Evidence of meeting #5 for Canadian Heritage in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was event.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
Chair, National Battlefields Commission
No, I was referring to officials falling under the minister's portfolio. They are the ones we deal with.
4:20 p.m.
Chair, National Battlefields Commission
We are an agency. The portfolio includes 18 such agencies. That is our boss in Ottawa. We come under the Department of Canadian Heritage.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Good afternoon, Mr. Juneau. Thank you for being here today.
I would mainly like to raise the issue of violence which has arisen on several levels and led to the cancellation of the commemoration of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
I sincerely admit that I was somewhat surprised. Being from Quebec City myself, I find things have gone a bit far over the last few weeks. Once again, some Quebeckers have been threatened by other Quebeckers. That is the worse thing. Intolerance and violence are never a good thing. I will always say no to propaganda in favour of violence as advocated by Patrick Bourgeois and Pierre Falardeau. Unfortunately, it was advocated by the Bloc and by the PQ to begin with.
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Point of order.
The Bloc Québécois has never advocated violence. It is not in our DNA. We have distanced ourselves from Patrick Bourgeois and Le Québécois newspaper. Our leader has asked that ads no longer appear in it, and that is what we will do. It is done. It has been dealt with.
February 25th, 2009 / 4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Excuse me.
Excuse me, Madame Lavallée. You're not on the list of speakers.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
We never advocated violence, Ms. Boucher. You said that the Bloc Québécois advocated violence. That is untrue. I would like you to apologize.
Mr. Chair, I would like Ms. Boucher to take back her comments.
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Christiane Gagnon Bloc Québec, QC
I have a point of order.
Mr. Chair, I represent the riding of Québec and during the week, when there were charges...
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I will go on. Mr. Gérald Larose, the President of the Conseil de la souveraineté du Québec, in a letter sent to you, promised that there would be a ruckus during the re-enactment, if it were to take place. We all agree on that.
A re-enactment took place back in 1999. At the time the Minister of Culture was Ms. Agnès Maltais. That re-enactment did not arouse such strong emotions.
Why is it that today there have been repeated calls for violence? We know that you received threats and that you passed them on to the police. Have the police made any progress with respect to these threats? Have they found any answers?
4:20 p.m.
Chair, National Battlefields Commission
As I stated earlier, we are in constant contact with them. We have obtained answers on some points and the threats did not come from the people you named.
In our society, when someone issues a threat, other groups tend to get involved and they can sometimes be far more radical. For instance, I was asked by a police officer whether I thought the disturbances that occurred last year on the night the Montreal Canadians defeated Boston were caused by hockey fans. Things could have happened as a result of these incidents and the Sûreté told us that type of thing should be avoided.
I said earlier on that we have some experience. It is not as though we have received death threats and that everyone is threatening us. No police officer is going to tell us not to hold an event, because it is too dangerous. Rather police services will be ready to respond with the necessary force. In our case, we did not want them to use the necessary force. This was an event that was already eliciting passionate responses and offending some people. We did not want it to turn in to a free-for-all. In the end, it might have been possible to hold the event on the condition that a large police presence would be guaranteed. But at the end of the day, the event would not have meant anything anymore.
This is not a festive event, or an occasion to welcome a high profile politician. It is meant to be a family friendly event. When an event is geared to families, people do not react in the same way. This past summer, this site hosted the Summit of the Americas and the Francophonie Summit. It was quite an experience, let me tell you. That is not what we want to see, it's not necessary for this event.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Were you surprised by the threatening tone of voice some individuals used when speaking about you and the Quebec City region?
4:25 p.m.
Chair, National Battlefields Commission
When the federal government organizes an event, we know that some individuals or groups will show up and raise a ruckus. I know this because I attended Canada Day events over a six-year period. But in this case, it went further than that. One thing led to the next and politicians all came to the same decision, and that was to not support us. In the end, there were two levels of non acceptance, if you will, one being more violent and the other, more logical. We listened to both.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Merci beaucoup.
Mr. Juneau, I have a couple of quick points of clarification to raise. Pardon my ignorance on some of this, but you said earlier that the Quebec government, through the department of education, provided information on the website and also provided information for school children with regard to the Plains of Abraham. Is that correct?
4:25 p.m.
Chair, National Battlefields Commission
No. What I said....
When we launched the programs, the activities were out of the ordinary. Teachers participated in an activity with their students. They told us it would be a good idea for us to speak to representatives from the Department of Education so they could prepare their class material, so that the outside activities could take place elsewhere and fit in with the level of advancement of the program.
So we created a link with the programs. Teachers come to these activities along with the parents. Depending on their grade level, students learn about various periods in history in the classroom. The activity we offer is adapted to their level and to what they have learned in school. For instance, it is often lighter in the summer than it is in the spring.
That is what we have done. We have designed programs so that they make sense.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Obviously you have programs that related to the activities, and when the PQ government was in power they were aware of this, I would assume.
4:25 p.m.
Chair, National Battlefields Commission
Yes. We did not go right to the minister, but we did go to the person in charge of the programs. Actually, I'm not the person who did that. There were many meetings for the purpose of coordinating our programs and activities.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Did you receive any objections at the time or any protests of any sort through the years?
4:25 p.m.
Chair, National Battlefields Commission
We never encountered any objections. Actually, since we were expecting this question, yesterday I received an evaluation of these programs. Most of the teachers and parents gave the program a satisfaction rating of 99% or 100%.
