The author is a professor of literature in Montreal, contributor to the journal Argument and essayist. He notably published These words that think for us (Liber, 2017) and Why do our children leave school ignorant? (Boreal, 2008).
MP Francis Drouin is right: he did not have to apologize – which he finally resigned himself to on Thursday – but to resign.
It is in fact never appropriate, when you are an elected official, to insult your fellow citizens, but to launch such crude insults against two people who appear at the invitation of a deputy before the Standing Committee on official languages is a denial of democracy. It’s simply shameful.
Calling these two defenders of French “full of shit” when you are president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie is also a denial of reality. Because what made the Liberal MP come off his hinges was an argument presented by Frédéric Lacroix, an independent researcher who recently published Why Bill 101 is a failure (Boréal, 2020), and Nicolas Bourdon, member of the Pour le Cégep français group, which is rather indisputable: the attendance of English-speaking CEGEPs and universities by students who studied secondary school in French leads many of these young Quebecers to become anglicized , that is to say, to make the choice to then work, and even live, in English.
It is this argument that Francis Drouin first considered “extremist”, then considered that it was “insulting” and that he lacked “intellectual respect for reality”, before ending by treating both “full of shit” speakers. Pressed to explain, he ended up justifying his outburst by the fact that the two men were peddling, in his opinion, a “simplistic message”.
As anyone who has ever debated with people in bad faith knows, insult is always the last resort of someone who no longer has an argument. This is what we can call “proof by insult”. This in fact proves that the insult is right, or at least that his counterpart fails to put up any rational argument against him.
In this story, it is perhaps this basis of the affair which is the most interesting: because what the deputy Francis Drouin says, what makes him judge the position of Lacroix and Bourdon so “extremist” and so intolerable , is that he considers the anglicization of Canadian French speakers as an inevitable and almost natural phenomenon, since it occurs, according to him, almost everywhere in the world. This is what suggests, it seems to me, his remark that France is also becoming anglicized.
From such a perspective, which, let us not hide it, is that of the Liberal Party of Canada as a whole, we understand that it is completely inconceivable and even insane to even think of opposing such a linguistic steamroller. The only thing left to do is to continue to protect French-speaking Canadians by offering them services in French which look more and more like a cover full of holes and by pretending to practice bilingualism, on the surface. , also increasingly mistreated and which obviously no longer has the slightest existence behind closed doors, where the real decisions are made. All this so that this inevitable transition to English takes place without too much pain, without too many jolts.
We will agree that Francis Drouin could not, any more than Justin Trudeau would allow himself to do, publicly reveal what I suppose to be the depth of his thoughts. Hence the insults, a pirouette which allowed him to oppose these two defenders of French without contradicting them, without counter-arguing, then to leave the place without having to face reality.
The objectives of Quebec and the majority of Quebecers, namely to live fully and legitimately in French and to form a society in French, are obviously incompatible with this destiny as a protected minority reserved for them by federal authorities. Because the leniency of the latter towards this linguistic minority obviously does not go as far as tolerating measures that would be effective in allowing it to persist in Quebec as a majority. Hence Mr. Drouin’s great anger. It is clear that with friends like him, the French language and Quebec do not need enemies!
If being “full of shit” means wanting to protect French as the majority and official language in Quebec, then let’s face it, let’s be “full of shit” in the eyes of these federal politicians who are carefully monitoring its decline. But above all, to spin this shitty metaphor which apparently is in season: let’s remove it from our sight, this shit which still too often prevents us from seeing reality in the face, and let’s proudly throw the word of Cambronne in the face of this announced destiny. French from here in order to deceive those who believe it to be inevitable!