And, actually, I doubt he could have won the 1813 campaign anyhow. His lieutenants were just too unimaginative (or shellshocked — they’d all been through Russia) for the kind of huge-scale strategy he tried then.

I’d never thought about the Louisiana Purchase like that. Definitely something to think about in terms of what-ifs. For me the big What If, assuming France had kept New France after 1763 and retained it through the American revolution, is what would have happened there during the French revolution. On the one hand, there were no Jacobins in New France, no philosophes, and the Church was already very powerful. On the other hand, the Canadiens already felt themselves to be distinct from the French, rather like the American colonists felt themselves to be distinct from the Brits. So would New France have been a royalist stronghold, or the first to cast off the yoke of the ancien régime? I’d love to see more What If debates on TV etc., on all historical subjects — with a narrow focus, ideally — not “what if the Roman Empire never fell,” which this random dude once asked me, wandering into my Classics department; I tried to explain to him that we are the Romans, but he pointed out that we weren’t wearing togas.

Scots are the people of Scotland.

You too, just like Mitchell, think of yourself living in the 1867 confederation. It’s all gone. Scince 1982 you are no more a founding nation. Forget about your “two founding nations” myth. It’s gone.

We have nothing to give a damn about your charter or constitution. We did not sign it and dont care about your multicultural federation, just like the other native nations dont.

Cecession is a PQ fantasy.

“Partly it is a sleight of hand tactic from your political elite (which separatists fall for),”(Hosertohoosier)

Absolutely.

“but there is also a core group of separatists who want to take away certain rights of natives, English Quebeckers and allophones.”(Hosertohoosier)

Very small group. Those are the 15 “terrorists” in their Montreal basements.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss ways of getting at the root cause: you want to ensure the survival of your culture as something more than a minor tourist attraction like that in Louisiana.”(Hosertohoosier)

Well that’s it. We still make 80% of Quebec population, but the PQ has usurped all of our institutions (cultural and economic) to transfer them to the state so that the elite can control them and feed it’s privileges (govermment syndicated workers). These make the “Quebec nation” the PQ defends. The State, not the people. It is not different for the English in Quebec who also are feeders of this elite. This elite is not only francophones but also anglophone. The PLQ and PQ work hand in hand to maintain this fascist state.

“So that is where I depart from many strong federalists. I can accept loi 101, decentralization of power, and so on, if it gets at preserving what I accept to be a distinct culture.”(Hosertohoosier)

If the Canadien nation would have not loose it’s institutions to the PQ after the Revolution Tranquille, we would never had needed a loi 101. We were in a healty competition with the English community and reaching same economic status. This healty competition is what was the problem for other provinces that had power over the federal govermment and also was a threat to the syndicate elite in the Quebec state upper public administrations.

So now, the State make itself as the “protector” of both communities who have lost their independance and are totally dependant on the state.

We are getting closer and closer to a communist state.

What have you being drinking ? :-)

My poor fellow, only the native nations have been recognized in this canadian federation ; The Amerindiens nations, the Inuit nation, and the Canadien nation (by the federal assembly and Quebec assembly, by all political parties).

You still hold to the federal lie that this was cancelled because of a group of 15 “indépendantists” in their Montreal’s house basement.

Our indignation is not the defeat of the French. It is the fact that the organisers of this re-enactment were from outside and the Canadiens were ignored.

Sorry, but this is Canadien’s land and this battle is our battle for Canada. We will make our own historical re-enactments, tank you.

Re-enact the Plaines d’Abraham for the next New Year’s Eve “Bye-Bye” special. This time, let the French win a glorious victory. Then, skip forward to the 21st century: the United States covers the entire continent!!!

The punch line: it turns out that Napoleon sold Voltaire’s “quelques arpents de neige” to the US to pay for his war debts, and what used to be Canada is now about as french-speaking as the state of Louisiana.

Did I get this right?”(Critical Reasoning)

No.

You, the English descendants of the british are the myth makers who feeds those myths by parasiting the Canadien nation’s historic reality. No other culture in this multicultural federation was behind this re-enactment.

That is why it was so easy for us to make you retreat in your attempt to produce this comedie-bouffone on the Plaines d’Abraham. Because, scince 1982, you have no more founding nation status in this constitution Trudeau made you sign. The federal govermment retreated as soon as it saw a possible nation-wide discussion, fearing you would wake up.

“Irrelevant?”…ZING!

I’ll tell you, it’s not much of an insult to accuse French Canadians of irrelevance. It’s only the permanently colonised who worry about such things.

I wouldn’t be so mean and dismissive as Gébé to call the ROC parasitic, but its constant inability to nurture its own cultural institutions and to stand up to its sneering elite who are always condemning them as unsophisticated or parochial drives me crazy.

If it isn’t stamped with the US seal of approval, it’s discarded.

The Canadian state is a multicultural one, but the cultures involved are not monolithic and immutable. The Scottish Canadian nation, for example, to which I happen to belong, has evolved considerably over the centuries, owing to intermarriage, interaction with other cultures, and most of all to the passage of time. It is the natural tendency of cultures in close contact, particularly when joined by a linguistic bond, to grow together and share characteristics. The idea behind “multiculturalism” is that the state does not coerce those cultures into a single form but rather allows the interaction to happen naturally. For example, someone from Saskatchewan who is of mainly Ukrainian background would by now feel they had a great deal in common with someone from Toronto whose ancestors might have come from Ireland in the late 19th C, because in both cases their ancestors would have been living and working in Canada for many generations. Nevertheless, under multiculturalism, the state takes no position on which culture (if either) is “authentic”; and it may well do its best to preserve some aspects of the original immigrant cultures so as to enrich Canada and preserve its polyvalent heritage. As a result, many characteristics of the original immigrant cultures (in my case, a certain dourness and probably Protestant habits of thought) are retained. Thus a superculture, featuring many component cultures, emerges.

Now, naturally, culture has a lot to do with language, since ideas are expressed in language first and foremost. We therefore speak of “two cultures in mutual respect and esteem” because on the one hand we have a French-language culture, which for demographic reasons corresponds closely with the Canadien/Québécois ethnic culture, and on the other a more diverse English-language culture of great diversity but of remarkable harmony, at least compared to other diverse societies around the world.

Your model presumes that cultures are monolithic, so that the Canadien/Québécois nation is a single entity that does not evolve and does not interact with its surroundings. This is empirically false. There is no denying that the Canadien/Québécois nation is the oldest European culture in Canada and, as it were, the “senior” culture in Canada, but even though it is unique in that respect it does not follow that must inevitably be opposed to all the other evolving cultures on this continent. For one thing, it is not identical with French-speaking culture in Quebec, which now includes former allophones from all over the world and a good number of originally francophone cultures (e.g. from Haiti). Quebec may not be quite as diverse as Ontario but it’s still quite diverse, and thus a multicultural society whether you like it or not. The question is whether people like yourself, who evidently want to crush minority cultures in Quebec in the name of the Canadien/Québécois nation — fascism, basically — will prevail, or whether the vast majority of Quebeckers, who have no time for that kind of baroque corporatism, will be able to resist such extremism. The good news is I’m sure that they will, because I know the Québécois are a civilised and warm-hearted people, and that your days are consequently numbered.

We should come back at the real prupose in my opinion of this article : How to reconcile the following elements:

- acknowledgement of historical factual events and their implications by renactments per example, but it could be by films, documentary, essays, etc.
- what unifying elements of our history worth be celebrated for either identity (Cdn, Que., First Nation, etc.)
- recognize that some elements of our history are still divise among us.

Pour ma part, je crois sincerement que le present debat demontre a quel point les societes canadiennes et quebecoises, n’ont pas encore atteint la serenite requise pour pleinement profiter de l’occasion qu’offre le 250eme de la Bataille des Plaines. Quand on y pense, nous avons depuis 40 ans, une crise terroriste, trois referendums, trois echecs constitutionnels, un rapatriment pas tout a fait unanime.

We might have to wait another generation to acheive that goal.

Christian Martel
Montreal

Whitch two cultures are you talking about ? The canadian federation is a constitutional multicultural state. Read your constitution. You signed it in 1982. You have no more nation or even founding status than a Chinese canadian in Vancouver.

We, the Canadien people, have not signed that. We will never sign that.

I dont know many English canadians that are aware of that. You are one of the few. You are right about the Parti Quebecois, but wrong on the separatist view of history. The small 15 persons group called RRQ was used by both the federal and PQ to downplay the real indignation from the Canadiens view of history.

The PQ and PLQ Quebec parties are the left and right arm of the federal govermment. No doubt about that. The PLQ repress Canadiens’ history before 1759 and the PQ repress the Canadiens’ history before 1960, to create a “new” people called Quebecois. This “deal” between the two major Quebec parties maintains the division amongst the Canadiens majority in Quebec (about 50/50) and thus garanty themselves both parties rotation into power.

To keep alive the federal myth, the PQ and PLQ created the Quebecois nation myth. Both myths are designed to suppress the Canadiens historical reality. Anyone who believes the PQ is a “separatist” party are living in the myth.

“Canada’s domestic film industry is tiny (a lot of American movies are made here). We don’t generally make feature films, and if we do, nobody hears about them.”(Hosertohoosier)

Exactly. But in Quebec, the Canadiens are producing and consuming the culture canadienne. Go into the houses outside Montreal where 80% of the Canadiens live, and in it’s capital Quebec city, and you will see they watch mostly their own cultural products, from all medias. For our small population, we produce an incredible amount of feature films and every Canadien in Quebec hears about them and consume them. But historical feature films are rejected by both parties.

“Bon Cop Bad Cop recently broke Canadian box office records… which were held by Porky’s – a movie from the early 80’s.”(Hosertohoosier)

Bob Cop Bad Cop is a perfect example. It is a totally bilingual “canadian” film with English canadians actors and Canadiens actors from Quebec. It broke the ROC’s (population of 24 million) box office record of the 1985 film Porky’s revenge with a population of only 6 million Canadiens. Bon Cop Bad Cop, up to 2006, had grossed 13 million $ in Quebec and only 1.3 million $ un the ROC.

Porky’s revenge is a mile stone in what we can call the “destruction of the english canadian culture industry”. Simply look for cultural english production before 1980 and you will be amazed of it’s amount and quality. In those days and before, going down to the 60′s, I remember to have learned my english by watching english canadian TV. Remember Peter Gzowsky or Wayne & Shuster ? To name but a few ! Who needed american TV in those days ? It’s all gone now. English canadians dont even have a talk-show. We, in Quebec, have maybe 10 talk-shows, TV and radios !

Only YOU, the english “canadians”, dont hear about them. No one hears about you guys either scince the 80′s ! You are all gone working to make american-jewish films and consuming american-jewish TV. The few you produce yourselves you now make not english canadians for english canadians but of american-jewish culture to be consumed by amrican-jewish myth consumers.

Learn canadian history in Ontario ? If I have a advice for anyone looking to learn a country’s history, dont do your research it that country but in the books of a country close to it and that have no political reason to lie about it. If you want to learn about Canada’s history, read american books on it. Look into documents and theses in american universities.

As for the “guilt” you say we want to impose on you, I dont see how we could achieve this if you are innocent. I dont feel guilt if I am innocent of something. The facts are the facts. If you feel guilt in front of those facts, it is your own problem. We cant change history just to make you feel good !

“I think backing down on the reenactment was a mistake, because it buys into the most important of the separatist myths – that Quebec was conquered.”(Hosertohoosier)

Well, that is a myth on all sides, not only “separatists”, because the Quebec province did not even exist in 1759. The British ruler created the Quebec govermment in 1763 and its territory was quite huge (ingolfing the great lakes). So, just like today, Canada (St-Laurent valley) was a territory inside Quebec province.

“I DO believe that Quebec is a nation in the sociological sense, just as I believe English Canada is one as well, distinct from Britain and the US.”(Hosertohoosier)

Now that is some myth. Quebec is a province and the ROC is also a collection of provinces. They are provincial govermments. Period. The Canadien nation is not only in Quebec but in all provinces. The Canadien nation is not a territorry, but a people. Stephen Harper understoud this perfectly when he said he recognized the Quebecois people as a nation and specified that those Quebecois people where those who called themselves Canadiens français under british rule and Canadiens before british rule. In other words the direct descendants of the Canadiens nation.

English Canada is not a nation. The canadian federation is officialy a multicultural entity. There is no Canadian people. Read your constitution. English people from british descent make up one of the peoples in this multicultural federation. They dont form a nation like the Canadiens or Amérindiens and Inuits. You dont have any more nation status than the Chinese canadians in Vancouver or the Jamaïcan canadians in Toronto.

(more on your comment, later)

btw, search engines are a good reference/clearinghouse/resource; great for minds that think at the speed of light. retention of facts while helpful, just makes you a great wet-storage, and is not necessarily a sign of great intelligence or genius; but it can date you based on the facts that you are acquainted with; and it might be a sign of tyranny of the fact-fighters and ppl who love to pontificate; otherwise someone like Henry Ford wouldn’t have had a chance. …no pt in googling for dollars right now to find out about Fish Creek. i note that you conveniently ignored my pt about the reenacting of FN’s being swindled and defrauded.

i do recall a photographic exhibit in TO some years ago that portrayed so-called “blacks” in what many “blacks” would consider to be degrading/”victim”-type situations; it was pulled due to the sense of humiliation many felt about the depictions. now, if those “blacks” had a different experience of history in which their ancestors or close ancestors or simply “skin-tone” ancestors had been paid for their inventions and major contributions to society appropriately recognized and appreciated before that exhibit i’m certain it would have had a different reception.

perhaps the problem, as i have come to see it, is in an unwillingness to understand or give credibility to why a ppl react adversely to something that seems benign to another. it takes two ears to hear with the mouth/speech disengaged; and i mean to imply “deep listening”; not lip-service that results in getting what you wanted to hear anyway; it takes effort and desire to do this.

which causes me to come full circle back to you and wonder if *you* have even asked and given credibility to the Quebecker’s reactions and really gotten their angst over this?

As to reenacting FN events, have you bothered asking them? I don’t think the 6 Nations would be averse to reenacting some of their historical episodes, e.g. from 1812, and I don’t think the Métis would mind reenacting Fish Creek, say. (Do you know what I’m talking about or are you frantically googling these events?)

I just don’t understand why the Battle of the Plains of Abraham has to be considered a moment of humiliation for the Canadiens of the time or for their Québécois descendants. It was a glorious defeat, followed shortly by a glorious victory at Ste. Foy. I know it’s taken as a symbol of the Conquest by lots of people on both sides, and has been for 250 years, but that’s mainly owing to the fact that nobody really looks at the facts and everybody (on both sides) buys into British imperial chauvinism. To heck with British imperial chauvinism.

we are a country with an unusual identity which is fluid and adaptable; it’s why a lot of ppl like coming here and while many may at first refer to themselves as hyphenated Canadians (actually i know for a fact they are hyphenated by those who need to see difference), eventually the country seeps into their bones, their blood, and they come to call themselves Canadian/Canadien. it began with the environmentally responsible, creative and hospitable FN and ends with the last immigrant that came here today.

while the Quebecois (sp?) are not perfect, they do deserve some respect and dignity from the “larger” culture; i believe they have cherished and protected their art and culture much more than English speaking Canada; the Quebecois should also be as generous to the FN ppl who, though fractured and genocided, still survive and still hold the key to the environment and respect for the land in this country.

whatever…

i have American family; Albertan family, Quebec family, international family whom i love… nice try to use reverse psycho in trying to pit us vs them, French v. English; either you need to grow up or you need to retire. but you seriously need to upgrade your attitude.

what a self-defeatist tone i read in your post; at least *i* believe in Canada and know that we get the govt we allow here. you “how come we don’t and the Americans do”-whine like crime is run amok here or somethin’.

as for the art and culture thing? don’t sing the song of grace called “O Canada” it was written by a Quebecker. in fact, don’t sing any song, don’t salute the flag either; that was created by an artisan as well; you are very ungrateful.

your meanness belongs a minority of Canadians who know better and do better everyday.

PS: if you are so concerned about mother tongues, how good is your Huron?

Correct me if I’m wrong about your claim:

A culturally diverse pseudo-country of 25 million is feeding parasitically on the myths of an increasingly irrelevant linguistic island of 7 million, in order to establish some kind of national identity.

Did I get this right?

You aren’t Howard Galganov in disguise, by any chance?

You also have clearly never taken history in Ontario. Our history classes are strongly slanted (I DO agree that Sarah is wrong), and teach us that Louis Riel shouldn’t have been hung, that the Manitoba school act was bad, and that the Conscription crisis was a mistake – generally from the perspective of “poor poor Quebec”. The CBC recently ran a revisionist history documentary that redid the trial of Louis Riel, but found him innocent. Canadian history classes are all about the kind of guilt you guys want us square-heads to feel.

I think backing down on the reenactment was a mistake, because it buys into the most important of the separatist myths – that Quebec was conquered. That myth presupposes that the French were great, enlightened and beneficient rulers, when in fact they were far from it. Quebec was not conquered, so much as it changed empires. Moreover to presuppose that 1759 was a CONQUEST implies that Quebec is not distinct from France and runs contrary to the notion that les Quebecois are a distinct cultural entity.

“Stop beign parasites and make yourselves a country of your own and a culture of your own.”

I DO believe that Quebec is a nation in the sociological sense, just as I believe English Canada is one as well, distinct from Britain and the US. I reject, however, the notion of national self-determination. What is a nation but some random sorting of people based on the accident of birth. What really matters is that all members of both nations are individuals – whose rights are protected by the charter. No rational person with liberal democratic intentions would demand secession in that setting, particularly when Quebec is a net winner of Canadian federalism.

So why does separatism persist (apart from the lack of willingness among the English to debate the myths underpinning it)? Partly it is a sleight of hand tactic from your political elite (which separatists fall for), but there is also a core group of separatists who want to take away certain rights of natives, English Quebeckers and allophones. I will never countenance that, and that is why I take a hard line against separatism (and strongly dislike the “let them go” argument). That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss ways of getting at the root cause: you want to ensure the survival of your culture as something more than a minor tourist attraction like that in Louisiana.

So that is where I depart from many strong federalists. I can accept loi 101, decentralization of power, and so on, if it gets at preserving what I accept to be a distinct culture. You are right that Quebec can’t be bought off though.

The parasite’s worst fear is rejection from the host.

Another “canadian” federal myth.

We are going nowhere. We are kicking you out.

They made you believe that Ottawa was the birth place of Canada. How ridiculous.

The fact is, you hate us Canadiens (Québécois) but you cant leave us because we are the true Canadiens and Quebec is our birthplace. Quebec is the soul of Canada. It is it’s heart.

We are the only and truly Canadiens and you need us to maintain your myth by parasiting on us for your artificial canadian identity.

So you keep buying us with money and false expressions of love. Some of us take the money and some of us just want to vomit.

Stop beign parasites and make yourselves a country of your own and a culture of your own.

The USA made hundreds of documentaries, films, feature films, with all points of views of their history. The very first Hollywood feature film (1915) was about american history (The Birth of a Nation) and the point of view is quite chocking. There have been, scince then, hundeds others from the point of view of natives, southeners, northeners, blacks, Jews, Irish, etc…

That, Sarah, is called culture.

I have not seen ANY canadian feature film on Canada’s history, other that the separatist Pierre Falardeau (1837) who is said to be close to those 15 innofencive separatist group accused of being the cause of this cancelation.

The only respectable feature film on Canada’s history and prior to 1759 was an Australian film called Robe Noire.

Your trying to make us swallow history repression for restraint of overembellishment says it all.

Thanks

A friend from Québec

The canadian federation has replaced Nouvelle France, but the original country called Canada is still in the Saint-Laurent Valley and its Canadien nation still living there as Québécois.

The reenactment of the battle on the Plaines that was proposed was innapropriate for the Canadien nation because it was all centered on the British and French, while the Canadiens involved in this battle and were fighting for their country Canada were totally ignored.

That many Canadiens today also call themselves Québécois dont mean that the Canadiens’ history and heritage has disapeared.

The good thing out of all this is that it reminded everyone of who is the real Canadien nation.

1. Personne au RDC n’a jamais nié que la déportation des Acadiens a été quelque chose d’affreux.

2. “Les Anglais ont attaqué les Canadiens de la vallée du St-Laurent. Peu importe, ils ont tué à peine dix mille Canadiens !”

Ils ont détruit les fermes au côte du nord du St-Laurent et sur l’Île d’Orléans (la térritoire que Wolfe controllait). Ils n’ont jamais massacré la population canadienne, même si (naturellement) quelques uns ont été tués en défendants leurs fermes. La seule véritable massacre a été commis par un Capitaine Montgomery. Ils ont détruit Québec par le bombardement, mais d’où vient ce figure de “dix mille Canadiens”? C’est pas vrai de tout.

3. “Un de nos conquérants anglais, le général Ahmerst, a été le premier à exterminer des Amérindiens en les contaminant à la petite vérole.”

C’est vrai qu’il a fait ça, mais c’était à l’époch où les Amérindiens étaient en train de massacré et de scalper beaucoup de colons Britanniques aux bords des colonies (grâce à la politique de Vaudreuil). Les “droits humains” n’ont pas figuré dans ce conflit atroce.

4. “Les Anglais et leurs descendants américains esclavagistes ont fait la traite des Noirs et répandu l’esclavage en Amérique.”

Cela fait rire. Il n’y avait pas d’esclavage en Nouvelle France?? En Louisiane, et même au Québec?

5. Ils ont aussi anéanti / décimé des centaines de nations amérindiennes qui vivaient ici.

Ce qui ont fait aussi les Français, même si ce n’était pas l’intention: la plupart des nations amérindiennes ont été décimées (réduites en 10% de leurs populations) par les maladies communiquées entre eux, de source européenne, par l’interaction avec les commerçants. Il est vrai que le gouvernement des États Unis a souvent adopté une politique de génocide envers les Amérindiens, mais cela n’a rien à faire avec le RDC. Aussi, même si on peut féliciter l’ancien régime français sur son attitude moins génocidaire envers les Amérindiens, il faut noter qu’il n’avait pas la capacité de coloniser leurs térritoires.

6. “De toute façon, Noirs et Amérindiens sont-ils de vrais humains ? Ont-ils seulement une âme ?”

Qu’on demande cela des gouverneurs français d’Haïti, de Martinique, etc. L’idée que les Français n’avait rien à faire avec l’esclavage, ou qu’ils traitaient les Amériendiens de la même manière, est ridicule.

7. “Merci pour tout, Messieurs les Anglais pour votre belle civilisation !”

Tu parles à qui avec ça? Nous ne sommes plus “les Anglais” ici au RDC.

8. “On en a eu de chance que l’Amérique ne soit pas française !”

C’est vraiment étrange comment certains Québécois s’imaginent que, outre la guerre de Sept Ans, les Français auraient pu bel et bien garder contrôle de l’Amérique du Nord — sans colonisation, sans grande armée, et avec les colons des 13 Colonies désireux de conquérir de nouvelles térritoires. Le fait que l’ancien régime, gérant une population européenne à peine deux fois plus grande que celle d’Angleterre, ne se soit jamais chargé de coloniser l’Amérique, alors qu’on y trouvait 1.5 million de colons anglais en Amérique en 1757 face à seulement 60 000 Canadiens, nous indique que la France n’aurait pas pu garder le Mississippi, l’Ohio, etc.

Je ne réponds pas au sarcasme offensive de ton message. Voilà la voix de quelqu’un qui vit encore avant la révolution tranquille.