Quebec

"The present government of Quebec is the most financially and intellectually corrupt in the history of the province. There are the shady deals, brazenly conducted, and the broken promises, most conspicuously that of last October to retain Bill 63... The government dragged out the ancient and totally fictitious spectre of assimilation to justify Bill 22 and its rejection of the right of free choice in education, its its reduction of English education to the lowest echelon of ministerial whim, its assault upon freedom of expression through the regulation of the internal and external language of businesses and other organizations, and its creation of a fatuous new linguistic bureaucracy that will conduct a system of organized denunciation, harassment, and patronage... There is a paralytic social sickness in Quebec. In all this debate, not a single French Quebecker has objected to Bill 22 on the grounds that it was undemocratic or a reduction of liberties exercised in the province. The Quebec Civil Liberties Union, founded by Pierre Trudeau, from which one might have expected such sentiments, has instead demanded the abolition of English education, and this through the spokemanship of Jean-Louis Roy, who derives his income from McGill University.... It is clear that Mr. Bourassa... is now going to try to eliminate the Parti Quebecois by a policy of gradual scapegoatism directed against the non-French elements in the province... The English community here, still deluding itself with the illusion of Montreal as an incomparably fine place to live, is leaderless and irrelevant, except as the hostage of a dishonest government. Last month one of the most moderate ministers, Guy St-Pierre, told an English businessman's group, 'If you don't like Quebec, you can leave it.' With sadness but with certitude, I accept that choice."

"If, as is believed by many Canadians, Canada can not exist without Quebec, then it simply does not deserve to exist."

"During this time of great change, Canadians are uniting behind what makes Canada unique. The French language and the Quebec culture are at the heart of the Canadian identity. They define the country that Canadians and I love so much. Canada is a country that respects and celebrates its official languages and Indigenous languages. The government is determined to protect the institutions that bring these cultures and this identity to the world, like CBC/Radio-Canada."

"Aline and I have travelled a very long, very hard road together, from our working class homes in rural Quebec to the palaces of London, Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Politics was the route, public service the reward."

"Quebec’s secularism crusade is often justified by invoking France. But France’s model, widely criticized for the problems of religious liberty it creates, was born of a century-long struggle with Catholic dominance. Quebec’s situation is different: the Catholic Church’s grip was broken in the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. What remains today is not clerical tyranny but pluralism—Muslim students praying on campus, Jewish communities requesting kosher meals, Sikhs wearing turbans."

"Est Québécois qui veut l'être."

"Je n'ai jamais pensé que je pourrais être aussi fier d'être Québécois."

"On n'est pas un petit peuple, on est peut-être quelque chose comme un grand peuple."

"Si j'ai bien compris, vous êtes en train de me dire: à la prochaine fois."

"Mais j'ai confiance qu'un jour... y'a un rendez-vous normal avec l'Histoire que le Québec tiendra, et j'ai confiance qu'on sera là, ensemble, pour y assister."

"And I would like to say we've got no lesson on that score to take from the McConnells, from anyone that has been dominating Quebec like a bunch of Rhodesians! The white group. If we have colours here you feel it and that is something we will not stand any more. This paternalistic, WASP ... and it is that, typically, WASP arrogance of the ones that have been leading our government and to the slush funds that they contribute to leaving both of our hacked bodies by the road for too long."

"We use history to understand ourselves, and we ought to use it to understand others. If we find out that an acquaintance has suffered a catastrophe, that knowledge helps us to avoid causing him or her pain. (If we find that they have enjoyed great good luck, that may affect how we treat them in another way!) We can never assume that we are all the same, and that is as true in business and politics as it is in personal relations. How can we understand the often passionate feelings of French nationalists in Quebec if we do not know something about the past that has shaped and continues to shape them? Or the mixture of resentment and pride that formerly poor provinces such as Alberta and Newfoundland feel toward central Canada now that they have struck oil? In international affairs, how can we understand the deep hostility between Palestinians and Israelis without knowing something of their tragic conflicts?"

"It is all too easy to rummage through the past and find nothing but a list of grievances, and many countries and peoples have done it. French-Canadian nationalists have depicted a past in which the Conquest by the British in 1763 led to two and a half centuries of humiliation. They play down or ignore the many and repeated examples of cooperation and friendship between French and English Canadians. French Canadians—innocent, benevolent, communitarian, and tolerant of others—are the heroes of the story; the English—cold-hearted, passionless, and money-grubbing—the villains."

"Esther Delisle, a Quebec historian, has run into trouble by attempting to show some ambiguities in that picture. She argues that Abbe Lionel Groulx, the renowned scholar and teacher, has become an icon to French-Canadian nationalists who manage, however, to overlook his anti-Semitism. While the nationalists stress the wrongs done to Quebec in the conscription crises of the two world wars, she points out that they fail to deal with the fact that in Quebec during World War II there was considerable sympathy for the pro-Nazi Vichy government of France. As recent works on Trudeau confirm, he, like other members of the young French elite, carried on his life and career between 1939 and 1943 without paying much attention to what was going on in the world. “Reading the memoirs,” writes Delisle, “of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Gerard Pelletier and Gerard Fillion, among other French Canadians promised to prestigious careers, one could conclude that they saw nothing, heard nothing, and said nothing at the time, and that they were only interested in (and marginally, at that) the struggle against conscription.... There is more to the silence and lies than a simple narcissistic scratch. There is the need to hide positions which the Allied victory made unspeakable. These men would have to forget, and make others forget, their attraction to the siren songs of fascism and dictatorship in the worst cases, and in the best, their lack of opposition to them.”"

"This province of Quebec is catholic and French and shall remain catholic and French. All the while asserting our friendship and our respect for the representatives of the other races and religions, all the while claiming our eagerness for giving them their fair share in every aspect [...] we solemnly declare that we shall never renounce our rights that are garanteed by treatees, by law and by the constitution [...] Let us cease our fratricidal struggles and let us unite!"

"Je Me Souviens."

"So far as one can generalize, the most gracious, cultivated, and innovative people in this country are French Canadians. Certainly they have given us the most exciting politicians of our time: Trudeau, Lévesque. Without them, Canada would be an exceedingly boring and greatly diminished place."

"Montreal in the 1950s was a marvel as far as Yiddish culture was concerned. It bustled with a lively intellectual and social life, was home to several important Yiddish writers, and boasted a Yiddish library and a system of private Yiddish-language day schools, to which I sent my children. But while I found in Canada a Jewish community that still spoke Yiddish, the focus of this community had turned away from the universalism of my European past to more specifically Jewish concerns, such as supporting the state of Israel. It was in Montreal that I wrote my novels, and I wrote them in Yiddish...yet, I hardly knew how it happened, but I gradually became aware that Yiddish was in trouble in Montreal and in the world at large, that the number of its speakers and readers was decreasing."

"Canadians are friends and Quebecers are my family."

"What France knows deep down is that within this great Canadian people, there is a Quebec nation."

"I do not see how proving my family, brotherly love for Quebec should be strengthened by defying Canada."

"It's an old idea from the 19th century. It is something that is not relevant to the vibrant, extraordinary, culture that is Quebec as Quebec is an amazing part of Canada. Nationalism is based on a smallness of thought that closes in, that builds up barriers between people, and has nothing to do with the Canada we should be building. It stands against everything my father ever believed."

"Well, I am trying to put Quebec in its place — and the place of Quebec is in Canada, nowhere else."

"Mr. Lévesque was saying that part of my name was Elliott and since Elliot was an English name, it was perfectly understandable that I was for the No side, because, really, you see, I was not as much of a Quebecer as those who are going to vote Yes. That, my dear friends, is what contempt is…. It means saying that the Quebecers on the No side are not as good Quebecers as the others and perhaps they have a drop or two of foreign blood, while the people on the Yes side have pure blood in their veins.… Of course my name is Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Yes, Elliott was my mother's name. It was the name borne by the Elliotts who came to Canada more than 200 years ago. It is the name of the Elliotts who, more than 100 years ago, settled in Saint-Gabriel de Brandon, where you can still see their graves in the cemetery. That is what the Elliotts are. My name is a Quebec name — but my name is a Canadian name also."

"I don't think that Quebec can afford a pastoral approach that chooses silence and accommodation at the expense of human life and human dignity. Being discrete hasn’t served Quebec Catholicism."

"Then the thought jumped into her mind, had anyone seen them talking? Montreal was a big city, but there was always the chance of bumping into people who knew her, or her parents, or Eric. Most of the time, though, it was such a lonely place. The city rumbled along, indifferent to her, buzzing with the slight acrimony of bilingual conversations. The city crumbling with its cracked pavement and crooked politicians. The city colored with the daily scruff of immigrant struggle, and the universal fight against the rough elements. It was difficult to feel part of Montreal."