The Legault government plans to inaugurate a national museum of Quebec history in 2026.
Subject to seeing the precise project, one can only welcome any effort aimed at substituting facts for emptiness or myths.
Let me give you an example of a persistent historical falsehood.
Myth
One of the most enduring myths is the idea that Canada was the result of a pact between two founding peoples on an equal footing: English-speaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians.
This is an absolute falsehood, a pure fiction fabricated for political purposes and maintained for generations.
Canada before 1867 faced many problems: coalition governments were unstable, London no longer gave preferential economic treatment to its colonies, the free trade treaty with the United States had been unilaterally abrogated by Washington, etc.
In short, things were going badly. The building needed to be rethought.
John A. Macdonald wanted a highly centralized regime that would consolidate the only nationality that mattered in his mind: Canadian nationality.
The resistance will force him to make the compromise we know: the sharing of powers between two levels of government.
The law that founded Canada in 1867 did not, however, include an amending formula, that is, a method for modifying it if necessary.
Consequently, many feared that the central government would give itself new powers at will.
Authors fearful of central power therefore constructed a theory according to which Canada was born from a pact between peoples or between provinces.
Therefore, it cannot be modified without the consent of those without whom it would not exist.
In reality, the people were not consulted, the meetings were held behind closed doors, and even journalists were kept out.
It is above all Henri Bourassa, the founder of the Dutywho, from 1902, would develop this story of a supposed founding contract between peoples in order to try to protect the rights of French-speaking minorities outside Quebec.
This is a strictly Quebec theory. You will not find a serious English-Canadian author who defends it.
Subsequently, many Quebec politicians – Duplessis, Claude Ryan, Robert Bourassa, Philippe Couillard – would take it up.
They used it to try to obtain new powers from Ottawa – generally in vain – or to distance Quebecers from the temptation of independence by telling them: why would you give up the country that your ancestors obtained for you?
Colony
Ironically, Trudeau senior, by making French and English the two official languages of the federal public service, maintained this fiction of a founding equality.
The truth is that modern Canada is the product of a behind-closed-doors deal between the colony’s monarchist politicians and merchants, under the paternalistic tutelage of London.
They had only two concerns: fear of the United States and the advancement of their careers.
From the beginning, the French speakers were dominated. That’s the truth.
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