Le militant souverainiste Gilles Rhéaume, porte-parole de l'Association des descendants des patriotes. Photo: archives La Presse
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La Presse Canadienne - L'Association des descendants des Patriotes a porté plainte, samedi, au Conseil de presse du Québec contre le quotidien The Gazette et son journaliste Josh Freed.
Dans sa chronique «Politics ruin the party», Josh Freed affirme que les opposants à la présence de groupes de musique anglophones à la Saint-Jean lui rappellent les SS.
Le porte-parole de l'Association, Gilles Rhéaume, croit qu'il s'agit d'un cas de diffamation.
Il soutient qu'il est épouvantable de comparer ces voix dissidentes aux Nazis, ajoutant qu'il s'agit de surcroît d'une banalisation du nazisme.
Il affirme qu'il devrait être permis de se questionner sur cet enjeu, sans pour autant se faire insulter.
Il réclame des excuses formelles de la part de la direction de la Gazette.
Gilles Rhéaume demande également la publication d'une réplique qui permettrait à l'Association des descendants des Patriotes d'étayer sa position.
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[Francophobie au Canada anglais
- la Conquête inachevée...->http://archives.vigile.net/ds-societe/index-francophobie.html]
Les « Rhodésiens » masqués
LUC CHARTRAND, L'actualité 15.4.00
«Il est devenu acceptable en ce pays de mépriser les Canadiens français en les taxant d'être foncièrement (génétiquement, peut-être ?) xénophobes, butés et racistes. La manoeuvre est à la fois tellement transparente et intellectuellement piètre qu'on ne s'y attarderait pas si elle n'était en train de devenir un véritable modèle de dénigrement.»
Trudeau : de la mania au mythe
Antoine Robitaille LeDevoir 6.4.2002 - Conlogue dénonce aussi «la diffamation vicieuse que Trudeau propagea dans le reste du pays à l'endroit du nationalisme québécois, celle du «nationalisme ethnique», comparable à ceux qui «nous ont engendré les Hitler et Mussolini».
Propos sur le racisme
Michel Vastel - LeDroit 9.4.01 - «Monsieur Dion sait ce qu'il fait en assimilant le discours des nationalistes québécois aux pires moments de l'histoire du nazisme en Europe. C'est intellectuellement malhonnête et, dans le cas présent, factuellement faux.»
l'affaire Don Cherry
Lafferty ruling should be appealed
DON MACPHERSON The Gazette Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - As Superior Court Judge Luc Lefebvre wrote in his decision on the libel suit three years ago, "the comparisons made by (Lafferty) were so gross and so far from the truth that few people could have been influenced negatively by these writings."
Judges hike Lafferty libel award
ALAN HUSTAK The Gazette Saturday, October 25, 2003 - $100,000 to parizeau and bouchard. Even in death, financial analyst continues to pay for comparing politicians to Hitler
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Politics ruin the party


By JOSH FREED, The GazetteJune 20, 2009


Next Wednesday is our national holiday, la Fête de la Saint-Jean - but like most anglos and allos I won't be wrapping myself in the fleur-de- lys, or singing Gens du pays.
In recent years, June 24 has officially become a big party for all Quebecers, no matter what your roots. Yet most of the festivities still take place east of Park Ave. - so what stands in the way of making this a day for everyone? Just the same small things that keep all of us ethnically polyester Quebecers from feeling 100-per-cent pur laine Québécois.
They include: The dinosaurs of nationalism like the St. Jean organizers who tried to stop two local bands from singing in a foreign dialect called English - a move reminiscent of the old days of the Apostrophe SS.
The good news was how fast these organizers reversed their decision after many prominent francophones denounced them as intolerant - from the French-language media to sovereignist leader Gérald Larose to Culture Minister Christine St-Pierre.
A letter in La Presse from 50 francophone artists said: "The French language in Quebec isn't threatened by our local English who have the right to express themselves in their native language. ... They are part of our Quebec national identity." The wave of protest was another nice sign of today's tolerant Quebec - but repeated dinosaur sightings like this hardly encourage west-end anglos to rush out June 24 and party in their own language. The problem is that the Quebec government still leaves the fête's programming to a few nationalist ayatollahs from the Montreal St. Jean Baptiste Society.
Can't we find some organizers with a lighter touch? How about drafting the Cirque de Soleil, or the Jazz fest gang, who both know how to throw a diverse Montreal party? We could even hand the job to St. Patrick's Day organizers, who make everyone feel Irish for a day, including me. I'm sure they could make everyone feel Québécois too at La Fête Nationale de la St. Jean et la St. Pat.
The flag: This may surprise francophones, but the sea of fleurs-de-lys at St. Jean events doesn't help. Our Quebec flag was cleverly hijacked by the sovereignty movement decades ago and sends a confusing message. One flag on a building is a lovely symbol that says "Hello - welcome to Quebec!" But 10,000 flags waving in the street says "Vive le Quebec libre!" - and gives many non-francophones a referendum flashback.
I felt similarly about the Maple Leaf when federalists hijacked it during the sponsorship scandal. Political flag-waving of any kind leaves me cold. I don't even like flags on balconies - I prefer sun umbrellas and barbecues.
Maybe we could find a new apolitical flag for Quebec's national day that speaks to all modern Quebecers who live in our city. How about a fleur-de-lys in one corner, with a snowmobile, a jazz saxophone, and some Cirque de Soleil stilts in the others? Or what about a Bixi bike stuck in a snowbank? Our licence plate is another relic of the political past that could use a facelift. It says "Je me souviens" - or "I remember" - but what do I remember? It's certainly not my own license plate number, which I keep forgetting as I get older. In fact, given Quebec's aging boomer society, our license should probably say "J'oublie - I forget." Or, "Ou sont mes clefs d'auto?" Maybe we could put something practical on the license plate - like a warning for the driver behind you: "LOOK OUT! POTHOLE AHEAD!" The phone-y war: Yet another annoying divide is the way we're all divided into separate groups with stodgy names like anglophones, francophones and allophones. Why are we all phones anyway? It feels phony.
Let's rename anglophones something that reflects us more - like "anglofuns" - because we're a lively bilingual gang. Then we could have "allofuns" and "francofuns" too, since le "fun" is now a French word too. It's us.
The word "québécois" itself is another loaded word from the past that means more than one thing. The term took off in the '60s to replace the old term canadien-français, but by the '70s it was firmly tied to Parti Québécois nationalism. Today, even sympathetic anglos don't call themselves that.
Yet there's no easy replacement. We could imitate "les français" and call ourselves "les québécais." Or embrace Quebec Inc. and become "Québécors." But these hardly roll off the tongue.
I guess the only solution is to rename the whole province. For the last 400 years Quebec has apparently been named after Quebec City. It's time to give another city a turn - and rename the province "Montréal." So Bonne Fête Nationale to all 7 million of us Montréalais.
Josh_freed@hotmail.com