Communist group to demonstrate at far-right conference

Mouvement républicain du Québec event features 10 controversial speakers

A conference June 17 on the “superior interest of Quebec” will provide the backdrop for what could be a dramatic showdown at Collège de Maisonneuve, as a group of young communists vows to block what they call an anti-immigrant, xenophobic gathering of the far right.

Slated as “le Rassemblement pour le bien commun et l’intérêt supérieur du Québec” — the assembly for the common good and superior interest of Quebec — the conference will feature such speakers as:

Alexandre Cormier-Denis, the candidate for the Parti indépendantiste in the Gouin riding, who posted an electoral sign in May featuring a woman in a tuque next to another wearing a niqab, with the slogan “Choose your Quebec — Canadian multiculturalism, no thank you!” Cormier-Denis lost to Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, coming in seventh place, with 0.57 per cent of the vote.

Gilles Noël, the founding leader of the Parti Unité Nationale, a Christian nationalist party seemingly inspired by former Quebec premier — and autocrat — Maurice Duplessis. In a recent post on the party’s website, Noël spoke of the Parti Québécois’ idea for a “Gestapo of racism” that would fine people who don’t rent to Muslims, for example, as a “betrayal” of pure-laine or old-stock Quebecers. Other posts decried how newly elected French leader Emmanuel Macron would make Islam the state religion.

André Pitre, who hosts Gauche-droitistan — a talk show and webcast on YouTube that promises debate without censorship, or political correctness, with guests such as Cormier-Denis. At the conference he will discuss the “world elite,” which owns the mass media and seeks to impose multiculturalism.

“Given the perilous situation in which Quebec finds itself within Canada, it has become urgent to come together to form a common front against the men and women who are presently our leaders and who are driving us towards what is clearly socio-political disaster,” reads the introduction to the conference. For the Revolutionary Student Movement and the Revolutionary Communist Party, the conference must be prevented from taking place.

“The future of Quebec should not be decided by white men,” wrote the RSM, which is calling on people to block the event. “We must oppose the co-opting of freedom of expression when it serves backward-looking fascist and racist interests, when under the mantle of free speech they legitimize reactionary ideas.”

The conference, organized by the Mouvement républicain du Québec, will feature 10 speakers — all, indeed, white men.

It is also being promoted by groups like La Meute (the wolf pack) a far right, anti-immigrant group that now has almost 44,000 members (or at least people who have “liked” the site). Administrators of the site have urged members to attend the conference in great numbers.

On La Meute’s site Wednesday, Guy Boulianne, the founder of the Mouvement républicain du Québec, took issue with the media’s characterization of the event as “far right,” calling it “fake news” and asking other members for

A very sophisticated security service will be in place during the conference.

comments. He also objected to suggestions that La Meute had any hand in organizing the conference. But a previous post — also on La Meute’s site — had asked members for help raising funds to pay for security at the event. And Boulianne assured participants that members of La Meute would be providing that security, alongside the CEGEP’s security guards.

“A very sophisticated security service will be in place during the conference. However, that has meant some unforeseen costs for us,” Boulianne wrote Tuesday.

(Attempts to reach Boulianne through Facebook and the MRQ’s website were unsuccessful Wednesday.)

La Meute’s emblem — a wolf paw — also graces the conference’s pamphlet, which lists the speakers and the subjects they will discuss, from the dangers of multiculturalism to Quebec sovereignty to annexation by the United States.

The sophisticated security may be necessary, if students and others at the CEGEP heed the call to block the conference. By Wednesday afternoon, 10 days before the event, 36 people on the RSM’s website had signed up to join the protest June 17, while another 192 said they were “interested” in joining.