Quebec History Up For Grabs

I really enjoyed this letter and the response that followed. I always enjoy letters from intelligent people who school second-tier commentators. The entire Quebec history curriculum is based on revisionism.

That loud yelp was from nationalists. Ignore.

Quebec created by les anlgais? Jamais!

It's remarkable that Josee Legault (though I'm not surprised in the least bit) would state otherwise. It's intellectual hypocrisy at its most depraved height.

"Josée Legault claims that emphasizing the central role of Quebec City's foundation in the foundation of Canada rather than of Quebec is a "mind-boggling" act of historical revisionism. Similarly, she is dumbstruck at the suggestion that the governor-general is a legitimate heir of the role of Samuel de Champlain. Legault should take a stroll across the Jacques Cartier Bridge to the bust of Jacques Cartier presented to Canada in 1934 by the French Republic to commemorate the "400th anniversary of the founding of Canada." France's gift predates the massive exercise in rewriting history undertaken to invent the idea of a historical "Quebec nation," and before the Estates General of French Canada which, 40 years ago, marked an ideologically motivated repudiation of the historical unity of French Canadians in Quebec and those outside. The original Canada or New France, founded by the first French explorers and settlers, included both Lower and Upper Canada and the current Maritime provinces, as well as the Mississippi valley and possessions south of the Great Lakes. When the colony was transferred to the British crown in 1763, the British governors inherited the mantle held previously by those appointed by France. It was the British, not the French, who founded the province of Quebec in 1763, when the Quebec Act carved out the territory taking in the St. Lawrence and Ottawa valleys but excluding the lower North Shore east of the Saint John River as well as Anticosti and the Magdalens, which at that time were part of Newfoundland. The boundaries changed somewhat over the following decades, and Quebec or Lower Canada was reincorporated with Upper Canada to its west into a united province of Canada In 1867, this province of Canada united with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to form the Dominion of Canada, which reconstituted much of the original territory of New France. Only at that point was the original British colony of Quebec recreated out of the province of Canada to become one of the four autonomous provinces of the new dominion, to gain ever larger tracts of land to its north. Legault and her friends ignore the basic fact that Quebec is a Johnny-come-lately British creation in the much older and larger Canada, which was founded and opened up, to the north and west, by the original French colonists. The only rewriting of history to be bemoaned is the one that turns the facts around full-face to pretend that the French founded what corresponds to the modern province of Quebec. If history must be rewritten again to re-establish the truth, so much the better, no matter how much wailing and gnashing of teeth might be heard from Quebec nationalists."

Christopher Ray Miller

And a response the next day:

Christopher Miller made interesting observations about the history of Quebec and Canada ("Legault, not Harper, is rewriting history" Gazette, May 20).

He erred, however, in saying that the Quebec Act carved out the new territory of Quebec in 1763. It was the Royal Proclamation that year that established the new boundaries along the St. Lawrence River. The Quebec Act of 1774 greatly expanded the territory of Quebec, one of several concessions made to French-Canadians to help assure their loyalty in the event of a revolt of the American Colonies.

Pierre Home-Douglas

Amen