Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

1 comment(s)

OTTAWA - Remarks promoting Canada by Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean have prompted a barrage of indignation from the Bloc Quebecois - which calls the vice-regal institution "ridiculous."

Enlarge Photo

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Michel Euler

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, right, gestures, as he welcomes Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean at the Elysee Palace.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended her during a parliamentary exchange that featured rhetoric reminiscent of the days when Quebec's future and the threat to national unity dominated federal politics.

Jean has extolled Canada on several occasions during a trip to France. Ahead of her meeting Wednesday with French President Nicholas Sarkozy, she said Quebec City's 400th birthday this year is a celebration of the francophone presence across Canada and North America.

Jean also said she would urge her host to look beyond Quebec to remember that there are francophones across Canada.

"There are a million of them out there fighting to save their language and their culture," said Jean, who is promoting this year's 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City.

"And I will tell President Sarkozy, 'Look beyond Quebec,"' she said.

That prompted outrage from the leader of the separatist Bloc Quebecois in the House of Commons.

"I think France should go beyond Michaelle Jean," Duceppe said.

The founding of Quebec City in 1608 was about the Quebecois nation - not about Canada, he said. And he loudly denounced the monarchy that Jean represents.

"We are elected," Duceppe said.

"It is not the monarchy which is anti-democratic, archaic and politically folkloric. . .The monarchy is ridiculous. That being said, Michaelle Jean - the Queen's representative - made things worse by declaring the 400th anniversary of Quebec celebrated France and Canada.

"Does the prime minister realize that we are speaking of the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, the cradle of the Quebec nation? Isn't it the Quebec nation we're celebrating, not the ridiculous monarchy?"

His deputy leader Pierre Paquette described Jean's advice to the French as an insult to Quebecers.

The government's Quebec lieutenant Lawrence Cannon dismissed the Bloc's anger as evidence of a desperate party seeking to justify its continued existence in Ottawa by fomenting scandal.

And the prime minister defended the federal role in the year-long celebration - and the Governor General's role.

"The leader of the Bloc is giving me the opportunity to underscore that 400 years ago, in Quebec, our country was born in French," Harper said.

"The founding of Quebec City was also the founding of the Canadian state. The Governor General today is the successor to Samuel de Champlain, the first governor of Canada.

"All Canadians celebrate this extremely important event in our history."

Jean made the remarks after a visit with French prime minister Francois Fillon, and in an article in the prestigious French newspaper Le Monde which ran an article about her titled 'Canada's Almost-Queen.'

The remarks made little news in Quebec.

But the Bloc Quebecois led off the daily question period with the issue.

Jean's appointment to her vice-regal role was seen as a betrayal by many in Quebec nationalist circles that she once travelled in. She has come under heavy criticism in her home province for making remarks other Canadians would consider innocuous.

Her suggestion in one media interview that Canadians should be encouraged to travel throughout the country was interpreted by many in her own province as a condescending suggestion that Quebecers should get out more.