Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:
They were held back by their church and insular culture more than by any lsrgely imaginary English Cabal. I was there. I am sixty, now and I have lived half of my life in Quebec. It is not a mystery to me. The shabby treatment of Francophones in some parts of Canada does not excuse the inherent fascism behind the Sovereigntist movement. The Societe St Jean Baptiste has a great deal in common with the Spanish phalange.
No, the shabby treatment of Francophones elsewhere in Canada doesn't excuse the shit that some of the more radical separatists have done. However, it does come from the same malign root as the attempts to repress French in other parts of Canada-namely the refusal to recognize the rights of the language minority, and insist on language "purity"-and led right into the actions of the radical FLQ-types.
As for the insular culture thing, writers like Claude Couture have discussed how Duplessis wasn't as necessarily different from other provincial premiers like Bill Bennett in B.C. or Ernest Manning in Alberta. In Alberta, Ernest Manning never disguised his own religious affiliations, and he ran Alberta for 25 years. Will Ferguson noted how Ontario's Mitch Hepburn could be a vicious bastard when dealing with strikers too. Hell, Ferguson even credited Duplessis for steadily weakening the Church's power in Quebec, and for building up the surpluses that Lesage and his successors used to finance the Quiet Revolution.