Mr. Speaker, on May 1 in Rivière-au-Renard, I had the pleasure of attending a dramatic reading of the Maurice Joncas play La révolte des pêcheurs , directed by Francine Guimond.
This play based on historical facts re-enacts the terrible experiences of a group of fishermen in the Rivière-au-Renard area of Gaspé in 1909. They had had enough of being exploited by the Jersey merchants, and rose up in revolt.
The Liberal MP of the day panicked and sent two Canadian navy frigates as scare tactics. Soldiers came ashore at Pointe-à-la-Renommée in the dark of night and searched homes at gunpoint. They tracked people into the woods and arrested a number of them.
William Savage, Édouard Riffoux, Jos Tapp, Urbain Chrétien, Aurèle Élément and many others have gone down in history as the ones who organized this uprising.
I salute the courage and tenacity of these fishermen who stood up to the injustice and exploitation to which they were being subjected. Yet all they wanted was a modicum of freedom and respect.