Several people castigated Paul St-Pierre Plamondon for recently declaring that Canada wanted to “erase Quebec”.
The PQ leader said this during his national council last weekend. And added at the beginning of the week by recalling the “deportations” and the “executions”.
Clumsy
The PQ leader was open to criticism. In particular by suggesting that there was a well-established plan for eradication in our Dominion. And by giving the impression of accusing Justin Trudeau of wanting to commit this type of abuse himself. Such an accusation would obviously be unreasonable.
Mr. Plamondon, however, vigorously denied having declared such a thing, notably in [Justin Trudeau] to these historically proven behaviors, but which date from past centuries.”
- Listen to the political meeting between Antoine Robitaille and Benoît Dutrizac via QUB :
“Let me go!”
In turn, the criticisms of several of Mr. Plamondon’s political adversaries and commentators fell into a kind of opposite and very revealing excess. They bluntly criticized him for having recalled historical facts, significant past events.
The New Democratic MP Alexandre Boulerice, for example, wrote seriously, still in the X network: “Deportation: 1755. Executions: 1839. It is 2024”.
So there would be a limitation period on historical grievances? What is it? After how long, from the commission of the facts (200 years? 100 years?), should any denunciation be declared null and void?
A commentator pointed out that there are Acadians in Ottawa, in the council of ministers. In short, pick up with 1755! Another insisted on this: in recent decades, Canada has had a number of heads of state and government from Quebec.
All this borders on an attitude of “Let us go with your grievances!”, to borrow a famous expression.
Boulerice and the others would never allow themselves to react in this way to the expression of some reminder of the past by some other community. They would never dare, for example: “Arrival of Christopher Columbus: 1492? It’s 2024.”
Photo QMI Agency, Thierry Laforce
Obviously, a people who obsessively ruminate on their past catastrophes can fall into a spiral of resentment that is not healthy.
But the opposite, that is to say prohibiting, or even making taboo, any mention of a painful past, near or far, is just as unhealthy. Today’s phenomena have their roots somewhere in history.
For example, the cruel lack of recognition from which Quebec bitterly suffers in the current political regime, redefined without us in 1982, stems from the difficult history of French Canadians and Quebecers in this corner of the continent.
In this country, although generous in “official apologies”, not only do we not have the right to any certified contrition (for 1755 and for October 1970, for example); but in addition, we now urge our elected officials to no longer mention difficult past episodes, to stop making any connection between them and the difficulties of the present.
Maybe it’s a question of vocabulary? PSPP’s diatribe might have gone over better if he had argued that the desire for erasure is “systemic.”