Mr. Speaker, at a military symposium held in Ottawa last week, the director of the Canadian War Museum, Jack Granatstein, said that the federal government had done the right thing in closing the military college in Saint-Jean, as it was a Quebec separatist stronghold. “This was very clearly obvious”, he added.
In other words, it was fear of separatism that killed this institution. For the best part of 43 years, all francophones who dreamed of a career as an officer had to go through the Collège militaire de Saint-Jean. The college has seen 8,000 of them go on to have a career in the armed forces and another 4,000 earn a university degree. This is a function the very British royal military college of Kingston will never fulfil.
The situation in Kingston has convinced and will continue to convince many young Quebeckers in the military to become sovereignists.