The Upsetting Black Book – Remembering: Why Do We Really Have To?

I had never heard of it here on the west coast until mentioned by several participants on this Canadian-focused sovereignty website called “Vive Le Canada.” Many discussions had indicated that the history taught in English Canada did not adequately render some of its dark aspects, as the version of history held by the majority tend not to. The Black Book is not about sugarcoating history and is the antithesis of the national upbringing.

Having been brought up in Québec in the 60s/70s, I was quite aware through the Quebec “distinct” schooling system of many of the warts of Canadian history, but had chosen to forget them somehow as well as to forgive. Lester chose not to forgive after the cup spilleth over following a number of undoubtedly irritating events. Normand Lester had the cushy and well-paying job at Radio-Canada with the recognition of a top investigative reporter, and, one would think, the job security. Most would have been awaiting la pension doing safe assignments. But something upsetting must have happened.

How did Lester’s cup spilleth over?
1987 Meech Lake was for many Québécois the time at which the filling of the cup started to register. There was however no spillover for a strong “agree to disagree” verdict. It was in fact a turning point for many when clarity finally emerged.

Did the spill really all start when Mordecai Richler published in 1992 his English Canada best-seller “Oh Canada, oh Québec,” accusing Québec separatists of being motivated by ethnic tribal sentiments, of oppressing its Anglophone minority, of having been far more anti-Semitic throughout history than anyone else in Canada and of having no valid reason whatsoever to consider separation? Probably it did not help that Richler accused the top leading intellectual newspaper of Québec--Le Devoir--of acting like the Nazi Germany political party newspaper. Richler somehow elected not to remember that patriot Louis-Joseph Papineau was the one that actually first gave the vote to Jews. Richler was also noted in an interview with Peter Gzowski of remembering about as much in regards of the rightness of the First Nations cause. And nationalist clergyman le Chanoine Lionel Groulx was considered a bloody bigot too!

Was it made worse following the single-digit lost of this bitterly fought 1995 referendum under these pre-sponsorship scam conditions and their painful aftermaths? We certainly can’t seem to forget these while many would much rather have everyone forget them: Jean Chrétien, Stéphane Dion, Alfonso Gagliano, Jean Pelletier, André Ouellette, Paul Martin, the various bureaucracies, and Sheila Copps at Heritage Canada, the ones responsible for remembering.

Maybe the ROC assertion that “Québec was running the country” (or tearing it apart) did not fare well when Québécois did not put these people in when voting Bloc. The British colonial practice of appointing and rewarding local lackeys of questionable integrity upon native uprisings is also well remembered by Québécois: Québec was certainly not the one running the country or tearing it apart when “Sir” Wilfrid Laurier gave in to the pressure of the orangeist factions to make illegal the teaching of French by parents-run schools in Manitoba, Ontario and elsewhere in the ROC. French expression “vire-capot” (turncoat) hearkens back to those days.

Perhaps Jean Chrétien saying to Francophones in New Brunswick in 1999 that assimilation was just “a fact of life” did not help. Was our national pepper sprayer and chokeholder trying to tell Québécois that they should just be grateful to remember their language? We don’t recollect the Anglophone minority in Québec being told as such. Would a “Sir” crowning be something to remember Jean Chrétien by?

Or was it Diane Francis' “Fighting for Canada” accusing Québécois in 1997 of constantly whining and blackmailing the country, as well as of stripping Anglophones and allophones of their civil rights? She somehow elected not to remember the growing allophone sympathy from people emigrating from countries having experienced the evils of colonialism and most happily integrating with the Québécois majority. Neither did she remember that Anglophones benefit from the best university, schooling and hospital in the country. There is no intergenerational assimilation whatsoever amongst them and they have numerous prosperous newspapers of their own. Francis did not seem to remember that Francophone minorities elsewhere in the country do not fare all that well. Yet 40% of Anglophones in Quebec (2001) still elect to not remember French, are known as unilingual and do very well. Most Francophones elsewhere in the country can hardly remember their French, never mind the coming generation. It probably was upsetting too that Francis could not remember her own neocon bunch when she suggested that separatists were a ruthless “elite” mocking democracy.

No, it would appear that the cup spilleth over during Lester’s investigative reporting on the Heritage Minutes. He discovered that the Bronfman family foundation had contributed these at the expense of hidden subsidies from the federal government (a sneak preview on the sponsorship scam?). La Société Radio-Canada (SRC) sidelined the story.

In these “Heritage Minutes”, Québécois who thought of themselves as People should remember that they were just a linguistic minority amongst other ones. While thinking of themselves as equal partners in the Confederation, they were told to remember themselves as a backward if colorful ethnic community. Lester could not handle la rectitude at la SRC cover-up and filed the story with the Montréal media upon which action he was first suspended. The CBC’s ombudsman had to vindicate him and asked that the series be discontinued. Public mob lynching practices must have been remembered by then.

Why did Lester decide to reiterate some old history?
Lester was pushing the envelope of the public broadcaster when he released the book in the fall of 2001, even if the publishing house was called “Les Éditions des Intouchables.” His interpretation of what should be remembered vastly differed from what the Heritage Minutes would have rather dealt with. Reading about the dark corners of Canadian history is painful when we keep coming across these genocidal measures normally committed in far away lands by barbarians full of hatred. The pain goes on for what seems forever--over the period of 1755 to 1918, in fact--along with the reminders in the latter part on how events are reoccurring today and similarly portrayed in the media. Who else better than Lester can do the comparative English media press review after the Heritage Minutes experience? As a media professional himself, Lester knows how to pick the material, when to zoom in, pan the overview, and bring in the emotional sound bites.

Without going through the entire reel, the material that has the most enduring effect covers the period when Francophones were last holding a majority prior to the Dominion Act. What we observe then is not the tyranny of the majority, but the one of a minority that is treated with great respect. And yet ruthless hooligans destroyed in 1849 the democratically elected Parliament of Montréal and burnt its library and public archive (including the colony’s documents).

A minority had these self-righteous expectations of an angry ruler. They were not going to be soft this time around with these people proud of calling themselves Les Canadiens. It was all done in the name of the British Democracy rule of Law for the goodness of Her Majesty. Orangemen allied themselves with merchants and royalists kicked out of the United States for being monarchist lackeys. The group did not want a repeat act and thus have to go back all the way home. And one needs to be hard, too, on the colonized for their own good. There were of course a few bucks at stake. The end result was plain ugly.

Aside from the permanent building damage and the damage to its contents, parliamentary leader Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine narrowly escaped mob lynching. Stones and rotten eggs were thrown at Lord Elgin for respecting the "democratic" process. The English press had called for riot, the minority rights were threatened, there was French domination, and ethnic tribal motivations justifying their hardship. Déjà-vu blasé anyone yet?

Did Lester not have Mockumentary material?
Being from la SRC, Lester has not been trained in the left-coast fine art of culture jamming. He chose for his commentaries the formula of ranting, the modern media version of “les Batailles Rangées”, whether he was the one countering or starting the polémique.

Fast forward now to the 90’s. Get Barbara Yaffe to compare Bouchard to Hitler. Use Richler's lack of basic correctness decency now. Switch back in time with colour and black and white. Show Hitler and his victims at the gas camp. Show Bouchard directing the language police at the gas station. Show Jewish ghettos being burnt down alongside the infamy of suffering from this bilingual cereal box or that road sign (“Arrêt”). Zoom on Richler throwing rotten eggs at the referendum democratic process. Have neocon Diane Francis call the mobs to lynch Lucien Bouchard. Wrap the noble fighters under Team Canada Inc. distributing cheap logoed memorabilia. Substitute her Majesty with the Confederation. Make things up and celebrate the victory by flying these proposed hot balloons over Ottawa. The whole story becomes a cut-and-paste job. The name of the Montreal Gazette does not even need to be changed. The Orange order is still on the backdrop with William Johnson or Johnston (who cares anymore about the spelling?). Have a KKK moment. Compare “les outrages” amongst the public. The script is all there.

Let’s now make it an extreme mockumentary. Show the bigger picture with some embedded clips of the US delivering democracy in Iraq. Bring in Enron's Kenneth Lay, the one who can’t remember any of his misdoings besides invoking the rightness of the Fifth Amendment. Put in some Heritage Minutes advertisement for additional numbing effect. What is real and what is fiction? What side is mocking democracy for the purpose of shaping public opinions at any cost with no regards for decency? Don’t they have real substance to rely on, and just let the picture unfold? And could the candid camera possibly ever strike back at its operator when it gets too painful to watch?

Making sense of recent history
Carry on panning in time. Zoom in on those scenes where Lévesque screams at the night of the long couteau. Try the scenes where Bouchard is huffing and puffing over Meech or other aggravating events. Show the version of these events under the prism of the English media and then under la lentille Québécoise. Do the events not make more sense once added to the Mockumentary?

There are obviously people that are profiting from maintaining the status quo and perpetuating the battles of aggravation. They come across as your legacy federal political party politicians, the public relations spin groups, the underlying bureaucracies and the media recycling their content. Meanwhile, the real issue of modernizing Canada in a globalized world is not being addressed and Québec still gets the blame. It is much easier to pretend governing the country with a scapegoat near at hand. Déjà-vu? The special interest groups are stealing the loot that's well wrapped under the Canadian flag. Déjà-vu? The gullibles are still buying the stories from the media that cater to the self-rightness and get them out of their apathy to assert democracy. Déjà-vu? Les Canadiens that now call themselves Québécois are the ones bleeding that maple leaf. Déjà-vu? Their demography is down, separatism is over; let’s be hard on them. Who is really bleeding who? Who is antagonizing? Déjà-vu?

At one point, one needs to remember the professionalism of a reporter as well as the role of a public broadcaster in regards to the rights of its citizens. It has been argued that information, knowledge, deliberative, representation and participation rights should be provided for by that public broadcaster. So under these guidelines, Lester in fact did the job that the public broadcaster should have done in the first place, minus the rant (and getting fired for it). A public broadcaster and members of its staff should certainly not advocate the breakup of a country but neither should they become propaganda instruments, unless one is the Soviet regime with the central party dictating to the Pravda its content that nobody cares for. Perhaps in the sense of trying to rebuild our bruised history, Normand Lester did much more of a favor to Canada than what Chrétien, Francis and Richler will have ever done. Once again: who is really bleeding who? who is antagonizing?

Épilogue
Hell on earth is watching the same script of history being played over and over and not being able to change its outcome. Put the citizen under a harness, repeat the images, give them the electric shock out of their apathy at the right moment and perhaps behaviour will eventually change. The public broadcaster should facilitate this and not numb them out.

Now, if “men can change when they have to,” can the State do so, too? Politicians will mirror People behavior. If People would rather forget, their politicians will rather forget and behave as such. Selective memory is about ethics and fairness. Do expect a dysfunctional country if its stakeholders refuse to willingly share common history and media.

Peoples' and politicians' behaviour can only be changed if we can control the images we are being subjected to. Was it Dick Cheney or Rumsfeld that got all their news from Faux-News? People must start to boycott the media that are abusing their trust and harboring these people trained to shape public opinions. When Jean Chrétien makes a farce at democracy at the Gomery inquiry, get the mobs out to lynch him up just as Francis wanted to do to Bouchard. When Martin praises the clown act performance, don’t let him get away with it. Throw him out of office on the next election. Make sure you have an alternative to vote for.

You the Reader wishes to save Canada by now??? Well, first of all, skip the love rally this time around before the next referendum. You may not even need one if you do as follows: ensure Chrétien gets the same treatment as Kenneth Lay: have him do time (he should have done some on his MP riding misdeeds)! Get the cleanup done at Heritage Canada; it is long overdue. Have Rabinovitch, the head of CBC, replaced. Make sure the Gomery inquiry is not whitewashed and smoke-screened. Remain on your guard with the mainstream media. And understand your country history.

Has the reader's cup spilleth over from this long rant? One would hope that something would at least start to register by now. As far as your columnist goes, writing this article was as painful as reading the book. If you are upset by now, maybe something good will come out of it. I could not help but return the "CRAP" pen-marked copy to my local library penciled with “de la bonne …”.

Les Canadiens: je me souviens maintenant! [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on February 24, 2005]