Quebecers stand united to rebuff criticism
This province may lack for many things, but a sense of solidarity is not one of them
Hell hath no fury like Quebecers scorned — especially if that criticism is unfair, exaggerated or being levelled by someone perceived as an outsider.
Andrew Potter, the recently appointed director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, learned this lesson the hard way after Maclean’s magazine published his piece “How a snowstorm exposed Quebec’s real problem: social malaise.”
In it, Potter, the former editor of the Ottawa Citizen, surmised that the debacle that stranded more than 300 motorists on Montreal’s Highway 13 overnight during last week’s snowstorm was in large part due to “a mass breakdown of the social order” and “an absence of solidarity.”
If this weren’t already asking for trouble, he suggested this transportation blunder occurred because Quebec is the kind of place where restaurants offer two bills, depending on whether a diner is paying with cash or by “a more traceable mechanism;” where garages, contractors, family doctors and ultrasound clinics all “insist on cash”; and where “bank machines routinely dispense fifties by default.”
But it got worse: Potter then went on to lament Quebecers’ lack of friendship, civic engagement, volunteerism and general sense of trust.
Ouch.
Besides wondering where the hell Potter eats and banks, Quebecers — francophones, anglophones and allophones alike — justifiably took umbrage. Social media went berserk.
Premier Philippe Couillard called it “a very poor quality article based on prejudices.” Opposition leaders echoed those sentiments. Nothing unites the solitudes or the National Assembly like a gratuitous attack.
Potter quickly retracted his main assertions and apologized for insulting Quebecers.
“A political writer’s first duty is to reflect his community back to itself,” he said in a statement. “Quite obviously, I failed. When people you read and respect tell you they don’t recognize their society in your description, it signals a failure of empathy and imagination, and it is time to take a step back.”
The mea culpa is welcome. But just as it’s necessary to get to the bottom of what went wrong on Highway 13 last week, it’s worth dissecting what went awry with Potter’s column.
The first and most glaring problem is the narrative that the highway imbroglio was a symptom of “an almost pathologically alienated and low-trust society.”
On the contrary, reports indicate people stuck on the highway banded together as much as circumstances permitted to weather the blizzard. And the public outcry over the abandonment of those marooned motorists does not display widespread indifference, but rather a strong concern for the well-being of others.
Quebec may lack for many things, but a sense of solidarity is not one of them. No other province has as many protests that bring people to the streets in great number so often, whether it’s against a war, for saving the planet, to denounce social programs or to fight tuition hikes. Does the Maple Spring ring a bell?
More serious an offence was the trafficking in tired old tropes of Quebecers as reckless, feckless and corrupt. And for an academic of such stature at one of this country’s top universities, it also shows a shallow understanding of who Quebecers are and what makes them tick.
If there were any grains of truth in Potter’s reflections, his admitted hyperbole undermined his credibility.
It’s not that Quebecers can’t take criticism.
But too often they get bashed in ways no other Canadians would tolerate were the tables turned — and then dismissed as thin-skinned crybabies.
Past smears include the Vancouver-based writer in the Washington Post maligning Quebecers for being “more racist” after the shooting of six worshippers at a Quebec City mosque, Maclean’s previous cover story labelling Quebec “the most corrupt province” and former Globe and Mail journalist Jan Wong’s assertion that the 2006 Dawson College shooting was a byproduct of alienation from the “decadeslong linguistic struggle.”
Quebec has its faults and its foibles, its cleavages and its contradictions — and Quebecers are the first to admit them. Quebecers love to hold power to account and to assign blame when someone screws up.
But when they feel the criticism is off base, when it targets the whole rather than those who hold responsibility, when it pierces the heart of the collective identity, Quebecers will unfailingly forget what divides them and circle the wagons.