A rift is clearly emerging between Quebec and the rest of Canada following a controversial judgment by the Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which called on CBC/Radio-Canada to apologize for a column in which cited four times the title of the book by Pierre Vallières, white niggers of america.
In 2020, CBC star reporter Wendy Mesley was suspended for naming the full title of the same book, not on air in this case, but in a production meeting. She apologized, but the turmoil never subsided; Disgraced Wendy Mesley ended up announcing her retirement last year.
Nothing of the sort in Quebec, despite the blame of the CRTC. No one publicly demanded the head of host Annie Desrochers and columnist Simon Jodoin for having pronounced the n-word on the air in an exchange in August 2020 where the saga around Professor Verushka was discussed. Lieutenant Duval at the University of Ottawa. On the contrary, open letters have been piling up since the CRTC’s decision to implore CBC/Radio-Canada not to apologize and instead to appeal the case.
“Wendy Mesley was no more or less fired from the CBC. And at the time, not many people in English Canada were scandalized. There was a sort of acquiescence. Now that this story is happening in Quebec, we can very well see the two solitudes,” observes Marc-François Bernier, professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa.
In this bilingual university, we saw the same divide between Anglophones and Francophones during the Lieutenant-Duval affair, he adds. Remember that Verushka Lieutenant-Duval, who taught art history there, had been sanctioned for having mentioned the n-word. There followed a long media hype, mainly in Quebec, where many expressed fears for academic freedom. In the process, 34 professors from the University of Ottawa, most of them French-speaking, had published an open letter to protest the fate reserved for Verushka Lieutenant-Duval.
“Several English-speaking professors agreed with us, but it’s much more difficult for them to speak, especially in the humanities departments. Those who want to denounce this kind of censorship are afraid, because they can be the target of intimidation, ”says Marc-François Bernier.
Parallel Realities
This polarization also seems to color the way the recent CRTC decision was treated in the media. In Quebec, the case has been causing a stir for several days. Most of the columns and editorials vigorously denounce the CRTC’s judgment.
But the portrait is quite different in English Canada, where the affair did not give rise to an extraordinary mobilization of the media class in the name of freedom of expression. In the rare articles on the subject, the name of Pierre Vallières’ book is never fully transcribed. What’s more, CBC published the same day of the CRTC’s decision an interview with Ricardo Lamour, the Montreal artist at the origin of the complaint, who has also been very little quoted so far in the Quebec media.
” The N-word has a heavy connotation in English, which the French word does not have […]. With translation, there are nuances that get lost, and I think it is these nuances that have escaped the CRTC,” concludes Guy Gendron, former Radio-Canada ombudsman.
Is there the same cultural divide within senior management at CBC/Radio-Canada, where Francophones and Anglophones rub shoulders? One thing is certain, the official reaction of the public broadcaster has been waiting for several days. The Crown corporation reiterates “take the time necessary to study the decision rendered by the CRTC”, insisting on the “complexity of the question”.
With Stephane Baillargeon