Couillard government demands apology for errors in TV series

CBC should apologize for a new controversial history docudrama series, the Couillard government said Thursday.

In the series The Story of Us, being broadcast as part of Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations this year, the presence of France is depicted in a pejorative fashion, according to the Quebec government.

The Parti Québécois also criticized the series for depicting explorers and builders from New France as dirty and untrustworthy.

And only one of 10 episodes is devoted to the seigneurial system of New France, which lasted two centuries.

“With its clichés, its omissions, its taking sides, The Story of Us, this info-docu-drama ... does not improve at all our understanding of our history; to the contrary, it invokes tenacious and offensive prejudices,” said Stéphane Bergeron, PQ MNA for Verchères.

“The history of First Nations, of Acadians, the history of Quebec deserved better than this scornful commentary made by the CBC,” added Agnès Maltais, the PQ MNA for Taschereau, demanding that the government require the public broadcaster to issue an apology.

Jean-Marc Fournier, Quebec minister of intergovernmental affairs, agreed there was a problem with this series and that it was negatively received.

But he told the National Assembly that he saw an opportunity for dialogue.

He said later that the CBC “must apologize, to explain how it supports a production that, by its title, speaks of us, but where a large part of us asks: Where are we?”

“Those who created this series did not take every element of Canada’s DNA,” Fournier added.

This controversy could serve to make Quebec better understood in Canada and this better comprehension would be a preamble to eventual constitutional reform, Fournier suggested.

The government hasn’t announced in what form it will ask for CBC’s apology.

In Ottawa, the Bloc Québécois’ parliamentary leader Xavier Barsalou-Duval demanded that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who introduced the series on television, officially disassociate himself from the production.

The docu-drama is not “inclusive at all,” he said, because it denies the contribution of two of three founding peoples of Canada — aboriginals and francophones — in addition to staying silent on the deportation of Acadians.

“The public broadcaster has the responsibility to ensure it does not broadcast propaganda,” BarsalouDuval said.

The Trudeau government reacted through Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly.

In a statement, the minister said she was “particularly sensitive to the criticisms made” and she recognizes “the important contribution by Quebecers, Acadians, francophones and aboriginal peoples to our history.”

But she said CBC/Radio-Canada is an independent Crown corporation and she wouldn’t comment on the contents of the series.

“I invite citizens to continue this important discussion and send their comments to the Crown corporation.”

Last week, Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil said the program was wrong to assert that the country’s first permanent European settlement was established in 1608 near what is now Quebec City.

“The history of Canada started in 1605 in Port Royal, N.S., when (Mi’kmaq Grand Chief Henri) Membertou welcomed (Samuel de) Champlain here in peace and friendship,” McNeil said.

“It’s unfortunate that people will try to rewrite history.”