In Quebec, the truth can hurt

Say you still love us, Jay! Jay Baruchel has always been Montreal’s Golden Boy. The NDG-born-and-raised child actor, who went on to Hollywood to star in bona fide blockbusters, has made a name for himself in Quebec and Canada as the hometown kid who never abandoned ship. Until, of course, he did. When an interview with local entertainment reporter Brendan Kelly recently revealed that Jay had left Montreal and moved to Toronto, most allophones and Anglophones simply shrugged and stoically muttered: “There goes another one.” Because, virtually every anglophone I know has, at one point or another, at the very least considered the possibility of leaving Quebec. Even if many ultimately didn’t, they’ve considered it.

But judging by the six (Count them, six!) snarky French columns that followed, and the outraged comments on social media, francophones took the news a little more personally.

“Betrayal” was the first word that came to mind as I observed the reactions. French columnists expressed the kind of incredulous venom that’s usually reserved for a lover that’s been scorned. Or someone who tells you a truth you don’t want to hear. Baruchel is the poster boy for Anglo Montreal love. Young, good looking, extremely talented, humble, self-deprecating, enjoying international success, hanging with Hollywood directors and actors, while all the while staying close to home. His affection for this city and for the Habs is so legendary it’s tattooed on his chest. He shouted his love for us from the rooftops.

It was comforting feeling. It was a confirmation of our greatness and our cosmopolitan attributes that even our best and most successful refused to go anywhere, because we’re just too awesome to leave.

And now, not only does he decide to flee, he abandons us for … Toronto? And, not only does he abandon us, he’s painfully candid about the reasons? How dare he call us a “difficult part of the world”? Our joie de vivre is legendary, you guys! Besides … dirty laundry should never be aired when there’s a parting of ways, right, Jay?

Only this wasn’t a love affair gone wrong. It was just a move. But a move that was probably less emotionally charged for the mover than its acceptance was for everyone left behind.

Baruchel made the mistake of candidly admitting that “Quebec politics did his head in.” It’s no big secret that constant linguistic and cultural strife, coupled with the temptation of opportunities elsewhere, can occasionally get tiresome and wear us down. Some of us decide to leave. Jay is allowed to publicly express that sentiment without being treated like Judas Iscariot.

Is admitting that incessant linguistic bickering and the Charter of Values and the corruption scandals and the OQLF chasing down restaurant owners for using the word “pasta” and depleted opportunities for English speakers can be tiresome really that much of revelation? Did it catch some of us off guard? Or is it that we’re just not used to having a wellloved Quebecer publicly acknowledge it as he’s waving byebye?

We here in Montreal get so caught up sometimes in the shameless navel-gazing and the self-congratulatory pats on the back about how awesome we are, and how amazing a place this is for artistic expression, and how creative types flock to us to, you know … create, and pursue a bohemian lifestyle. And we look down at poor Toronto and its focus on work, work, work. We’ve got it all figured out here, man, and those poor corporate drones that waste their lives away in pursuit of six-figure salaries … they almost demand pity.

It’s a parochial, self-serving “crabs in a bucket”-type attitude that has been necessitated over the years by decades of brain drain and a massive exodus of capital down the 401.

We need to tell ourselves that story, we have to prop ourselves up as the Xanadu of All Things Awesome, to quiet the voices in our heads that occasionally whisper: “We’re amazing, but we’re a bit of a mess too, right?” Because we are those things! Amazing! And a bit of a mess ... Baruchel simply opened a Pandora’s Box no one wanted opened and started a conversation that needs to be had. The truth is that there are many of us who stay in Quebec not only because of what is offered here, but despite what is sometimes offered here. Acknowledging that doesn’t make us traitors and disloyal to the city or the province. It makes us realists.

And as an allophone and anglophone, I can assure you that six white non-ethnic francophone columnists (working in an overwhelmingly multicultural province, with media that continues to fail in representing that diversity) clamouring to yell at Baruchel and unleashing a torrent of insults his way for daring to imply that Quebec can occasionally be a difficult place to live in, is highly dubious. My French colleagues should question whether they dispute Jay’s arguments because they misrepresent their reality or perhaps they represent a reality they can’t acknowledge, and don’t understand, because they don’t live it and it’s rarely represented in the media outlets they work for. Nuance is important and it’s sorely lacking when diversity is absent.

This city is manic and magical and inspires me on a daily basis. But it’s also insanely frustrating and sometimes hard to live in. As an anglophone writer making my way in it, I know without a shadow of a doubt that my professional life would be much easier in Toronto.

But I stay. Because what I get in return is more than what I lose in the process. If one day I don’t feel the same, I hope I don’t get vilified the way poor Jay did.

Six francophone columnists have slammed Jay Baruchel for moving to Toronto,

and saying why. Six!