In his column from November 4, “The color of butter”, Jean-François Nadeau comments acerbly on the book Living in beautyby Pierre Thibault and Catherine Perrin, which tells the story of “places that do good”.
One of the chapters in this book is an interview with my husband, lawyer Bruce Johnston, and me about the house that Pierre Thibault designed for us. Referring to this chapter, Mr. Nadeau misrepresents the information in a way that seems calculated to discredit me.
The objective seems to have been achieved if we rely on the reactions of loss of confidence described in The duty, but also relayed in other media. This is why I deemed it necessary to set the record straight.
Intellectual dishonesty
While the chapter that concerns us clearly describes a multigenerational house where we will live permanently with my octogenarian in-laws and my daughter Alphée, who has special needs, the columnist implies that we are building a “huge house” for our only couple needs.
He will never say that it is in fact two and a half dwellings united under the same roof which will house a dozen people from four generations on a regular basis.
His intentional omissions are defamatory, because they lead one to believe that I am seriously inconsistent, or even that I am deceiving the population when I defend eco-responsibility. Jean-François Nadeau thus attacks my integrity, discrediting in the same breath the ecological transition, which he describes as “a pretty fable that goes around in circles, just good enough to flatter the beautiful souls of the elite who benefit from it” .
Facts
The columnist therefore presents me as a hypocritical bourgeois woman, falsely alleging that our old house will serve as a “welcome pavilion for my guests”. However, the text ofLiving in beauty speaks clearly about the old house that we will renovate to serve as a home for the Gardens of Possibilities, a social and ecological economy project that my husband and I are currently developing. A project that aims to create a judgment-free working and living environment in nature for neuroatypical people like my daughter and so many other vulnerable adults left behind by our health and social services system.
Even a superficial reading of the chapter on our house would have taught Jean-François Nadeau that it will include several characteristics reducing its ecological footprint. These aspects did not seem to interest him since he only noted details which he treated in a mocking tone. Instead of talking about energy sobriety, geothermal energy, recovered materials, sustainability and rainwater recovery (for the washer and toilets), he prefers to talk about the grand piano (of my father-in-law), skylights and sliding doors.
If at least it was my ideas that Jean-François Nadeau attacked, we could debate the best solutions to implement to transform an economic system that thrives on environmental and social exploitation. System that I have been attacking for 35 years. But no, the columnist prefers to attack me personally, as if by shooting me he was getting rid of the ideas I defend.
Being an opinion columnist does not give you the right to manipulate facts with the obvious aim of condemning people. Although unfortunately common on social media, such misinformation has no place in The dutya leading daily newspaper.
I therefore invite Mr. Nadeau to put his pen at the service of the ecological and social challenges that we must meet together, rather than attacking people who are trying to create beauty in a world that is terribly lacking in it.