Québec Premier and CAQ leader François Legault. Photo from Twitter. There is no doubt about the anti-social record of François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government. Its use of immigrants as scapegoats to cover up its failure to meet the needs of Québecers only adds insult to injury. And while
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Canadian Dimension: Québec solidaire defines its political priorities
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Manon Massé, elected spokespeople for Québec solidaire. Photo from Twitter. The pandemic has changed how civil society operates, making it difficult to function democratically. The strictures on holding rallies and demonstrations not only make it harder to exert popular pressure, but also limit interaction between activists and
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Remembering Québec’s October Crisis
Troops on Montréal streets during the October Crisis, 1970. Photo courtesy the Toronto Star archives. 50 years ago this month, the federal government, invoking the War Measures Act—its first use in peacetime—occupied Québec with 12,000 troops, arrested almost 500 citizens without a warrant, and carried out 36,000 police searches of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: 50 years on, apologies due for imposition of War Measures Act
Troops on the streets of Montréal during the 1970 October Crisis. Photo courtesy of the Montreal Gazette. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, faced with Canada-wide standoffs over the Coastal Gaslink pipeline project, declared “There is no question of sending the Army against Canadian citizens,” alarm bells should have gone off
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Killing a neighbourhood
Université de Montréal overlooking Outremont, Montréal. Photo by Laurent Bélanger/Wikimedia Commons. Last September, a report in the Guardian by journalist Flavie Halais examined the gentrification of Montréal borough Parc-Extension, one of Canada’s poorest neighbourhoods in which 38.4 percent of residents are considered “low-income.” The same month, a CBC article shared
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Is now the time to celebrate unity in Québec?
Quebec Premier François Legault speaks at his daily media briefing. Photo by Simon Clark. Québec recently celebrated its day of national pride: la fete nationale. Once a religious holiday, since the 1960s and 1970s it has become a politicized annual event in which Québec reasserts its distinct history, culture, and
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: After the federal election: the dangers, and the challenges, that lie ahead
Justin Trudeau smiles after giving a speech to supporters at a campaign rally in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Oct. 17, 2019. Photo by Valerie Blum/EPA. This article is an English adaptation of Pierre Beaudet’s article “Péril en la demeure” published in the current post-election issue of the on-line journal Presse-toi à
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Quebec’s election frontrunners are frozen in climate denialism
Photo by Paul Chiasson/CP More than 70 people perished in Quebec this summer during an unprecedented heat wave that sent the mercury soaring across the world. Welcome to the new reality: a decade ago, the Global Humanitarian Forum had already estimated casualties in the hundreds of thousands each year as
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Major decisions face Québec solidaire at its forthcoming congress
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois • Photo by People’s Social Forum Quebec’s broad party of the left, Québec solidaire (QS), will open a four-day congress on May 19 in Montréal — the 12th congress in its 11-year history. The delegates face a challenging agenda. It includes the final stage of adoption of the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada’s 150th: A Québécois View
Each sovereign state can choose the date of its national holiday. Generally, this date recalls the accession to independence. The United States, for example, chose to emphasize each year their unilateral declaration of independence of July 4, 1776. They preferred this date to the date of the Treaty of Paris,
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