Piddingworth Greg Benton |
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| 'Piddingworth...where St. George's Cross is not yet banned.' --Mark Steyn |
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| Live as free people, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. (1Peter 2) |
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| HISTORICAL MENDACITY |
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| Michaelle Jean, Governor-General of Canada and Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France chat as they stroll past Canadian war graves in the cemetery at Beny-sur-mer. |
| Philippe Wojazer, AP |
| The separatists of Quebec are huffing and puffing over the visit of Canadian Governor-General Michaelle Jean to France as a part of the French celebration marking the founding of Quebec, New France four hundred ago. Gilles Duceppe, one of their 'leaders', foamed at the notion that the representative of the Queen should also represent French-Quebecois (they don't like being called Canadiens anymore) on the occasion that, from their point of view, celebrates the founding of the 'Quebec Nation' and has nothing to do with Canada and certainly not with the monarchy; an institution that he (perhaps ironically) termed as 'archaic, folkloric and ridiculous'. The more things change, the more they stay the same, et al. It's all so tiresome and boring; but then that's the way much of world views Canada anyway. Of greater concern is the reply to Duceppe by Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, on behalf of the government of Canada. He said that the founding of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain is the 'founding of the Canadian State' and that the Governor-General belongs to an office inherited from Champlain and subsequent governors of New France. The bit about New France being handed over by Old France to the British government following the loss by the French to the British in battle has been airbrushed from Canada's official history. The perennial whinging in Quebec over what they call 'the Conquest' is nothing new. The denial of historical, institutional, legal, geographic, military, cultural and constitutional reality by the Canadian government is something that has been gradually creeping into the official 'mind of state'. This 'invention of Canada' showed itself glaringly at the observance of the anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge in France last year where the only country that wasn't represented was the country of which, at the time, Canada was an integral part, i.e., Great Britain; the same Great Britain that defeated the French on many occasions and in many places, including Quebec. The fact that the Canadian Corps of the British Army in World War One was composed, almost two-thirds, of men from the United Kingdom was not only ignored but deliberately denied through the intellectually perverse notion that these British men of the Canadian Corps fought more for some 'new identity' as 'Multicultural Canadians' than for Family, King & Empire against Germany. When veteran's groups demanded that the Union Flag or Red Ensign be flown at the ceremony, they were at first rebuffed by the bureaucrats at Veteran's Affairs who insisted that 'only the national flag can be flown on Canadian soil' and the memorial at Vimy, France is Canadian soil. Of course, it was rubbish. The French flag flew there and the Union Flag is flown at hundreds of memorials across Canada. The Union Flag, of course, draped the memorial at it's unveiling by the then Prince of Wales in 1936. Prime Minister Harper, perhaps weighing the resentment of veterans against the resentment of French Canada, personally intervened and ultimately decided to have a Red Ensign fly. It's not politically convenient these days to have the flag of 'the Conquest' flapping about when one is re-inventing the country and, because it's a little more difficult to pretend that the country doesn't have the monarchy, just claim that the institution and the nation itself was originally French anyway! On the one hand, it is perhaps understandable that Stephen Harper is historically-challenged given that he attended school in the 1970's when Trudeaupia was all the rage and history virtually abolished from the curriculum. On the other hand, what is most likely is that the government, in it's official re-writing of Canadian history over the past decade or so, is attempting to convince French Canadians that we all 'share their pain' over 'the Conquest' and that Canada's identity is primarily French but with an unfortunate 'British interlude' from 1759 to 1982. With the collective memory of the Dominion of Canada almost completely erased by successive governments, a compliant, largely indifferent population and a subsidised 'intellectual' elite, it has become easier to replace history with the 'idea' of Canada. Who cares if it's a lie? Very few really. Harper has even declared that French Quebec itself is a nation within this apparently 'Originally-French Nation' of Canada with a view to winning over the soft-separatists of Quebec. Ho-hum. Quebec was New France, a colony of the French Empire. The French habitants of the colony came to be called 'Canadiens', from an aboriginal word 'kanata' referring to a village or territory. It became a British colony following the defeat of the French army and the surrender of French territory finalised in the Royal Proclamation, 1763. General Wolfe won. Montcalm lost. Hardly victims of oppression, even after defeat of the French, the population of Quebec was permitted to retain it's official use of it's language, civil code and educational system under and within British law and governance thus ensuring their continued cultural identity within British North America. All French Canadians since then and until 1977 were British Subjects. More than one French-Canadian historian has noted that French culture survived in North America because of the British not in spite of them; unlike the United States where the French culture was largely absorbed. The main British colonies of North America, including Quebec (Lower Canada) were confederated in 1867 by an act of the British parliament, when they formed what was called a 'Dominion'; a self-governing colony. This is the true founding of the 'Canadian State' where the institutions, laws and other attributes of an actual 'state' were defined and established in Canada for the first time. Along with the other 'dominions' of the British Empire, Canada became practically independent from Britain through the Statute of Westminster, 1931. It retained then, and continues to retain the monarchy and parliamentary democracy. The first monarch of the actual Canadian 'state' was not Louis XIV of the ancien regime of France, but Queen Victoria. The Canadian government now claims that the British monarchy, re-termed a 'Canadian monarchy', succeeded the French monarchy; as if the Canadian nation existed with the arrival of the French. King George III didn't succeed Louis, he defeated him in the battle of duelling empires. Michaelle-Jean is a successor to British Governors-General, not the Governors of New France. In 1982, Canada became constitutionally independent of Britain when Pierre Trudeau, as part of his re-invention initiative, patriated the constitution from Britain to Canada with an amendment that included his Machiavellian 'Charter of Rights and Freedoms' and the virtual transfer of the supremacy of parliament to the Franco-inspired notion of the supremacy of politically appointed judges of a Supreme Court who have the power to restrict, define, enforce and even invent rights and/or freedoms. The separtist government of the province of Quebec refused to agree to the whole business; ironically preferring that the British government retain authority over the Canadian constitution. Unlike Scotland and the claims of the Scottish Nationalists to whom some look for a parallel, Quebec has never been a nation or state on it's own. It was a French colony, then a British colony and is now a Canadian province. That the government of Canada, in it's pretense, has re-written history and entrenched the falsehood within the massive bi-lingual, bi-cultural bureaucracy, is not all surprising. Canada's abandonment and erasure of the heritage and legacy upon which it was founded has been due largely toward appealing to the voters and number of parliamentary seats from Quebec, without whom a political party cannot hope to form a government To paraphrase Sir Thomas More in the film 'A Man For All Seasons' when, during his 'trial' he noted that the mendacious Richard Rich had been rewarded for his lies with an appointment as Secretary for Wales and commented: It profiteth not a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul; but for Quebec? |
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| Wolfe: He won. |
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| Montcalm: He lost. |
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| The Fathers of Confederation created the deal to unite the British colonies in 1867 |
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| Queen Victoria signed the British North America Act, 1867 |
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| Samuel de Champlain represented Louis XIV |