‘Not so
quiet

revolution

Right: a Victoria-Doy demonstration in Montreal.

A review of three recent books about Quebec

By M. Frank

1

WO.men hidden behind a

John Mercer pseudonymn

— .both comng from a

rock-ribbed Anglo-Saxon strong-

hold .in Montreal — wrote the

book called The Squeaking
Wheel.

They recently appeared on a
CBC-TV network program com-
plete in black hoods to conceal
their identity. Their pipsqueak
paperback, over-promoted -as
“the book all Canada’s talking
about” is neither representative
of English-speaking Canada in
Quebec nor elsewhere. It simply
confirms that there is a lunatic
fringe on the right among us.

The book reads like Ian Smith
of Rhodesia — with French Can-
adians cast as the blacks who
still require the benefits of
white (read “English-speaking
Canadian) civilization.

The effort at treating the sub-
ject humorously is lamentably
strained and contrived. The ser-
vice of the book is that it may-
reveal something of the psycho-
logy of the Anglostocracy and
white chauvinist in our midst.

NOTHER “before it’s too
late” warning to English-
speaking Canada has come

from journalist Tom Sloan of
the Montreal Star, to be added
to Peter Desbarats’ The State of
Quebec (also with the Star).

What they are both asking for
is a sober and better under-
standing of the reality of the
economic, social and _ political
scene in Quebec — before it is
completely lost to the present
cross-Canada power structure.

In Quebec, The Not So Quiet
Revolution, the author eschews
the word “‘quiet” and prefers to
refer to what is going on as “a
lusty,~_% brawling, enthusiastic
and o¢casionally angry forward-
movement that often disagrees
within itself.”

It is a useful book ranging in
subject matter through politics,
religion, economy, separatism,
etc. One would have wished for

a deeper analysis of political
currents in the province, which
are ever-changing, and which
may account for the book’s
shortcomings in this respect.

For example, the striving for
independent political action by
the organized labor movement
as expressed in the last conven-
tion of the Quebec Federation

of Labor and the growing unity-

on the left of various socialist
groupings in the Comite de Co-
ordination des Mouvements de
Gauche.

Associated here is the new
Mouvement de Liberation Popu-
laire, organized by the follow-
ers of the magazine Parti Pris,
Les Copains de St. Henri, the
Parti Socialiste du Quebec, the
Communist Party of Quebec and
others.

The limitation of reference to
these new labor and left deve-
lopments in the book to a scant
treatment of Le Parti Socialiste

_ du Quebec suggests an underes-
» timation of what is likely to be

a significant development.

Some indication of this was
to be seen in the federal New
Democratic Party vote in 1965
and more can be expected in the
coming provincial elections. Con-
nected with this playing down
of the role of labor and the so-
cialist left is the studied failure
to credit the labor and Commu-
nist movement in particular for
pioneering the famous Maitres
Chez Nous slogan, taken over
by Lesage in the 1962 elections
and still at the centre of Quebec

THE SQUEAKING WHEEL:
by John Mercer, George
3. Mcleod Ltd., $2.95.

QUEBEC, THE NOT-SO
QUIET REVOLUTION: by
Thomas Sloan, Ryerson
Press, $3.50. ;

QUEBEC STATES HER
CASE: edited by Frank
Scott and Michael Oli-
ver, Macmillan, $5.00.

politics to this very day.

While there is chronic lack of
objectivity on this score, the
author throws considerable light
on the subject of religion in
Quebec and on educational re-
form. and the turbulent develop-
ments among students — their
radicalization and rejection of
church values, for example. All
this information is very valuable
to Canadians who want to know
more about Quebec.

A chapter that is wanting is
one dealing with Quebec’s econ-
omy. There is the suggestion
(on page 48) that what we have
is an “amalgam of socialism and
private enterprise.”

But the superficiality of the
author’s treatment becomes ap-
parent when he hastens on page
49 to tell us that the recent
stress on public enterprise has
nothing in common with Marx-
ist political philosophy.

“Socialists of all schools do
exist in Quebec,” writes Sloan,
“but it is not their influence
that has dictated the trend to-
ward state action in the prov-
ince’s economic development of

‘the past few years.”

And it is made clearer still
when some indication of the de-
tails surrounding the nationa-
lization of hydro are given.

On the whole the economic
section requires further probing,
and not only by Sloan, but by
Marxists as well, on just. what
the inter-connections are be-

..tween Canada-wide monopoly

control in banking, finance, in-
dustry and the power groups in-
side Quebec (irrespective of the
English or French personalities
involved) and the role played by

external dominating U.S. econo-

mic interests.

Sloan completes his work
with the observation that the
status quo is over for Quebec
and that the Liberal Party’s co-
operative federalism formula be
given a try as a_ temporary
measure, with associate status
for Quebec in a new Confedera-
tion. A new constitution might
be considered at a later stage.

The author does, however,
concede that there is deep sus-
picion among many Quebecois
about the proposal being “an
empty phrase concealing a de-
termination to retain the status
quo.”

PEECHES and articles cover-
ing the years 1961 through
to 1963 are dealt with in

the 1964 book, Quebec States
Case.

Some personalities. quoted,
for example Marcel Chaput, are
but little heard of today. An-

~ other, Jean Marchand, has been

elevated -to the federal cabinet,
a switch from president of the
Confederation of National Trade
Unions. - —

Nonetheless the book’s’ docu-
mentation makes it at once top-
ical in that it provides the start-
ing points for many of the
movements now underway in
Quebec. ;

The basic outlook of the Parti
Pris (literally, “position taken’’)
group is given by its early ex-
ponents. There is in text the.
manifesto of the terrorist Front
de Liberation Quebecois (FLQ) °
— no longer in the news.

The. Parti Socialiste du Que-
bec position on Confederation is
to be found in text, as also
speeches and views by Gerard
Pelletier, Rene Levesque, Jean
Lesage, Pierre-Elliot: Trudeau
and Andre Laurendeau.

Glaring, of course, is the ab-
sence of contributions of the
Communist Party of Canada
and of its leading spokesmen, in
particular Stanley Ryerson
(French Canada, Progress Books).

For the benefit of students
and historians. The Marxist
Quarterly, Autumn 1965, repro-
duces excerpted contributions in
articles, speeches and conven-
tions of the Communist view-
point on Quebec through thé
years from 1929 through to 1964.

It is to be hoped that further
studies on Quebec will include
the Marxist standpoint,