The recent increase in the price of a liter of milk would suffice to anchor milk run in the news. Show on the distress of our dairy farmers, this documentary theater led by Justin Laramée pushes further, however, plunging both hands into reality.
As proof, a vast field work: five years of investigation which, for the actor and author, go back to the OFFTA 2016. A twinning with the doctoral student in community psychology Ginette Lafleur, specialist in psychological distress among dairy producers, gives him access to privileged material – suicide letters, in particular. Yet these, left behind by people accustomed to working 365 days a year, will often take the form of reminder lists — as if to ensure the smooth running of operations after their death, in an environment where, moreover, the succession is rare: “’Don’t forget, Thursday is insurance; the 1638, she will calve next Wednesday”, etc. It was just that, suicide letters, one after another: to-do lists. I found that upsetting. »
The man who is also a father did not know this, but he had put his finger in the gears of what was to become “the most important project of his life”: “I was starting to meet dairy producers, quietly not quickly. And on May 23, 2018, there was a demonstration by the Union des producteurs agricole: the producers were $10 lower than their cost of production per hectolitre. Bruno Letendre [alors président des Producteurs de lait du Québec] is standing on a table with all the regional representatives, we are in the process of renegotiating CUSMA—NAFTA, in fact, at this time—and we have the impression that supply management is on the brink of to fall. And me, I show up there with my recorder: and it’s the beginning of the run of milk. This is where the project begins. »
That runit’s this series of interviews where each new contact ends up suggesting the next one to him: “And I was going to follow the run of milk until trying to answer the first question: where does this distress come from? Why are people angry in the UPA parking lot on May 23, 2018? »
“Fundamental Questions”
This vast survey on the state of the dairy industry will be an opportunity to take a broader view: “to talk about our democracy, to talk about our social safety net and to talk about the Quebec model”, says Laramée, who recalls that Quebec provides 40% of Canada’s milk. “It’s our biggest agricultural production, it’s our identity. If this one is so precarious, many questions about this one arise.
In many ways, the proposal will inevitably remind I love Hydro, which dissected our relationship to the state corporation – an inevitable rapprochement, admits Laramée. The show, moreover, will play winks on this subject. Here too, investigative journalism will confront the public with a familiar but little-known — and worrying — reality.
Where Mathieu Gosselin played opposite Christine Beaulieu in this production which put documentary theater back in the spotlight, Justin Laramée will perform both interviewees and interviewer, while Benoit Côté, on sound accompaniment and himself the son of farmer, will hear on stage a different story in relation to the current issues of the agricultural community: welcome objections to this “Montréal artist of the center left who sees agriculture through the lens of Curious Begin “.
This same artist whom the years of investigation have transformed, and who now wonders what sort of Quebec he wishes to leave for his children: “I didn’t want to do something Well, or something that was necessarily going to highlight me. I wanted to participate in the best way possible in the toughest conversations that we must have as a people right now in Quebec, in Canada, in the world. »
This resolutely rooted theater, necessarily social and political, leaves the creator feverish, eager to meet his audience on the boards of the Trident: “It’s important, what’s going to happen there every night. These are fundamental questions. »