She herself had given up hope for political solutions. The federal parties had all failed her generation, she said, including the Bloc Québécois, which had set out for Ottawa in 1993 with sovereignty association the stated goal and which had, in her opinion, slipped from its goal to its own form of establishment politics. What was the point of relying on the BQ, she asked, “when the rest of Canada does not trust it? Nobody speaks for us. Nobody.”
The only political sense she’d heard in recent weeks had come from, of all sources, Alfonso Gagliano, the former federal cabinet minister who’d overseen the tainted sponsorship scheme. The prime minister and his inquiry, Gagliano had said on Radio-Canada, “is going to destroy the party and break up the country.” It might not happen immediately, the disgraced minister went on, “but I think at this stage the separation of Quebec from Canada is not stoppable. It’s a question of time. It’s going to happen.”
Marie-Eve Lainesse believed the same. It’s going to happen. There would be another referendum, she was convinced, before she’d turn much older. Her own parents, who voted “no” in the last referendum, would change their minds in the next. Now they would vote “yes.”
Why?
“Gomery.”
And how will this referendum, the third one, play out?
Marie-Eve Lainesse stared out over the water, her glance remarkably similar to Madeleine de Verchères’s faraway look behind her.
“Cinquante-quatre percent ‘oui,’” she said.
The following morning, my own paper, The Globe and Mail, would produce with Le Devoir a far more scientific survey that would hold precisely the same result: 54 percent of Quebeckers would vote in favour of sovereignty. If, of course, a vote were held at that precise moment.
IF BRUCE HUTCHISON COULD admit to not understanding Toronto, I must confess the same personal shortcoming for Quebec. I am a small-town Ontario Anglo. I studied French in high school and even went off to a bilingual university, Laurentian in Sudbury, and took conversational French, including an “advanced” class. But I haven’t the nerve to speak the second official language—except, of course, the moment I step outside of Canada. When I’m in parts of Quebec where the francophones are often unilingual, I can get by—but barely.
It is a common affliction—Hugh MacLennan, who lived and taught in Quebec most of his life, said his inability to speak French was “a constant shame to me, and I recognize it as the severest handicap in my entire life.” Personally, I plan to leave whatever is left of my mind to science so that they’ll be able to determine what, exactly, is missing in the Canadian Anglo brain to induce such absurdity.
And yet, in other ways, I know Quebec fairly well. I’ve covered most federal elections since 1979, and each one has taken me much farther into Quebec than my usual quick forays into Montreal. I’ve also covered several of its provincial elections and—even if the copy might sometimes read like radio signals from outer space—I’ve talked to people across the province, from the Anglo enclaves of Montreal and the Eastern Townships to the sovereigntist bluets of the Saguenay region and the political sophisticates of Quebec City.
I’ve reported on a decade of hockey in the province, written about the Quebec Carnival, spent months with the Crees of Northern Quebec, been in the Oka standoff, covered the referenda, toured the province with the Spicer Commission, and holidayed in the Gatineau, in Quebec City, and in the Laurentians.
And yet I can’t pretend to understand Quebec. The only comfort in this, thin as it is, is that I’ve never been fully convinced anyone does.
It does not take a great mind, however, to notice the delicacy of it all. If Confederation is a cat’s cradle where every pulled string compels another string to tighten, Quebec is the scissors threatening from the table—a constant caution, even if never employed, that the game must be played with the utmost care.
I’ve never been quite sure where the Je me souviens of the Quebec licence plate comes from, but it seems to have taken on a sense that throughout the province everything will be remembered at once, as one single political psychic force. It makes Canada, such a polite country, reluctant to use the word “conquest” when referring to the British victory at Quebec City in 1759. Louis Riel, hanged for treason in 1885, may yet have a statue erected in his honour on Parliament Hill, one that might even go so far as to call him a Father of Confederation.
Hard to believe, at times, that back in the 1870s Montreal cigar manufacturer S. Davis & Sons issued a series of outlaw cards that included one of Riel. But that, of course, only underlines how differently he can be interpreted, largely depending on which official language is spoken.
Louis Riel was born in 1844 at the Red River Settlement near present-day Winnipeg. He studied for the priesthood in Montreal and then took law, working at it briefly in the United States before returning to St-Boniface when he was twenty-four. The following year, 1869, Ottawa sent in surveyors to the district, confident that Canada’s push to purchase Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company would go through with Great Britain’s help.
The Métis of Red River—most of mixed French and Native heritage— had grown increasingly alarmed at the prospect of coming under Ottawa’s control. They feared, justifiably, that more people and the reality of trains coming through the West would mean the end of the buffalo they hunted. They were further disturbed by aggressive early settlers arriving from Ontario on the understanding that Canada would be taking over and opening up these fertile prairies. These new arrivals were invariably Protestant Anglos and usually members of the Orange Lodge—meaning they had little time for the French-speaking Catholics along the river. The Métis organized, Riel emerged as a leader, they blocked the survey crews and, with relatively little effort, captured Fort Garry.
When a number of English-speaking settlers tried to mount a counter-rebellion they were rounded up and imprisoned. Two were sentenced to death, and one execution, of surveyor Thomas Scott, was carried out by firing squad on March 4, 1870.
Ottawa sent word that everything could be worked out. Promises were made concerning various rights the Métis were demanding and all seemed relatively in order—with the obvious exception of the fallout from the Scott execution. Ottawa wanted a quick and quiet solution to the problem. The Catholic Bishop of St-Boniface was dispatched to Red River with a federal proclamation of amnesty, the bishop as well as the Métis convinced it would cover all actions to that date, including the execution. The bishop persuaded Riel to release the few remaining prisoners and then to head for Ottawa for the final negotiations regarding the creation of the new province.
This outraged the Ontario Orange Lodge. Instead of punishment for Scott, its members cried, the Catholic Métis were being rewarded with provincial status. Manitoba would come into being on July 15, 1870, the French would have certain rights, including Catholic schools, and aspecial land grant of 1,400,000 acres would go to the Métis. There was, however, no official mention of full amnesty. The Ontario Orangemen were demanding that justice be served.
Ottawa dispatched a military force under Colonel Garnet Wosleley to Red River that summer, and Riel, convinced it was coming for him, fled to the United States. Meanwhile, in Ontario, a reward of $5000 was offered for the arrest of Thomas Scott’s “murderer,” widely taken to be Riel himself, though he wasn’t even present at the execution.
So volatile was the situation—Ontario screaming for Riel’s head, Quebec calling Riel a hero for defending language and faith—that Prime Minister Macdonald pleaded with Riel to remain in exile. Macdonald even secretly arranged to send Riel money if it would only keep him away. It was as if Macdonald instinctively knew what would happen if Riel came back.
Riel did not stay away, returning to the new province and even running for a federal seat, which he easily won. He reached the House of Commons but they threw him out when Mackenzie Bowell, future prime minister and an Orangeman, tabled a motion demanding his expulsion. Riel ran for office again, won again, but this time didn’t even
attempt to take his seat in Ottawa.
“Imagine,” George Bowering wrote in Stone Country: An Unauthorized History of Canada, “how the Central Canadians felt when their disruption in the West, Canada’s most wanted outlaw, was sent by his people to Parliament.”
The Riel colleague who had actually ordered Scott’s execution was arrested, charged, and found guilty. He, too, was condemned to death, only to have the sentence commuted to a short term in prison. It took until 1875 before Ottawa could get a motion through granting Riel his amnesty—but by then Riel had suffered a nervous breakdown, had spent time in an asylum, and was said to be often delusional. He called himself “David” now, and his calling, he told friends, was to establish a new form of North American Catholicism with its own pope.
Since part of the amnesty deal was that he leave Canada for at least five years, Riel returned to the States and even briefly became an American citizen. But in 1884 he came back to Canada when a group of Métis in the Saskatchewan Valley begged him to come and help them fight for their rights, which they felt were being trampled by the flood of new settlers from the East and around the world.
It was at Batoche that the second rebellion took root. Riel by now was far more radical, claiming that God was speaking to him and calling himself the “Prophet of the New World.” He declared that a “provisional government” was now in place for the Métis and that it, not Ottawa, would be deciding matters for the vast area that was still part of the Northwest Territories, as Saskatchewan wouldn’t get provincial status until 1905.
Concern in Ottawa was sufficient that a second military force was dispatched—this time the newly formed North West Mounted Police, who were able to travel by the new rail system.
There was a profound difference between the 1870 and 1885 uprisings. The first Riel “government” was set up in an isolated area very difficult to reach and, significantly, not even a part of the young Dominion but rather the land of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The second uprising was in an area being flooded by immigrant settlers, now easily reachable by rail. Most importantly, Riel was doing it in Canada proper this time. To claim his government was taking over matters was interpreted as treason.
Known as the Northwest Rebellion, this second uprising included Plains Indians who’d been starving from lack of buffalo to hunt. Native leaders like Cree chief Big Bear and Blackfoot chief Crowfoot were furious with Ottawa for what they considered ill treatment of Natives by Indian Department workers. Riel was actually tapping into the first wave of Western alienation—destitute Natives, angry white settlers who’d been led to believe the railroad was going through the area, Métis who felt their rights were being denied—and his ten-point Revolutionary Bill of Rights found wide acceptance. He became president; buffalo hunter and guide Gabriel Dumont his commander. They took prisoners and occupied the village of Duck Lake. The police, bolstered by locals, moved toward the lake only to be met by Dumont’s forces. The Mounties retreated, but not until nine volunteers and three police had been killed. Dumont, a brilliant field general, lost five Métis and one Native fighter.
Ottawa sent almost three thousand soldiers by train, most of them Ontario militia, and combined with Western forces they soon counted some five thousand. There were more skirmishes and more deaths, including a dozen men from the North West Mounted Police at Frog Lake. The government cut off rations to Big Bear’s people and his band, after which one of Big Bear’s followers shot and killed the local Indian agent. The warriors later killed two priests and six other whites. Big Bear had tried to calm matters but it was too late. The army was moving in fast.
Riel and Dumont differed on where they might best make a stand, and Dumont, the more aggressive, won the argument. At the Battle of Batoche, Dumont led three hundred Métis and Natives in a well-organized defence that lasted until they ran out of ammunition and were forced to fire nails from their rifles. More troops were brought in, as well as a gunboat to attack Batoche, and fighting soon broke out again. The bolstered Canadian forces finally overran the rebels, claiming to have killed fifty-one of them, and on May 15 Riel surrendered and Dumont fled the country.
General Frederick Middleton, who had led the Protestant volunteers from Ontario, sent off a note to Big Bear in early June, claiming, “I have utterly defeated Riel at Batoche with great loss, and have made Prisoners of Riel, Poundmaker, and his principal chief.” He called for Big Bear to surrender. “If you do not, I shall pursue and destroy you, and your band, or drive you into the woods to starve.” Big Bear fled for a while, but, acutely aware that his starving people could not last, surrendered.
Riel’s trial for high treason was held in Regina. His lawyers argued insanity and said he was delusional—his secretary had won acquittal by reasons of insanity—but Riel’s remarkable address to the jury made many wonder if he could possibly be dismissed merely as a madman. On September 18 he was found guilty. Poundmaker and Big Bear were given three years, while other Natives received various sentences. Eleven were tried and convicted of murder for the Frog Lake massacre and eight were eventually hanged.
While the jury in Regina did convict Riel of treason, they did not wish to see him hanged. “We, on the jury, recommend mercy,” the foreman told the court. “The prisoner was guilty and we could not excuse his actions. But, at the same time, we felt that the government had not done its duty. It did nothing about the grievances of the Métis. If it had, there would never have been a second Riel rebellion.”
Quebec certainly didn’t wish to see Riel hanged. He was a hero in French Canada now, defender of Church and language. Ontario, however, felt a little differently. “Strangle Riel with the French flag!” the Toronto News called in an editorial. “That is the only use that rag can have in this country.”
Pressure was enormous to have Scott’s execution avenged, and after various appeals and despite a medical report in which one physician found Riel “insane” and the other two “excitable,” Macdonald’s cabinet decided in favour of hanging. The Church in Quebec was outraged.
Macdonald showed surprisingly little understanding of how Riel would continue to play out in the country that Macdonald himself had had such a large role in creating. Having helped put together the coalition that allowed French and English to work together for Confederation, more might have been expected of him. But no. “He shall hang,” the prime minister said at one point with rather great prescience, “though every dog in Quebec bark in his favour.”
On November 16, 1885, the rope was placed around Louis Riel’s neck and the trap door sprung.
He is still twisting.
ON THAT DAY the noose would also tighten around Macdonald’s party. From then on the Conservatives would have, at best, a fragile and complicated relationship with a Quebec they had once taken for granted. Sir John A. Macdonald, writes Bowering, “was feeling the fires that would threaten to scorch every prime minister from now on—the heat provided by friction between Quebec French and Ontario English.”
The effect of Louis Riel on a country that wouldn’t even let him take his seat in Parliament was, and remains, extraordinary. Wilfrid Laurier, perhaps the greatest prime minister of all, launched his career by passionately denouncing the federal government’s decision to let Riel hang. Quebeckers by and large switched their allegiances from Cartier’s Conservative bleus to Laurier’s Liberal rouges. And, of course, the Riel incident still reverberates in the West, among Natives and Métis who feel their rights have never been upheld as promised and even among many non-Natives who continue to feel Ottawa treats them as a colony that, every once in a while, needs some discipline.
All traceable to one man who called himself “The Prophet of the New World.”
One begins to see how Margaret Atwood saw this great French–English dichotomy in her Two-Headed Poems: that we aren’t strangers to each other so much as a “pressure on the inside of the skull.” And that pressure periodically flashes into a full-bore migraine. The trigger can be major— as it was in the Conscripti
on Crisis, in the demise of Meech Lake, and in the October Crisis.
The October Crisis of 1970 was the culmination of years of ferment. In 1963 five bombs exploded in mailboxes located in anglophone neighbourhoods. In 1967 French president Charles de Gaulle, on a state visit during Centennial Year, shouted “Vive le Quebec Libre!” from a balcony and won himself a quick invitation from Prime Minister Pearson to exit the country and a lasting place in the heart of sovereigntists.
By 1970 the Front de Libération du Québec had been blamed for more than two hundred bomb blasts and five deaths. That fall the FLQ captured British diplomat James Cross and Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte, who was later found murdered, whereupon Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau called out the army and instituted the War Measures Act. New Democratic leader Tommy Douglas, who voted against the use of the act, told the House of Commons that “the Government is using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut.”
Cross was found alive, the FLQ cell proved far smaller than believed, and the War Measures Act was dropped. Six years later, on November 15, 1976, René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois, committed to the separation of a sovereign Quebec from the rest of Canada, defeated the Liberal government of Robert Bourassa. Civil unrest by a minority had evolved into political statement by the majority.
At other times, the issue that starts the temples pounding is somewhat less dramatic, even minor. The sponsorship scandal, while hardly minor, involved very few people and relatively little money. “The notion that Quebeckers would separate from Canada because of the $100 million sponsorship scandal in Ottawa is ridiculous and, frankly, galling,” said a Globe and Mail editorial at the time. “Countries do not throw themselves onto a sharp knife over such things. Ethnic cleansing, slavery, oppression, battles for scarce land, denial of the right to self-expression—these are what tear nations asunder.”
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