Canada wraps itself in tolerance for minorities – while assuming Quebec episodes bashing, which have become chronic in the history of the two solitudes. This paradox, common to the Anglo-Saxon world, goes back to the very origin of British liberalism, believes Patrick Moreau, professor at Ahuntsic College who participated, Wednesday, in a symposium devoted to “Francophobic condescension in the Canadian context”.
“Anglo-Saxon societies in general – and Canadian society in particular – always present themselves as very liberal, very straddling individual rights and tolerance,” explains Mr. Moreau, who also contributes to the Ideas section of the To have to. At the same time, they have often, throughout history, experienced bouts of intolerance. »
For the professor, invited to speak at the Acfas congress on Wednesday, “the worm is in the fruit” since the birth of religious tolerance proclaimed in the XVIIand century by Anglican power. “England allowed all Protestant sects, which was exceptional in Europe at the time. On the other hand, this tolerance excluded Catholics and atheists. We are tolerant, but not towards everyone. »
This same reflex still applies today to Quebec, maintains Professor Moreau. English Canada claims to welcome and celebrate differences. Except for some, often from Quebec.
“As soon as we are shown Canadian diversity, we have to be shown a veiled woman, a turban, etc., continues the researcher, in an interview at the To have to. As if the only admissible difference was actually superficial. If Quebecers were content to be a minority among others, wearing the arrowhead sash during Saint-Jean, Canada would be delighted and would tolerate them as it tolerates any costume of any ethnic minority. or religious. »
However, Quebec is disturbing to the point of becoming intolerable, argues Mr. Moreau, because the difference it claims refutes the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon model.
“What is unacceptable in the eyes of English Canada is Quebec’s desire to organize society in French and according to political terms that are not those of Anglo-Saxon political philosophy. In other words, to claim collective linguistic rights. […] Secularism is a bit the same thing, continues Professor Moreau. In English Canada, we refuse to see secularism as a legitimate model for managing diversity. We want at all costs to see in it the expression of ethnic intolerance towards other religious minorities. »
A progressive Quebec bashing
This discrimination against Francophones, Mr. Moreau notes that it evolved at the turn of the 21st century.and century. “Canadian Francophobia was, until the 2000s, rather conservative. It was really a colonial Francophobia stemming from a very British and Protestant feeling of superiority with regard to French Canadians, considered backward, and Catholics, in addition. »
More recently, says the researcher, “we have moved to a Quebec bashing progressive, that is to say that we are going to reproach Quebec for being intolerant with regard to minorities, for creating discrimination with regard to minorities, and therefore ultimately for refusing the norms of current Trudeauist multiculturalism. »
The saga surrounding the University of Ottawa and the use of the “n” word in a classroom has shed harsh light on the paradox of Canadian tolerance towards its minorities, insists the literature professor at Ahuntsic College. “There has been a shift that I personally find quite amazing from people who claim to be fundamentally anti-racist, but who are going to insult professors by calling them fucking frogs. In short, using a vocabulary that is very clearly racist. »
In his view, Quebec bashing still has a bright future ahead of it. So much the better, he underlines, since his disappearance would mean the end of a Quebec that claims its right to make society differently.
“The day when Quebec bashing will disappear, it will not really be good news for Quebec, suggests Mr. Moreau. That will mean, I think, that Quebec will have given up forming a society in a different way from Canada. In other words, he will have adopted the dominant model of Canadian liberalism. At that point, it will have become acceptable,” concludes the professor.