Having read in the pages of Duty farewells from Francine Pelletier as well as the letter of admonition published by the editor-in-chief, Marie-Andrée Chouinard, we allow ourselves here to express our deep concern about the way in which, in these times of pandemic, the Duty seems to disregard the principles of healthy democratic debate.
We would really like to understand what motivated the management to act in this way, by pillorying a collaborator whose columns had been appreciated and recognized as such by a large number of readers for nine years.
The unprecedented health crisis in which Quebec has been plunged for two years now has given the major news media a vital role in providing an informed understanding of the major issues posed by the health measures taken by the government. If only to counterbalance the restriction of individual and collective freedoms that too often they entail! And we thought that The duty would necessarily play a leading role in this regard, favoring by all means the expression of diverse points of view and possibly contradicting the dominant government discourse. Is this not, moreover, the very essence of democracy: to promote, in freedom and respectful debate, the clash of opposing ideas, so that everyone can form a fair idea and decide with full knowledge of the facts ?
But that’s what we don’t understand: what, in what Francine Pelletier wrote that day, is really a problem for The duty ?
Wasn’t she a seasoned and respected columnist, and hasn’t she just summarized the text by neuropsychiatrist Norman Doidge published earlier in the “Opinion” section of the Globe and Mail ?
Why would the ideas taken up by the columnist be so problematic in The dutybut repeated and seen as part of a necessary debate in the very serious and rigorous Globe and Mail from Toronto?
That Francine Pelletier could – on a highly controversial subject and in the context of a short weekly column – make a possible factual error or even some clumsiness, fine. But after ? Is there enough cause for trial here for us to inflame the situation by playing the relentless lesson giver and for Francine Pelletier to have – it seems – had no choice but to give his resignation?
Even beyond a correction that the columnist could have added to her next column, The duty didn’t he have all the latitude to, rather than demonize his columnist, open the debate on this subject and make known different points of view which would have advantageously counterbalanced the information given by Francine Pelletier? Isn’t this how, in a democratic society and in a daily life that wants to reflect its principles, that we advance the debate, that the truth is sought by many and that we come a little closer to it? ?
In this difficult period that we are going through and where authoritarian temptations are multiplying everywhere, it seems important to us that you know – we who will very often draw our information from the pages of the Duty – that we are concerned about what happened. Because arranging to silence in your pages an original voice which over the years had largely proven its worth and was appreciated by many for its invigorating questions, seems to us to bode well for democratic and media life in Quebec.
*Signatories:
Alain Denault
Nina Machouf
Richard Desjardins
Louise Harel
Amir Khadir
Louise Vandelac
Paul Cliche
Rachad Antonius
Pierre Mouterde
André Frappier
Christian Louret
Viviane Salette
Jonathan Durand Folco
Bernard Rioux
Raphael Canet
John Sylvester
Nathalie Cote
Sibel Ataogul
Rene Charest
Andrew Vincent
Jacques Pelletier
Jean-Claude Ravet
Susan Caldwell
Jean-Yves Bernard
Catherine Pappas
Ronald Cameron
Yvon Rivard
Ricardo Penafiel
Marie-Christine Doran
Michael Lacroix
Dan Furukawa Brands
Chantal Beaudry
Isabel Orellana
Donald Cuccioletta
Roger Rashi
Josee Chevalier
Yves Carrier
Richard Fidler
Robert Deschambault
Francois Saillant
Luc Martineau
Dominique Beaulieu
Flavie Achard
Florence Thomas
Laure Frappier Lapointe
Michele Bonmati
Christian Montmarquette
Sylvain Caron
Serge Bruneau
Martine Chatelain
Pierre Beaudet
Sylvain Lacroix
Marie-Eve Mathieu
Andre Huot
Guillaume Tremblay-Boily
Mary Blais
Marie-Eve Rancourt
William Demers
Benoit Renaud
Louis Rousseau
Joan Renault
Louise Trencia
Lise Couture
Nicole Boucher
Marie-Helene Bonin
Yalda Machouf Khadir
Claude Simard
Victor H. Ramos
Sophie Thiebaut
Florence Bourdeau
Etienne van Steenberghe
Marie-Josee Beliveau
Marie Jacques Samson
Estelle Grandbois-Bernard
J.-Claude St-Onge
Alain Savard
Jean-Yves Jeannette.
Ginette Richard
Marcelle Dube
Peter Bacon
Raymond Legault
Charlotte Thibault
W. Stuart Edwards
Marie-Andrée Painchaud-Mathieu
Olivier D. Asselin
Emilia Castro
Winnie Frohn
Jonathan Vallee-Payette
Isabelle Renaud
Etienne Guerette
Georges Leroux
Thioro Gueye
Lise-Anne Rheaume
Camille-Amelie Koziej Leves
Marie Grandbois
Robert Taillon
White Paradise
Jules Michaud
David Murray
Christiane Pepin
France Maynard
Norman Gagnon
Norman Beaudet
Marc Bonhomme
John Cloutier
Christophe Jbeili
Jocelyn Lavoie
Guy Geoffrey
Marie Leclerc
David Gutnick
Loreen Pindera
Jean-Pierre Tellier
Gilberte Boucher
Kevin Skerrett
Jovanka Ivic
Louis-Francois Naud
Eric Forget
Karine Dubois
Johanne Saulnier
Francois Tanguay
Annie John
Pierre Villepelet
Samuel Herzog
Richard Poulin
Julian Sher
Lisa Fitterman
Dorothy Henaut
Marc-Andre Cyr
Claude Vaillancourt
Amira Bouacida
Stephane Lessard
Yanick Letourneau
Cecilia Agnes Keita
Hassan Guillet
Nathalie Groulx
Charlotte Bonmati Mullins
Sebastien Bouchard
Leslie Dabit
Marielle Cauchy
Jocelyne Delage
Lise Vaillancourt
Anne-Marie Sicotte
Alain Picard
John Bradley
Lucie Pelletier
Patrick Provost
Asmaa Ibnouzahir
Veronique Lalande
Carole Frechette
Mary Lauzon
Richard Dumas
Anne Emond
Podz
Anne-Laure Salsé
Jacques T Godbout
Lucienne Losier
Andre Leclerc
Pascale Merlet