PQ would revisit controversial play: Lisée

QUEBEC• A Parti Québéco is government would have acted to ensure the production of the controversial play Kanata went ahead, leader Jean-François Lisée said on Tuesday.

“Had I been premier,” he said, “I would have directed my minister of culture to meet with the producers to say, ‘One producer lacked moral courage and defected, how can we help you rebuild your financial case? How can we be of some support or find another co-producer?’ We would have acted, and that’s not what the Liberals did, that’s not what the CAQ said and certainly not Québec solidaire.”

If the PQ is elected on Oct. 1, Lisée added, it may revisit the issue.

“On Oct. 3, we might meet with Robert Lepage,” he said, adding that a PQ government would attempt to find another private-sector producer to put on the play but wouldn’t rule out government support for the production.

Kanata, a co-production between Quebec playwright and director Robert Lepage and the Théâtre du Soleil in Paris, was cancelled in July.

The play, which looked at Indigenous history in Canada, was criticized because it lacked input from members of Indigenous communities and did not feature Indigenous actors.

The cancellation came less than a month after another Lepage production, SLAV, was cancelled. It was based around slave songs but featured a mostly white cast.

Lisée said he doesn’t believe Québécois culture is under attack from political correctness.

“There is a tension between the legitimate will of minorities that are underrepresented to have their full place under the sun,” Lisée said, “and this kind of new censorship that wants to push back on artistic freedom.”

“Recent Quebec history is a fight for artistic freedom against the church; that’s one of the great successes of the Quiet Revolution, that we gained freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of art,” he said. “That’s a great, great asset to Quebec. We must defend it. It is true that creators from minorities and First Nations are underrepresented; it is an injustice. We have to be robust in making sure that they emerge and take their full place in the sun.”

Lisée’s cultural policy also includes a plan to protect small bookstores by limiting discounts on new books by large chains like Costco. Under the measure, discounts would be capped at 10 per cent for the first nine months after a book is released.

There would be no restrictions on the price set by publishers.

The idea — which has been called for by a number of cultural groups in Quebec’s publishing industry — was floated in 2013 when the PQ was last in power, but a bill was never introduced.