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Two days after receiving a standing ovation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney made an address in Quebec City that caused an uproar among Quebec’s political class. <\/p>\n
Speaking on Jan. 22 from the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, Carney described the site’s 1759 battle<\/a>, which saw British troops defeat the French, as symbolizing the start of a partnership between two founding peoples. <\/p>\n It was where “Canada began to make its founding choice of accommodation over assimilation, of partnership over domination, of building together over pulling apart,” he said.<\/p>\n But for many francophones, the site is “associated with national humiliation and a durable loss of agency,” writes<\/a> Daniel B\u00e9land, political science professor and director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, in a Policy Magazine article published Saturday. <\/p>\n At 30 minutes, Carney’s speech lasted roughly as long as the battle itself. <\/p>\n Alexandre Boulerice, the only New Democrat MP in Quebec, called it a “reinterpretation of history that makes absolutely no sense to the vast majority of Quebecers” while Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Leader Yves-Fran\u00e7ois Blanchet called on Carney to apologize for his \u201cdeplorable mistake.\u201d <\/p>\n Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon rebuked Carney\u2019s account in a speech of his own at the sovereignist party\u2019s convention in St-Hyacinthe, Que. <\/p>\n “Mr. Carney, Quebec does not exist because of Canada. In fact, Quebec has survived in its difference and specificity despite Canada,”\u00a0St-Pierre Plamondon said. <\/p>\n Months out from the provincial election and after Fran\u00e7ois Legault\u2019s resignation<\/a> as premier, St-Pierre Plamondon and the PQ maintain a commanding lead in the polls<\/a> .<\/p>\n Carney stands by comments\u00a0<\/p>\n Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Roberge, Quebec’s French-language minister and a Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec MNA, invoked Carney’s acclaimed Davos speech to criticize what he said in Quebec’s capital. <\/p>\n “Two days ago, Mark Carney reminded us of V\u00e1clav Havel\u2019s famous speech, inviting us to stop ‘living within a lie’ and that the ‘power of the powerless’ begins with honesty,\u201d Roberge wrote in a social media post Friday. \u201cI suggest he go back and read his own speech from the day before.”<\/p>\n Tuesday, Marc Tanguay \u2014 interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party \u2014 said Carney is contradicting a historical fact by describing the conquest of New France <\/strong>as the start of a partnership. <\/p>\n \u201cMark Carney\u2019s speech was clumsy,\u201d Tanguay said.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, as the interim leader of a historically federalist party at Quebec\u2019s National Assembly, Tanguay stopped short of demanding an apology from Carney.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he needs to revisit some parts of our history,\u201d Tanguay said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The speech was a glaring blunder, according to journalist and political commentator Chantal H\u00e9bert. <\/p>\n “Perhaps Mr. Carney wasn’t paying attention in his history classes, or maybe the history he learned doesn’t quite align with reality,” she told Radio-Canada on Friday. <\/p>\n She noted that “it would be a grave mistake for Mr. Carney and his team to think that the backlash to these remarks is limited to sovereignist circles.” <\/p>\n H\u00e9bert also took issue with Carney mentioning in passing significant events, such as the Great Deportation of Acadians<\/a>, which saw thousands of Acadians deported for refusing to swear allegiance to the Crown, and the <\/strong>Durham Report of 1839<\/a>, which argued for the assimilation of French Canadians. <\/p>\n Carney “just gave the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois its best day \u2014 its best weekend \u2014 since he became prime minister, especially considering it was during a party convention,” H\u00e9bert said. <\/p>\n Asked on Monday about the outcry, Carney stood his ground. <\/p>\n The speech credited “the resilience of the French-speaking people” with Canada’s creation, “a Canada that recognizes two founding peoples and, after a certain period of time, three founding peoples, including Indigenous people,” he said during an announcement in Ottawa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":552519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-552518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115980687348403693","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769724732_898_default.jpg\")
The leader of the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, addresses party members during a convention in St-Hyacinthe on Sunday. (Thomas Laberge\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n