On a stage in Montreal Wednesday night, singer Allison Russell recalled what it was like to live in the city after the Parti Québécois lost the referendum 27 years ago.
“They spat on me, called me a monkey and told me to go back to Africa,” Russell, who is black and was born in Montreal, told the audience.
In defeat, former Prime Minister Jacques Parizeau had blamed the 1995 loss on “money and ethnic votes”.
Russell, who was 17 at the time, said the comments led to racist acts in the streets and contributed to his decision to move away soon after. He compared the comment to recent comments on immigration made by Coalition Avenir Québec candidate Jean Boulet and party leader François Legault.
The issue has dominated the political discourse in the last days and weeks of the campaign.
In a local debate on Radio-Canada last week, Boulet, who serves as the province’s minister of labor and immigration, said that “80% of immigrants go to Montreal, they don’t work, they don’t speak French or they do not adhere to the values of Quebec society.”
After Radio-Canada brought the comments to light this week, Boulet apologized on Twitter, saying he had made a mistake and that the statement about immigrants who don’t work and don’t speak French “doesn’t reflect what I think.”
Aly Ndiaye, better known by his stage name Webster, says Quebec nationalism turned inward after the 1995 referendum. (Philipe Ruel)
Legault said Boulet did not deserve to keep the immigration record if re-elected. But Legault himself said Monday that taking in more than 50,000 immigrants a year would be “a little suicidal,” referring to the protection of the French language.
Earlier this month, Legault apologized for citing the threat of “extremism” and “violence” as well as the need to preserve the Quebec way of life as reasons for limiting the number of immigrants to the province
Aly Ndiaye, a Quebec City-based historian and rapper also known as Webster, said he sees the loss of the 1995 referendum and Parizeau’s comment as a turning point for Quebec nationalism that gave way to kinds of things that Boulet and Legault have said this election campaign.
From inclusive nationalism to a change of Quebec identity
In the 1960s and 70s, Quebec’s nationalist movement was intended to be progressive and inclusive, Ndiaye said. The movement was inspired by the decolonization and revolutions happening around the world at the time: it was looking “outwards”, he said.
“After Parizeau, there was closure,” Ndiaye said. Quebec nationalism turned inward, he added.
“There started to be a more exclusive view of Quebec’s identity… That’s what Legault represents.”
What worries Ndiaye is the fact that these comments are rarely labeled racist, despite the fact that they stem from a view of society that sees immigrants and their descendants as “second-class citizens.”
“The Legault government is a racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic government,” Ndiaye said. “It’s aberrant.”
Fo Niemi, the executive director of the Action Center for Race Relations Research, founded in 1983, said his office received hate calls after the 1995 referendum. (Rowan Kennedy/CBC)
Hate calls
Fo Niemi, who founded the Montreal Center for Action Research on Race Relations (CRARR) in 1983, said he remembers Parizeau’s moment vividly.
“I almost fell out of my chair,” he said.
Niemi said the center received hate calls in the days after the Oct. 30, 1995 vote, and as a result stopped answering the phone for two or three days.
As for racist comments made in this year’s provincial election, Niemi said that while there is a possibility they could lead to violence or aggression against immigrants, they could also lead to a general negative attitude in Quebec towards immigration and immigrants.
“Let’s be clear, we’re not talking about all immigrants. We’re talking about immigrants who are clearly identifiable, meaning non-white immigrants.”
He agrees with Ndiaye about the reluctance to name racism.
“They don’t call a spade a spade,” Niemi said, calling the CAQ’s comments “dog-whistle politics,” which refers to the use of messages that convey a particular sentiment, usually racist, to a target audience.
Evelyn Calugay, the executive director of PINAY, a Philippine women’s rights group, recalls members of her community being told to “go back to where you belong” after Parizeau’s comments. (Submitted by Evelyn Calugay)
Evelyn Calugay, who heads PINAY, a Philippine women’s rights group, said she remembers hearing comments made to people in her community, as well as people of Chinese descent, in 1995.
Things like, ‘You can’t speak French? Go back to where you belong, where you came from,'” Calugay said.
“They’re always going to have someone to blame and the people to blame are always the minorities, the marginalized, because they’re a bunch of racists to me!” he said with a little laugh.
Calugay arrived in Quebec in 1975 to work as a nurse. She is 76 years old.
What happens after the election?
The CAQ is not the only party that has been criticized for anti-immigrant sentiments. The past two weeks have seen comments about Quebec Muslims from Parti Québécois candidates Lyne Jubinville, Suzanne Gagnon and Pierre Vanier and his wife Catherine Provost.
Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau surprised many on October 30, 1995 when he blamed “money and ethnic votes” for the No’s narrow victory in the referendum on sovereignty. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)
Vanier, the candidate of Rousseau, and Provost, the candidate of neighboring L’Assomption, were suspended on Friday by PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon for posts made on social networks, one of which questioned the intelligence intelligence of Muslim women who wear the head. scarves
Whatever the outcome of Monday’s election, Niemi says her concern is what happens next.
“Are we going to talk about the negative consequences of all these, shall we say, hateful statements?” he said “How credible will the government be in addressing racism and xenophobia and any other negative consequences of these statements?”
As for Russell, the Quebec singer now lives in Nashville with her family and recently, after playing in well-known American folk bands, began a solo career with her album Outside Child.