Quebec and modern memory: a brief sequel

I will translate larger portions of André Pratte’s editorial when I get a minute, but here it is if you want to chew on it yourself. All I can say is that since I wrote this long post yesterday, the usual suspects at Le Devoir are continuing to chew the guedille over the Charest-Harper-Michaëlle Jean "rewriting" of history. Pratte’s editorial in La Presse will be distinctly embarrassing. He opens with a quote from....Champlain:

"Your Majesty must have enough knowledge of the discoveries made in his honour of New France (called Canada) through the writings that certain Captains and Pilots have made."

That’s from 1613. Hmm.

Pratte continues with historian Marcel Trudel: "At the starting point of the continuous history of Canada we find Champlain. He is voluntarily and by principle at the origin of this story and it is in this sense that Champlain can claim the role of Canada’s founder."

The continued contortions of the Le Devoir editorialists and columnists are so embarrassing that I should note that even the Bloc Québécois has already decided it is no longer worth emulating them. But my colleagues at Le Devoir are tenacious, and we should expect Saturday’s paper to be absolutely spectacular in its absurdity.