Remaking the world with… Pénélope McQuade | Nothing is possible without solidarity

This summer, Context invites its readers to remake the world in the company of a columnist and a personality. To launch the series, Chantal Guy invited Pénélope McQuade to a mushroom hunt in the Laurentians, accompanied by photographer Robert Skinner. The radio host spoke about the importance of dialogue and altruism in a Quebec where fault lines are multiplying.

A changing Quebec

My boss had the idea of ​​an interview concept where, rather than having coffee with a personality, we remake the world while chatting during an activity. “Would you like to go mushroom picking with someone?” » I am a very amateur mycologist, but very enthusiastic, she knows it because every year when I come back from vacation, I speak with pride of my picking of chanterelles. A hobby passed on to me by my late mother-in-law, who left me her Quebec mushroom guides.

I spontaneously thought of Pénélope McQuade, whom I find very human on the radio. One of his last interviews before his vacation with the actress and activist Adèle Haenel, who announced in May that she was leaving the cinema – an environment too complacent for her taste with sexual aggressors – is a good example of this. On edge, but deep, and respectful.

Penelope said yes cheerfully, even though she had never been mushroom picking in her life. She arrived well prepared, because in June, black flies and mosquitoes are numerous, and since ticks are now in all regions, we must protect ourselves adequately.

But this meeting was almost canceled due to the forest fires. The day before our meeting there was so much smoke that we couldn’t really go hiking. At least it wiped out 50% of the mosquitoes – bad luck is good, as they say.

Since 2019, Pénélope McQuade has been piloting her daily show in which she discusses many social issues with a host of guests, and I wonder what this has taught her about Quebec in recent years.

She thinks, while I come across a small boletus attacked by slugs. “Coming here, I was listening in my car to the podcast So be chill of Jérôme 50, on the linguistic landscape of the new generation, it’s fascinating”, confides Pénélope. I agree. I found it fascinating to learn in this podcast that the Montreal slang is not limited to Franglais since Haitian Creole and Arabic have infiltrated the lexicon of young people.

“What does that say where we are right now?” she continues. In fact, I don’t know where to place myself in relation to what our province, our nation, our country looks like, whatever. I had a clearer idea 10 years ago, and it seems to have become very blurry in the last few years. We are more like Americans and less like English Canadians, but with a desire not to go where the United States has been going for some time. We see it with Poilievre, this tendency does not work, even among the conservatives. But we’re not immune to a number of things that come from the United States, including the whole polarizing portion. I think that we see more and more the dangers and that we want to protect ourselves from that. »

A desire for dialogue

We made fun, sometimes kindly, sometimes meanly, of her desire to open up, which some find too “woke”, but she reminds us that it is in the mandate of the show to be progressive. Which does not rhyme for her with complacency. “We are not going to protect people from themselves, especially if they say they don’t need protection, but above all, I don’t want to overprotect myself in things that confront me, because it does not interest me at all. »

Pénélope believes that she can ask all the questions she wants without turning her interviews into a “hot seat” and that a certain benevolence allows her to go further. For example, with Adèle Haenel. The team had prepared for any eventuality, whether they canceled the day before or walked out of the studio as soon as the interview started. The two women eventually spoke for 30 minutes. “I could have made a splash, had seven minutes that would have gone around the world, but we have no minutes to lose. There was a period in my life when I wanted to do media entertainment, but I don’t want that anymore. The difficult questions have been asked, and I think the tone in which we can do it is how we will create a dialogue and keep Adèle Haenel around the table. »

How to keep the world around the table. It’s a good picture. Pénélope feels that people need to talk to each other, despite the awkwardness. According to her, Quebec is still a bit at the “nursery of the chicane”, unlike France, a country of debate. “It’s as if we had just started to say to ourselves that we too can inhabit the space for something other than consensus, to want to play with the codes of social debate. We did it on the national question, on the language question, and there, we do it on anything. Of course there is a polarization in there, I don’t always like what’s coming out at the moment, but I’m curious to see what it’s going to look like in 10 years as a society. »

She also feels a desire for intergenerational encounters, despite a communication problem. “But behind that, I think there is a great desire for it to happen. That baby boomers don’t want to be sclerotic, but between what you want and how much you’re able to adapt, it’s a big deal. »

For my part, I have the impression that it is since the student crisis of 2012 that new fractures have arisen. “My god, yes! replies Penelope. The generation of baby boomers is entering old age, when it had positioned itself as the first in opposition to the previous ones. These people who wanted to smash everything and invent everything, it seems that some of them are resistant to what is coming. I don’t want to generalize, but I understand them being shaken up in their ideals. They have shattered a lot of taboos and they find themselves facing new taboos. I can’t wait to see those who are 20 today when they turn 50! »

Of course it has been brewing since 2012, with movements like Black Lives Matter, reconciliation with First Nations, #metoo. Penelope herself found herself in turmoil, being one of the alleged victims of Gilbert Rozon, who sued her for defamation. And to see the number of women around her receiving formal notices, she doesn’t believe that #metoo has changed the world that much.

“I wondered a lot about the relevance of having done that, my personal interest compared to the collective interest. I would tell you that the pursuit is more violent than all the rest. And the passing time. It’s violent with every lawyer’s bill. It’s hard to swallow because it’s hard-earned money that I will never see again. Money that I won’t have to take care of my parents for several years in their old age. And the trial hasn’t started yet. It doesn’t make sense, this violence of the whole system. »

Is remaking the world a bit like fighting? “It’s doing the tags, she says. It’s impossible to spend a lifetime fighting. We see it with the women, they are exhausted, they undergo a backlash, they seldom reap in their own life or in the moment when they fight the fruit of their fights. »

Pénélope McQuade recalls a time when several female journalists took a break from the media, sickened by online hate. Judith Lussier had asked her where she found the strength to continue. “I told her that while she was fighting, it gave a break to others, to me. »

Personally, because I am not an activist, I believe that there is a fairly simple way to show solidarity, which is not to harm those who want things to get better. A minimum, it seems. “I’m so going to adopt this one! “Pénélope throws me laughing.

We pass a parasitized fly agaric and what I believe to be a somewhat tired polypore. There are few mushrooms on our way, I don’t think the harvest of chanterelles will be good. And I’m right, because you can’t find one – unless someone has discovered my secret stall. I apologize to Penelope and photographer Robert Skinner, because that was the point of this walk, after all. I would have liked to introduce them to the charming apricot taste of these mushrooms, pan-fried with a little butter. “The important thing is the trip,” says Robert to make us laugh.

But in the grass, I can see tiny golden buttons. In a week there will be chanterelles.

“What gives you hope, Penelope?”

– Not long ago, I would have told you young people. But I find that the responsibility placed on their shoulders is too great. They didn’t want any of that and we’re asking them to save the world. I would also tell you that I would really like us to listen to the people who were there before us. »

Which means to play tagsbecause one day, we will have to respond to those after us who want to hear us.