Mashed Canada Managed Democracy
(Note: trying out some new footnote hack, it works much better on the webpage, which is now, properly, https://garbage.today/)
It's been too long since I have written but I have several good excuses!
The first: the city really has come alive (prend de vie) now that the weather has fully turned; everything has opened - markets, roads, and vegetation:
We've been hitting up a lot of parks recently and we certainly aren't alone. Turn your head in virtually any direction and you'll see a birthday party or, pictured above, something about El Salvador?
A quick look on a less crowded day.
The parks, markets, and recently pedestrianized streets are especially busy this weekend, as the weather has been beautiful and today (May 20th) is National Patriots' Day in Quebec.
The holiday commemorates a moderately short-lived attempt by the population of Lower Canada[[1]] to secure some kind of real self government by the French-speaking majority in 1837 and 1838. It played out basically how the American Revolution might have gone if the British colonial government had managed to put together at least two brain cells at Lexington, Concord, and Boston[[2]].
I'll resist the urge to talk about all the history here [[3]], but the upshot is that the rebellions - there was one in Upper Canada (basically Ontario today) as well, for basically the same reasons - were crushed.
The British did what they do to their colonies everywhere - Ireland, India, South Africa, Palestine - set ethnic/religious/etc groups against each other to prevent a united opposition to their rule. Had they managed to defeat the American Colonies, you better believe they would have set the north and south against each other.[[4]]
With Canada, they couldn't have pulled this trick off better. They mashed the two Canadas together while simultaneously giving into the demand for responsible government[[5]]. The thin majority of anglophones in the new united government effectively neutralized liberal Quebec nationalism for more than a century[[6]].
Anyway that's plenty of words and I didn't even get to my other excuse for how late this post is: my grandmother disappeared (she has since reappeared). That can wait for the next one, so here's a dog:
Big fan of the sunny days.
[[1]]: Now more-or-less the Province of Quebec
[[2]]: I think if I did a Top Ten Most Incompetent British Military Commanders list I could fill out half of it just using guys from the American Revolution
[[3]]: It is super interesting stuff though; they had their own Sons of Liberty (Société des Fils de la Liberté), a lot of Irish immigrants joined in to fight the British, etc
[[4]]: Obviously they would not have had to try hard to make that happen
[[5]]: For the Americans reading this: you will not be surprised to learn that we've never had one of these
[[6]]: The British really knew how to run an empire and when it was taken away they started a slow moving national mental breakdown. It's cool. I'm sure the US will handle the same thing super well
