells, and I am a Canadienne.

And that in the same way that “Canadien” meant something completely different in 1808 than it does today in 2008. You’re a Canadian, Mr. Wells, but 200 years ago you wouldn’t have called yourself a Canadian. Only the descendants of the French colonists took that name, a name that was disparaged and insulted by the British and the ancestors of current English Canadians.

Pratte is the last person you should be taken instruction from in terms of Quebecois history. He just wants to be loved by people west of the Ottawa River.