One could not divide the thirty acres between all male children. One male child was expected to become a priest, but other male children needed land and could not move to Ontario. After Confederation, the population of Canada, except Quebec, had to be English and Protestant. Orangists prevented French-speaking Canadians from settling elsewhere. They could no longer be educated in French. That was a disaster.
In order to earn a living, many Québécois moved North and cleared land. They had to “faire de la terre,” make land. Some tried to settle in or near Sudbury, Ontario. The school question surfaced. However, some went to Abitibi-Témiscamingue. This area was located in eastern Ontario, but it became part of Québec where the landless found land they could clear. The Church favoured “making land.” This is what le curé Labelle, an influential parish priest, suggested to the landless. It was the patriotic choice.
Exodus
When people are hungry, they look for a place where they can earn a living. Quebec had very few skilled businessmen. In the early days of the colony, New France had a business class consisting of Huguenots mainly. Champlain was a Huguenot. They left Quebec in 1685, when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes (1598). They had to leave New France because Cardinal Richelieu started building absolutism. In Richelieu’s opinion, the requirements for absolutism were one King, one language and one religion. He established la Compagnie des Cent-Associés, the Company of One Hundred Associates.
The Seigneurial System
The Seigneurial System had not been truly abolished in 1854. The habitants who had not bought their thirty acres had to pay rent à perpétuité, permanently. This was a form of slavery: debt bondage. In 1935, the Québec government created the Syndicat national du rachat des rentes seigneuriales, or SNRRS (National Commission for the Repurchase of Seigneurial Rentes). The SNRRS would pay the habitants‘ debt in part.
French Cathedral, Quebec City, Mary M. Chaplin, 1839 – C856
This is a picture of an old Quebec-City. It has its cathedral. Every little town in Quebec had a magnificent church. However, in the days of New France, the population lived mostly on each side of the St Lawrence River, on narrow but deep land tracts called Seigneuries. Quebec consisted of seigneuries, a feudal system. The Seigneur collected “rentes” (rent) and the Church, la dîme (tithe). There were three main cities: Québec, Trois-Rivières and Montréal, each located on the North bank of the St. Lawrence River. During the winter, one could travel on thick ice from one of the cities to another. One used a cart and horses. When summer came, boats could be used. However, there was a road, le chemin du Roy/Roi.
Long Tracts of Land
Manoir Dionne à Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière (The Canadian Encyclopedia)
The Seigneurial system survived until 1854, but it had been established in 1627. This was a “peau de chagrin.” La Peau de chagrin(1831) is the title of a novel by Honoré de Balzac. The peau (skin) grows smaller and smaller and its owner runs out of luck.
Similarly, thirty acres grow smaller and smaller with each generation. The children have to find a job. When the system was abolished, censitaires were given a choice. They could purchase their thirty acres, or pay rent for life. Le Seigneur did not lose anything, but those who paid a rente were impoverished. The amount of money renters had to pay is enormous:
In 1928, an inquiry launched by the Bureau de la statistique du Québec (Statistics Québec) showed that rentes were still being collected in 190 seigneuries (for a total capital value of $3,577,573). The annual payments made by nearly 60,000 families amounted to more than $200,000.
When an « habitant » (usually a farmer) saw the priest arrive, he wanted to hide. He knew it was time to pay the tithe. The Church collected money at mass and through the tithe. Quebec literature tells this drama in Ringuet’s Trente arpents, but also in other novels. (See Canadiana.2, one of my pages.) The Internet kept my writings. Would you believe I have been an influencer?
Conclusion
On these words, I must leave. United Empire Loyalists were given plenty of land, while our little habitant could not survive on the ancestral acres. There was a huge exodus to the United States. One million French-speaking Canadians left Canada. My grandfather did. He did not speak French. His wife stayed in Canada, living next to the railroad. The men in the train threw what they could, so the one cast iron stove had something to burn.
Louis Hémon’sMaria Chapdelaine (1913) depicts the three choices of French Canadians. Go north and clear land, work as a king of voyageur, or move to the United States. My father could not remember his father. So, my mother found where he lived and we traveled to Massachusetts. The trip was a great success. We met a wonderful man and his wife and continued to go to Athol two or three times a year. We learned never to judge a man, unless we had walked in his moccasins.
My grandfather had seven cats and a large dog. He also had a cow and une basse-cour, a yard for the hens. He married the woman who sold him her property. She was in charge of the house.
À claire fontaine in an arrangement by Stephen Smith, sung by Musica Intima, Vancouver
I am revisiting my last post: Chronicling Covid-19 (14): The Mask (15 May 2020). It is not entirely clear and it did not address a serious matter: anxiety among English-speaking Montrealers. The relevant video is at the foot of this post.
I will write first that I did not vote for monsieur Legault, the leader of Coalition Avenir Québec, EN CAQ FR, a party Premier Legault founded.
As we have seen, there are very real problems in Quebec. For instance, the pandemic has brought to the fore the lack of safety in long-term care facilities. This problem exists elsewhere. There has just been a flare-up in Hamilton, Ontario, at the Rosslyn Retirement Residence.
In Quebec, however, 4 out of 5 victims of Covid-19 lived in long-term care facilities, CHSLDs, located in Montreal. The first two persons taken to the Montreal Jewish General Hospital were not diagnosed with Covid-19, but everything soon changed. Further arrivals to the Emergency Room (ER) were infected with Covid-19.
Other victims were the poor living in Montreal North (Montréal-Nord).
Frontline Workers
syndicates
sense of duty
Moreover, at the very beginning of his statement, monsieur Legault asked health-workers who were infected, but had recovered, to return to their duties. This I should have noted. The pandemic revealed considerable reluctance on the part of Quebec doctors to be frontline workers. Their syndicate, these are powerful in Quebec, negotiated fees that could total approximately $2,500.00 per day, which is a large amount of money. Too many lack empathy, a requirement in the case of health workers.
Monsieur Legault is taking the responsibility for his province’s lack of preparedness and will correct problems, such as unsafe long-term care facilities, to the extent that this problem can be corrected. Quebec quickly ran out personal protective equipment, as did other provinces. But there can be no doubt that he had difficulty recruiting health-care workers. Fortunately, as you know, monsieur Legault was able to call on the Canadian Armed Forces. Moreover, there were volunteers. A group of immigrants wanted to help in exchange for being granted citizenship. Would that I could find that video! This is question I must explore further. As well, there were volunteers who cooked free meals that were distributed to various houses and to the frontline workers. Charitable donations should cover the cost of these meals.
The demiurgic figure Urizenprays before the world he has forged by William Blake. (Wikipedia)
Rights and Freedoms
Bill 21
secularization versus protection
anxiety among anglophones
bilingualism
I should also comment on the worries concerning rights and freedoms, expressed by the lady, a journalist who asked a question, or questions, following Premier Legault’s statement. She may have been referring to Quebec’s unthinkable Bill 21 (MacLean’s).
There are other problems in Quebec, some of which the response to the pandemic have exposed. However, after he was elected Premier of Quebec, François Legault and members of his government passed Bill 21, which promotes absolute laïcité, secularization. Monsieur Legault’s predecessor, Dr Philippe Couillard, had attempted to forbid the wearing of clothes that impeded identification of a person. He wanted to protect Quebec citizens, but the matter of rights and freedoms was raised.
If one clicks on burqa, one can see that it is a garment that covers the face and which could also be used to conceal a weapon. Monsieur Couillard was the Premier of Quebec (Premier Ministre) at a time, not so distant, when terrorist attacks were frequent. Protection, not secularization, was Premier Couillard’s goal. However, monsieur Legault and his government introduced Bill 21, An Act respecting the laicity of the State, which was assented on 16 June 2019. Bill 21 affects Civil Servants and it could be considered as an infringement on “rights and freedoms” in Quebec. Muslim women wear veils.
Finally, in a survey conducted recently by Léger Marketing, it was determined that English-speaking Quebecers (68%) feared Covid-19 more than French-speaking citizens of Montreal and Quebec as a province (47%). At first, I could not understand the lady’s question. Canadians were lifting the lockdown when the coronavirus was still active. Consequently, Premier Legault urged the citizens of Quebec to wear a facemask as a protective measure. Who wants to breathe in the virus? In short, the facemask has nothing to do with Quebec’s secularization and Bill 22. But the notion came to the lady’s mind that monsieur Legault’s request could restrict personal rights and freedoms. It didn’t. As I noted, it was a safety measure.
But Christopher Skeete, the parliamentary assistant on relations with English-speaking Quebecers, stated that an “agreement” had been reached and that 800,000 English versions of the government’s COVID-19 self-care guide were sent out. I have my copies. As quoted above, Christopher Skeete, Quebec government’s point man on anglophone affairs “does not see the purpose of dividing the province by language when it comes to gauging the population’s fear of contracting COVID-19.”
In the days of Covid-19, a Premier of Quebec addresses both the province’s French-speaking citizens and its English-speaking citizens. Monsieur Legault, Quebec’s top doctor, Horacio Arruda, and Danielle McCann, Quebec’s Minister of Health, addressed the press in both French and English, as did monsieur Legault.
So far politics has played no role in the pandemic, and there were no significant Anglo-French skirmishes. Monsieur Legault may have expressed impatience, but he has managed the pandemic very well, in both English and French and has followed the same guidelines as other Premiers.
Conclusion
The pandemic in Quebec has made several issues surface, including bilingualism. It would be my opinion, however, that the worst issue monsieur Legault faced was his nearly futile call for frontline workers and helpers. The Quebec government was dealing with a humanitarian disaster. By the way, some schools have reopened. There is a school next to my building, I could hear the children during recreation.
The latest numbers of confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 5:34 p.m. on May 17, 2020:
There are 77,001 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada.
Total: 77,001 (11 presumptive, 76,990 confirmed including 5,782 deaths, 38,552 resolved)
(19 May 2002: 78,072 cases, 5,842 deaths, 39,228 resolved)
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 17, 2020.
I think the time has come to delight English-speaking Quebecers and everyone else with Le Temps des cerises, (The Days of Cherries, Wikipedia). Our colleague Manuel Cerdá (A mi manera) wrote a post about it: Le Temps des cerises.
« L’art enseigne, renseigne. Il révèle l’âme. Nul doute qu’il a le pouvoir d’ordonner en un cosmos le chaos de l’inconscient. D’un désordre, d’une souffrance et d’un déséquilibre, il conduit à la stabilité, à l’harmonie et à la joie. »
(Ozias Leduc, tiré d’une lettre à Paul-Émile Borduas, 1943)
[Art teaches, informs. It reveals the soul. It has, no doubt, the power of ordering into a cosmos the chaos of the unconscious. From disorder, pain, and imbalance, it leads to stability, harmony and joy.]
In a very recent post, entitled Comforting Thoughts, I inserted a link to an article published by the BBC. I am quoting, first, a paragraph from my post, and, second, the article published by the BBC. Nurses are overworked and there are families who do not, or cannot, for lack of money, or time, participate in the care given a mother, a father, a brother, and other members of their family.
“[w]e stayed with him [my brother] the entire afternoon and the little group returned to the hospital in the evening. I stayed home. I don’t want to know how much we paid in parking fees, but if members of his family did not help my brother, he would require the services of at least one professional twenty-four hours a day. A nurse came in to give him morphine and she obviously kept an eye on us, but he wasn’t alone.”
Researching Health Care, I found this article published by the BBC (UK). Home news from abroad. Doctors in Quebec earn approximately three times, perhaps more, the salary of a University teacher in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and they enjoy a lifestyle most of us can only dream of.
When I moved to Quebec, I could not find a doctor. I phoned and phoned and phoned. I was put on several waiting lists, to no avail. The doctors whose office I called always had “more patients than he or she could handle.” I ended up contacting the University of Sherbrooke’s Medical School. A secretary made an appointment for me at a CLSC, Fr / En, a public clinic. I would see an intern. No problem! My intern was a fine doctor and he was supervised. When his internship was over, he asked his supervisor to take me as a patient.
And I am not the only person facing this problem. Last week, I met a young woman who had waited 4 years to find a doctor and was sitting in the waiting area of a public clinic, or a CLSC(Centre local de services communautaires). She would see an intern. I reassured her. She had come to the right place.
An Aristocracy
As I wrote in my post, doctors were becoming an aristocracy. They work from 9 to 5 (9 to 17 hours) or less, and they may be on call. Some doctors ask that medicine not be discussed in their presence outside working hours: it would be too stressful. They need their rest and a private life.
Of course, but should people go untreated and nurses be so burdened that patient care is neglected. Nurses are leaving their chosen profession.
“Doctors from the Canadian province of Quebec have shocked the world by turning down a pay rise.
Why would anyone turn down a pay rise?
For doctors from Quebec, the answer is simple: patient care.
An eight-year, retroactive deal struck in February would see about 20,000 of the province’s medical specialists and general practitioners receive an annual salary increase ranging from about 1.4% to 1.8% each year [bold characters are mine].
That would mean that the province, which subsidises the bulk of doctors’ salaries, would be on the hook for an additional C$1.5bn ($1.2bn, £840m) by 2023.
It is a fair agreement, according to the unions representing Quebec doctors, who pushed for the deal with the province.
But not all physicians are on board – more than 700 physicians, both GPs and specialists, have signed a petition from Médecins Québécois Pour le Régime Public [Quebec Doctors for the Public System] saying they do not want the rise, and they would rather have the extra money go to patient care and services. The group represents doctors in the province who strongly support public access to healthcare.
Meanwhile, the province’s nurses are fighting for better working conditions and salaries. A picture of a bleary-eyed nurse posted on Facebook went viral and was shared more than 50,000 times in January.
“I’m so stressed that I have back troubles, enough to keep me from sleeping. I don’t want to go to work because I dread the workload that awaits me,” wrote Émilie Ricard, who said she alone was in charge of caring for 70 patients in one shift. “I come home and I’m crying with fatigue.”
We, Quebec doctors…
“We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be cancelled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the healthcare workers and to provide health services worthy [of] the people of Quebec,” read the letter.
This sentiment has struck a chord with people across Canada and abroad.
At home, the Quebec doctors have been praised by officials, but some of their colleagues have kept mum.
“If they feel they are overpaid, they can leave the money on the table. I guarantee you I can make good use of it,” said the province’s health minister Gaétan Barrette.
Quebec’s physician unions have not commented publicly about the call for less than the agreed-upon pay rise.
In Canada, healthcare is public and run by the provinces, not the federal government, which means that salaries can vary quite a lot from province to province.
The average salary for a physician nationwide was $339,000, according to the most recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
In Ontario, Canada’s largest province by population, the average specialist made C$403,500; in Quebec, they made C$367,000.
Conversely, family physicians in Quebec made C$255,000, while in Ontario they made C$311,000.
The Quebec doctors’ rebuff of a pay rise has put them at odds with many of their colleagues in other provinces.
The Ontario Medical Association has been fighting for higher wages with the province for years.
The province has cut fees twice in three years and the association still has not negotiated a contract with the province.”
End of quotation.
Conclusion
Why should medical doctors be paid three to four times a university teacher’s salary. I suspect that many doctors, those who are doctors mostly for the money, were disgruntled when the Médecins Québécois Pour le Régime Public refused a rise in salary. They may have been motivated to vote Dr Couillard out of office. As for nurses who had to look after 70 patients, they may have believed that the premier was at fault. Not quite!
In Quebec, future doctors enter Medical School after grade 11 + 2 years in a CEGEP (General and Vocational College). They can start earning money earlier than doctors living elsewhere. They are also protected by powerful syndicates. But so few doctors are available that when one retires, his or her patients are devastated. Yet, between 2005-15, a physician’s salary doubled while nurses looked after 70 patients.
What about the wages of an overworked nurse, old-age pensions, and disability benefits? A nurse’s salary does not double in ten years. As for disability benefits, they never go up. The amount is 60% of the salary one earns the last year one works. After 15 years, one’s financial security is endangered. At age 73, now 74, I had to take a mortgage to buy a one-bedroom apartment. But I’m not complaining.
—ooo—
I thank the doctors, the Médecins québécois pour le Régime public, who turned down a rise in salary and I am glad that the working conditions of nurses have been brought to the attention of the world.
Taking care of Jean-Pierre was a full-time occupation, and the nurse assigned to him was looking after other patients. She was a fine nurse, but she was probably relieved to see that members of Jean-Pierre’s family were taking care of him. She did not want to neglect a patient. She told us about the little beds available to family and friends who preferred not to leave a dying relative. We were happy to learn that there were little beds for the family.
Jean-Pierre died graciously. He thanked the staff for the fine care he had received. He thanked the priest who administered the Last Rites and he told all of us that he had simply reached his expiry date: sa date d’expiration, which is a date all of us have to face.
Colour Sketch for the Decoration of the Chapel of the Bishop’s Palace, Sherbrooke: “The Annunciation,” Ozias Leduc, 1922. (Musée des beaux-arts du Canada/National Galery of Canada)
Yesterday, my nephew François took me to see my brother Jean-Pierre. He is hospitalized in the very large building I showed in an earlier post.
When we arrived, a priest was giving him the Last Rites. The priest invited all of us to kiss him and leave him a message. No one knows how long he will live, but he is in a room for the dying.
My brother is very weak. He can barely lift his head from the pillow and he cannot sit in bed without the help of three persons, one for each arm and a person who rearranges his pillow.
We stayed with him the entire afternoon and the little group returned to the hospital in the evening. I stayed home. I don’t want to know how much we paid in parking fees, but if members of his family did not help my brother, he would require the services of at least one professional twenty-four hours a day. A nurse came in to give him morphine and she obviously kept an eye on us, but he wasn’t alone.
Good News
I have good news. Quebec doctors were becoming an aristocracy:
However, here is what doctors themselves did in late February 2018.
We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be cancelled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the healthcare workers and to provide health services worthy to the people of Quebec, the letter posted on 26 February states
Chasse aux canards par un matin brumeux(Hunting for Ducks on a Foggy Morning), Ozias Leduc (Galerie Michel Bigué)
I added a paragraph to my last post, after it was published. By and large, posts are not read twice. I am therefore publishing what you haven’t read.
One paragraph in Wiki2.org’s entry entitled Official Language Act (Quebec) seems reassuring. Quebec’s Language Laws, Bills 22 and 101, do not take rights away from English-speaking Canadians. Their children may attend an English-language school. But the children of immigrants, are required to attend a French-language school. All signs, such as traffic signs, must be predominantly, if not entirely, in French. I remember mentioning in a post that a Quebec café or restaurant owner was required to remove the letters WC from the door to a public toilet room. WC (water closet) may be used in France, but not in Quebec. Stop signs are called arrêts in Quebec. In short, Quebec insists on looking French. Traffic monitors and advertising displays are in French.
Section 1, which provides that French is ‘the official language of the province of Quebec,’ is misleading in that it suggests that English is not also an official language in Quebec, which it is by virtue of Section 133 of the BNA Act and the federal Official Languages Act. … No legislation in the National Assembly proclaiming French the sole official language in the province can affect these bilingual areas protected by the BNA Act.
Although this paragraph is reassuring, to my knowledge, when Premier Robert Bourassa said that the province of Quebec would be unilingual (French), he meant ‘officially’ unilingual. Given that Canada’s official languages are French and English, why would Premier Bourassa say that Quebec would, henceforth, be a unilingual province, i. e. ‘officially’?
In other words, the rights of English-speaking Canadians are respected under the Official Languages Act of 1969, as per the paragraph I quoted. One difficulty arises for French-speaking Quebecers. After the age of 11, children are unlikely to acquire native fluency in a second language, but there are exceptions. Some individuals speak eighteen languages by the age of 18. They may make mistakes and they may have an accent, but… However, a large number of French-speaking Quebecers find ways of teaching English to their children. English is a North-American reality.
I have two students who mastered French. My star student is Gillian Pink, from Antigonish. Gillian is working at Oxford University.
Candlelight Study, Ozias Leduc, 1893 (Google)
Language Bills, Referendums, and Sovereignty
Let us return to Bill 22 and Bill 101. I have noted that there was an exodus from Quebec when Bill 22 was passed. In my opinion, Bill 22 was seen as a step in the direction of sovereignty. So have Bill 101 and the two referendums (1980 and 1995).
Quebec’s new Premier, François Legault, has stated that there would not be another referendum, but he and members of Coalition avenir Quebec will be seeking greater autonomy for Quebec. What does he mean? Quebec Premier René Lévesque did not sign the Constitution Act of 1982, and none of his successors have done so. The fact remains that I’ve been in the midst of an identity crisis for sixteen years, or since I left Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
My Quebec Health Insurance Card does not cover the cost of appointments with a doctor in provinces other than Canada. Yet, I am a Canadian, but a French-speaking Canadian living in Québec, whose mother tongue is French, who loves French literature, but who speaks English fluently and feels Quebec is safer as a province of Canada, than a country.
However, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires all provinces to provide primary and secondary education to their official-language minorities at public expense.
Would that Quebecers had not elected a party advocating greater autonomy for Quebec. Quebecers have to protect their language, but greater autonomy for Quebec suggests distancing Quebec from other Canadian provinces.
May all Canadians live in peace and harmony. Culturally, I am French. But home is also Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where I owned a lovely blue house, across the street from the campus of St Francis Xavier University and St Ninian’s Cathedral.
Ozias Leduc
Ozias Leduc (8 October 1864 – 16 June 1955) is my featured artist. His subject matter is often religious. But his art is nevertheless diverse and still lifes seem a favourite subject. Well-known artist Paul-Émile Borduas was one of his students. I am embedding a video. It is a French-language video with a lyrical ambiance. A couple is getting on a raft that will take them to Ozias Leduc’s house. It may be the smaller house.
Ozias Leduc’s house (Google)
Ozias Leduc’s house (Google)
St Ninians’ Cathedral, Antigonish, Nova Scotia
Closer to me, is St Ninian’s Cathedral, in Antigonish. Paintings in our Cathedral were the work of Ozias Leduc. I was in Antigonish when they were restored.
Love to everyone 💕
St. Ninian’s Cathedral, Antigonish, Nova Scotia
Leduc’s Boy with Bread, 1892-99, National Gallery of Canada (Wiki2.org.)
Quebec is a Canadian unilingual (French) province located in an officially bilingual (French and English) country. Consequently, Quebec does not comply with the Official Languages Act of 1969. The Official Languages Act put French and English on an equal footing in every province of Canada, regardless of demographics. In 1969, the citizens of 9 out of 10 provinces were predominantly English-speaking Canadians. When the Official Languages Act was passed, French-speaking Canadians could, at long last, be educated in French outside Quebec.
To Francophones living outside Quebec, the Official Languages Act seemed a miracle. Until then French-speaking Canadians, Catholics predominantly, could not attend a public French school. Typically, if financially possible, French-speaking Canadians enrolled in English-language Catholic private schools. My parents enrolled me at St Ann’s Academy, an all-girls Catholic private school in Victoria, British Columbia.
However, in 1974, five years after a “dream come true,” Quebec, under the leadership of Premier Robert Bourassa‘s Quebec’s Liberal Party[1] declared itself a unilingual province. It passed Bill 22. There was an exodus of English-speaking Canadians from Montreal, not to mention head offices or headquarters.
Education being provincial legislation, under Bills 22 and 101, immigrants to Quebec were required to enroll their children in French-language schools. They were not invited to do so, but compelled, in an officially unilingual province located in an officially bilingual Canada. The birth rate had declined in mostly French-speaking Quebec. So, immigrants would give Quebec French-speaking children. In fact, as soon as they arrive(d) in Quebec, immigrants (young adults and adults) who did/do not speak French, took and still take, French courses. Matters remain as they were in the 1970s. Demographics have not been kind to Quebecers.
English being the global lingua franca, there was resistance to educating children in French, exclusively. Consequently, French-speaking immigrants, such as North Africans, settle(d) in Quebec.
Despite unilingualism, children born to English-speaking Canadians living in Quebec can study in English-language school.
Do not remove this video. The CBC is a public service.
At no point, have Quebecers given their province a clear mandate to separate from Canada. Quebec has sought sovereignty through two referendums. The first took place in 1980, when René Lévesque was Premier of Quebec. The second was held in 1995. A little less than half of Quebec’s citizens said ‘no’ to sovereignty, and a province’s sovereignty is too important a matter to be decided in a 50/50 referendum. Canada passed its Clarity Act (Bill C-20). Quebec is not a country. It is a province.
The Constitution Act of 1982
Not only is Quebec an officially unilingual province, but René Lévesque did not sign the Constitution Act of 1982, nor have subsequent Quebec Premiers. Yet, Quebec, led by George-Étienne Cartier, was one of the four original signatories of the Constitution Act of 1867. Once again, at no point have Quebecers given their province a clear mandate to negotiate sovereignty.
For my own safety, I would not visit with members of my family living on the west coast without first taking a private insurance. Yet I am a Canadian and, as a Canadian, my Health Insurance Card should be valid everywhere in Canada: banana leaves and wet ceramic floors!
Conclusion
Premier Couillard’s Quebec Liberal Party erased Quebec’s deficit and Quebecers are employed. There has to be a reason to defeat a leader and a reason to elect a leader. There was no reason to defeat Dr Couillard and no reason to elect François Legault. Under monsieur Legault’s Coalition avenir Québec (Coalition for the Future of Quebec), the province will remain unilingual. Quebecers whose French is impoverished will blame others: les Anglais. The Constitution Act of 1982 will not be signed. While monsieur Legault prospers, Quebec’s social programmes will be endangered: “austerity,” he says. More autonomy for Quebec is an objective, and a door will be slammed to curb immigration. (See Coalition avenir Québec, Wiki2.org.) Just who was behind this “victory?” On October 1st, 2018, reason took a leave in Quebec, or so it appears.
As a university teacher, I taught French as a second language and French literature to English-speaking Canadians. Concerning ‘unilingualism’ in Quebec, it is useful to read Wikipedia’s entries entitled Official Language Act and Charter of the French Language.
Section 1, which provides that French is ‘the official language of the province of Quebec,’ is misleading in that it suggests that English is not also an official language in Quebec, which it is by virtue of Section 133 of the BNA Act and the federal Official Languages Act. … No legislation in the National Assembly proclaiming French the sole official language in the province can affect these bilingual areas protected by the BNA Act.
This post was published on 26 January 2012. It was one of two posts on Maria Chapdelaine. These earned me an invitation, by Montreal’s Writer’s Chapel Trust, to the unveiling of a plaque honouring Louis Hémon. Unexpected events prevented me from attending, but I am thankful for the invitation and regret not attending.
See Related Post: Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine.
Louis Hémon[i]
This is the first post I wrote on Maria Chapdelaine. I went on to write a second one.
French author Louis Hémon(12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913) moved to Canada in 1911. By then he had already published several books. As for hisMaria Chapdelaine, he wrote it during the winter of 1912-1913, sent his manuscript to France and started travelling west.
Hémon died in a train accident at Chapleau, Ontario. Had he travelled a little further he would have met the descendants of voyageurs, Métis, and aristocrats referred to as “The French Counts.”[ii] They had settled in the Assiniboia region: Count Henri de Soras, the Marquis de Jumilhac, Viscount Joseph de Langle, Count de Beaulincourt and others.
Church at Peribonka by Clarence Gagnon
Historical Background: two choices
L’Exode or Exodus[iii]
Louis Hémon came to Quebec during a period of its history when there was very little work for French-speaking Canadians inhabiting Quebec and Acadia. This period of Canadian history is called the Exode. Nearly a million French Canadians and Acadians moved to the United States where they could work in factories.
The Curé Labelle: colonisation
This could not be the Church’s best choice. One priest, the famed Curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891), was the chief proponent of colonisation. He urged French-Canadians to settle north and “make land,” faire de la terre, faire du pays, as their ancestors had done. This was their mission.
—ooo—
Making Land: Samuel’s Choice
So making land had been Samuel Chapdelaine’s choice. He had taken his family to the Lac Saint-Jean area where he and his sons were turning inhospitable land into arable soil. I should think Hémon named Samuel Chapdelaine after Samuel de Champlain, whom we could call the founder of New France.
Louis Hémon in theSaguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean
When Louis Hémon arrived in Canada, 1910, he lived in Montreal. But two years later he travelled north and stopped at Peribonka, in the Lac Saint-Jean area. At first, he worked as a farmhand, helping “settlers,” but, as noted above, he spent the winter of 1912-1913 writing Maria Chapdelaine.
Hémon had sent his manuscript to France but he never savored the success of his novel. It was serialized in France in 1914 and published by J. A. Lefebvre in Quebec in 1916, with black and white illustrations by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. It was an international bestseller. An English translation, by W. H. Blake, was published in 1921.
Maria is the daughter of a “settler.” She is a little plump, but beautiful. One Sunday, the day on which parishioners get together and chat, Maria meets François Paradis. François is a sort of coureur des bois, voyageur, canoeman, lumberjack: the mythic fearless pioneer.
When François meets Maria, he is attracted to her and tells her that he will stop by her family’s farm before escorting Belgian travelers who are looking for fur. Maria and François fall in love. They will be married when he returns from the logging camp. However, he dies in a blinding snowstorm attempting to visit with Maria on New Year’s Eve.
Eutrope Gagnon and Lorenzo Surprenant: the other suitors
Maria has two other suitors: Eutrope Gagnon, a settler and neighbour, and Lorenzo Surprenant, who has travelled from the United States to find a bride. What Lorenzo has to offer is an easier life: no black flies, no back-breaking labour, milder weather, nearness to a Church and to stores. She is genuinely tempted to marry him, despite the fact that she is not in love with him. For Maria, love died the day François died.
However, she rejects Lorenzo. She will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a settler, and will live as her mother lived. When she is making her decision, she hears voices telling her that in Quebec, nothing must die and nothing must change: « Au pays de Québec rien ne doit mourir et rien ne doit changer… »
The names are all symbolic: Paradis for paradise; Surprenant; for surprising or amazing; and Gagnon for winning.
Beaver Coin
My summary of Maria Chapdelaine may have diminished Maria’s suitors. But Hémon makes them very real and anxious to live their lives, which means taking a wife. Although it is a simple novel, finding a more focused, but somewhat stylized, account of life as it was in 1912 would be difficult.
Hémon describes Québec as un pays, a country. In 1937, Félix-Antoine Savard will feature le délié, a person who is no longer tied (lié) to the land and is therefore looked upon as a man who sold himself: un vendu. (See Menaud, maître-draveur, Wikipedia.)
Maria Chapdelaine can be read online. It is a Gutenberg Project e-book.
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, FR) [EBook #13585]Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, EN) [EBook #4383]Maria Chapdelaine PDF FR
Canadian literature: The Montreal School, 1895–1935First serialized in Le Temps (1914) (Paris)
Published in book form in 1916 (Montreal)
Translated into English in 1921 (W. H. Blake)
Translated into all the major languages
____________________[i] “Louis Hémon.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261010/Louis-Hemon>.
[ii]Ruth Humphrys, “Dr Rudolph Meyer and the French Nobility of Assiniboia,” The Beaver (The Hudson’s Bay Company: Outfit 309:1, Summer 1978), p. 16-23.
[iii] Maurice Poteet (ed.), Textes de l’Exode (Montréal: Guérin Litérature, coll. Francophonie, 1987).
Johannes Brahms: Drei Intermezzi, Op. 117, No. 2
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard speaks to delegates during the Quebec Liberal Party convention in Montreal, Sunday, June 14, 2015. Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS
I am posting an article by Don MacPherson of the Montreal Gazette. It is an accurate résumé of Premier Couillard’s address to delegates. Mr MacPherson’s article should be posted.
—ooo—
By the way, I’m still working on my next post: nominations for the Versatile Blogger award.
Paul Robeson sings Antoine Gérin-Lajoie‘s Un Canadien errant. The first half of Mr Robeson‘s interpretation is in English. He then sings Un Canadien errant in very clear French. I have used this video before, but I feel it should be heard again.
My readers from France love Maxine Noel’s art. I think her art is exquisite and others share that opinion.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard waves to the crowd at the Quebec Liberal Party convention in Montreal on Saturday. Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS
I apologize for not posting sooner. Quebec’s Liberal Party held its convention in Montreal and I was a delegate. Premier Philippe Couillard addressed us. He was reassuring. As you know, he and members of National Assembly have made cuts that many oppose. In the 60s and early 70s, Quebec leaders promised a welfare state.
Access to a free education is an admirable goal, but for this goal to be achieved, the government needs taxpayers. Separatism and terrorism caused many to leave Quebec and the money used to cover the costs of a welfare state is collected through taxation. If people leave, the number of taxpayers is reduced.
Moreover, several workers insist on being paid on a cash basis, nothing is deducted from their income. Tax evasion also precludes a welfare state. It isn’t an option. Why should people who pay their taxes support those who are able to conceal more substantial earnings? I am not discussing the wages of cleaning ladies.
Amendments
young Liberals given a stronger voice
We were amending the constitution. It was a long process. Therefore, I will mention only one topic. It was decided that young Liberals would be given a stronger voice in the Party.
I was a witness to the student strikes of 2012 and felt reticence supporting this amendment. In 2012, students were willing to break the law and they did break the law so their tuition fees would not be raised.
Young Liberals may well be better young citizens than other young citizens, but that is not necessarily the case. Many were brought up at the same time as the students who created mayhem in 2012. In fact, many were brought up in the same milieu.
However, I recognize that they are the future. Let them see the bills and let them also see whether or not they have the money to pay these bills.
We escaped a reenactment of the 2012 student strikes this spring. Students started to demonstrate, but injunctions were issued and the Quebec government decided it would not fund an extra semester if students had not completed their term. The 2012 strike cost millions of dollars.
At any rate, what I had witnessed here in Sherbrooke when Liberals last met was a mere sample of what I saw in Montreal. There was a large number of armed policemen and plainclothes security agents. I saw security personnel carrying machine guns. These were in bags, but the bags nevertheless concealed machine guns. One could tell by the shape. As for the delegates, all of us were meticulously screened. There was violence when members of the Liberal Party met in Victoriaville in May 2012.
Cutbacks are painful, but the government has to operate with the money it levies through taxation. Quebec’s prosperity is not endangered. It has untapped natural resources that should allow it to bounce back in the not-too-distant future. Despite cutbacks, we still enjoy universal healthcare and tuition fees will not be out of reach.
However, there are times when one has to step back in order to get a better start (jump): reculer pour mieux sauter. The debt was too heavy.
This post is a Canadiana post, but it belongs to a subcategory: Quebec. The first in this series was Austerity in Quebec. It will appear on a Canadiana page.
There is more to tell about Gabriel Franchère. Moreover, I must report that I was nominated from the “Versatile Blogger” award by Petrel41: Dear Kitty1. WordPress.
I thank our colleague most sincerely. My next post will be devoted to this nomination.
