The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.23           June 15, 1998 
 
 
Ottawa Feeds Anti-Quebecois Chauvinism -- Bigoted reaction to hospital appointment shows coarsening of capitalist politics  

BY JOE YOUNG
MONTREAL - The May 1 appointment of a former Parti Quebecois (PQ) candidate, David Levine, to head the newly amalgamated Ottawa Hospital has been met with an outpouring of anti-Quebecois chauvinism.

Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, is located just across the river from Quebec, where about 80 percent of the population is composed of the oppressed Quebecois nationality. In 1995 a referendum for Quebec sovereignty was defeated by less than 1 percent.

Levine, an anglophone, was a candidate in 1979 for the PQ, a nationalist capitalist party, and was recently chosen as the Quebec government's agent general in New York. The PQ, which advocates sovereignty for Quebec, heads the Quebec government.

On May 19 about 500 people, most of them older than 60 years, attended a meeting with the hospital's board of directors to discuss the appointment of Levine. Some people in the crowd shouted, "Levine is a traitor" and "Levine to the morgue." People speaking in favor of the appointment were drowned out by singing of O Canada, Canada's national anthem, and insults.

The May 20 Ottawa Citizen quoted the comments at the meeting of Wade Wallace, director of a Canadian unity group called Solidarité Outaouais Solidarity in West Quebec, "Levine should be fired, whatever the cost. It's time these people paid the cost for their political choice." According to the Ottawa Citizen, Roger Hull, one of the participants, exclaimed, "This is an avowed separatist. We should not give this person the time of day, let alone a $300,000-a-year job. We should no longer be polite to these bastards."

The Toronto Star quoted Tara Barclay as saying, "It is my understanding that Mr. Levine got his amalgamation expertise by closing English hospitals in Quebec and removing English signage in the French hospitals, thereby complying with Quebec's Bill 101, a bill that abuses the English-speaking citizens of Quebec." Law 101, adopted in 1977, promotes the use of the French language in Quebec. It is a tool to counter decades-long discrimination against the Quebecois on the basis of their language in employment, education, health care, and other areas.

Media whips up campaign
The anti-Quebec campaign has been whipped up by local newspapers and radio stations. After Levine's appointment was confirmed by the hospital board on May 21, the editorial director of the Ottawa Citizen , John Robson, wrote "If English Canadians are finally angry enough at the separatists that they begin to denounce them noisily...it is not only understandable it is justifiable."

Major political figures, as well as newspapers and radio stations, have fueled the chauvinist flames. In fact, the reaction is a product of the anti-Quebec campaign that has been carried out by the Canadian ruling class and its spokespeople since they nearly lost the 1995 referendum. The reaction to the Levine appointment is one sign of a growing coarsening of anti-Quebecois sentiment in Canada.

Stéphane Dion, the Intergovernmental Affairs minister in the federal government, characterized the chauvinist outpouring as "deplorable but understandable." He added, "Secession is the kind of phenomenon which exposes the most tolerant of populations to intolerance." The day after the meeting in Ottawa, Ontario premier Michael Harris said, "I think we all prefer that people who are paid with public funds be in favor of national unity."

Other commentators have defended the appointment of Levine. This reflects above all their concern that the outpouring in Ottawa will fuel independence sentiment in Quebec. In a May 22 editorial entitled, "Free-speech alert," the Montreal Gazette wrote, "The truce that has existed in Canada since the razor-thin victory of the No forces in the 1995 referendum is not an easy one. Nothing was resolved by that vote. Bad feelings still smolder beneath a veneer of tolerance. Respect for civil rights and free speech rest precariously on the quicksand of public opinion."

The overwhelming public response in Quebec has been anger at the treatment that Levine has received because he has been associated with Quebec sovereignty. The Quebec National Assembly voted unanimously to denounce the effort to get rid of Levine.

Another reflection of the coarsening of the anti-Quebec campaign was the election of William Johnson to lead Alliance Quebec, the so-called English rights organization, at its May 30 convention. Since its creation in 1981, Alliance Quebec has centered its fire on Law 101. Anglophones in Quebec continue to be a privileged minority with higher wages and better social services. The idea that they are oppressed by Law 101 has been central to Ottawa's campaign to confuse working people about the fight for Quebecois rights.

Johnson, described as "Pit Bill" Johnson because of his strident anti-Quebecois stance, is an advocate of partition, that is, of the breakup of Quebec should it become independent. He wants to abolish Law 101. In his effort to unseat the incumbent, Constance Middleton-Hope, he won the majority of delegates from the Montreal region.

According to Hubert Bauch, writing in the Gazette, "Johnson, who has been flaying Quebec's moderate anglo establishment in general and Alliance Quebec in particular as `the lamb lobby' in his columns for the past decade, wants the organization to be more politically militant and unyielding in defense of anglophone interests and in opposition to the separatist movement."

Joe Young is a member of United Steelworkers Local 7625 in Laval, just north of Montreal.  
 
 
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