The Rails of Reality

The Rails of Reality

When the train runs off the rails of reality, you’re in for a wild and bumpy ride.  Quebec is increasingly a land where fears and fantasies chart the course. Back in the 70s, Quebec’s language and culture we...
City Mice and Country Mice

City Mice and Country Mice

What We Choose To Remember Bloc-Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet provoked a viral reaction last month with his interview for La Presse Canadienne about Montreal and the ROQ (rest of Quebec). Blanchet l...
Time to realign - Quebec

Time to realign

What We Choose to Remember Every nation has its foundational myths. For Quebec, Nouvelle France was conquered by English-speaking foreigners who have been a plague ever since. Most Anglos I know have encounter...

Fight, flight or foresight

What We Choose To Remember We are living in times of division, frustration, resentment and hostility. Friendships can be damaged by a misplaced word, destroyed by a misinterpreted comment. The automatic physio...
Quebecers

Real Quebecers may yet have the last word

What We Choose To Remember Last month I moderated a panel on the Impact of Bill 96 for the Quebec Writers’ Federation. The mood was glum. We do not have to look very far in the world to see deeply divided popu...
London Calling: Help, we’re being invaded!

London Calling: Help, we’re being invaded!

What We Choose To Remember I was surprised last month by a documentary film – A London Lost: The Death of an English City – which made the remarkable claim that London is no longer English because it has been ...
Dommage – nothing ‘Beau’ about Bill 96

Dommage – nothing ‘Beau’ about Bill 96

What We Choose To Remember When I arrived in Quebec I was an undesirable immigrant, at least by the standards of Francois Legault’s CAQ government. I could not speak French and my mother tongue made me un maud...
François Legault’s Québec

François Legault’s Québec

What We Choose To Remember Last October the Coalition Avenir Québec won a landslide electoral victory, crushing the Parti Québécois and the provincial Liberals. At the CAQ convention in May Premier Legault rec...