By Philip Authier - The Montreal chapter of the nationalist Société St. Jean Baptiste is calling on The Gazette to apologize for inciting a mob to burn down the colonial Parliament in Montreal 160 years ago Saturday.
But Gazette editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips, who has studied the history of the riot, said it’s a stretch to blame the newspaper when other English papers in the city at the time also stirred emotions.
“It’s ridiculous to bring up this ancient history,” Phillips said. “The Société has obviously run out of things to say. They should get a life.”
The debate about The Gazette’s role in the riot was resurrected in a statement issued Friday by the Société to mark the 160th anniversary of the burning of the Province of Canada legislature on April 25, 1849.
The Gazette should say it is sorry, chapter president Mario Beaulieu said. Until The Gazette empties this skeleton from its closet, editorials it writes preaching about individual rights “will have no credibility,” he said.
The Société is to hold a news conference Saturday afternoon at the scene of the fire in Old Montreal.
An English-speaking mob set fire to the legislature in 1849 to oppose the Rebellion Losses Bill, which compensated people in Lower Canada (as Quebec was then known) who suffered losses during the rebellions of 1838 and 1839.
The targets of their anger were the colonial government and the British Parliament, which English merchants at the time felt had betrayed them. The Gazette was among several English papers that incited opinion against the government; using language typical of the time, it called on “Anglo-Saxons” to protest against the bill.
As a result of the fire, Montreal was deemed unsafe as a seat of government.
“To try to blame today’s Gazette for a 160-year-old riot is frankly pathetic,” Phillips said. “The Société is making itself a laughingstock with this kind of stunt.”
pauthier@thegazette.canwest.com