CHPC Committee Meeting

     I call to order the fifth meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), for a study of the activities marking the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

    This afternoon our witnesses is André Juneau, from the National Battlefields Commission.

    Mr. Juneau, would you like to give your report?

    Thank you, Mr. Chair—

    Excuse me, but there's just one thing I have to say first.

    I would like to explain to everyone around the table that I will be holding everyone to five-minute questions; your microphone will be shut off at the end of the five minutes. It's five minutes for the question and answer. We'll hold that order. We are here for one hour, so the meeting will be over in one hour.

    As we go forward, again, I ask that you make your presentation, sir. You have ten minutes.

    Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, I find it important to begin by setting out the National Battlefield Commission's mandate, which is to acquire, preserve and develop the great historic battlefields in Quebec City.

    The Commission was established under the Act respecting the National Battlefields in Quebec, 1908, Edward VII, Chapter 37 and amendments.

    The Commission is headed by a board of directors made up of nine members, including seven who are appointed by the governor in council, one representative of the Government of Quebec and another of the Government of Ontario. This last seat is currently vacant.

    This structure is due to the fact that the park was constituted financially in large part through a national and international fundraising campaign sponsored by the Governor General of Canada, Lord Grey, and the Mayor of Quebec City and first president of the commission, Sir George Garneau. Its act of incorporation stated that any donor who contributed in excess of $100,000 was given a seat on the commission's board of directors.

    The lands of the commission make up one of Canada's most important historic sites. Its 108 hectares lie on one of the most beautiful sites of the city of Quebec, next to the historic sector, with the cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence on its south side.

    The park was designed 100 years ago, following the creation of sprawling urban parks in other major cities, and is one of the most prestigious.

    The commission must therefore reconcile the park's historic significance with its urban character, and welcome the some four million visitors who come every year.

    One of the fundamental elements of the commission's mission is to promote Canada's history as it relates to the park. Recalling the historical facts is therefore not a one-off activity, but an ongoing concern of the commission.

    Since 1992, the commission has offered various pedagogical activities to its school clientele. Some 60,000 students visit each year, and the comments we receive are simply glowing. In fact, we have a satisfaction rate of over 99%. In recent years, following the tabling of the report on the commission's communications strategy, which recommended that we showcase historic events other than those involving Wolfe and Montcalm, the commission has worked to raise awareness of the land's use from the arrival of the first French settlers until today. It is in that sense that the commission inaugurated in 2008 the Louis-Hébert orchard, a living memorial devoted to the first French settlers who accompanied Champlain.

    It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that the commission plan as part of its mandate to commemorate what is considered the most important historic event in America, and which led to the creation of National Battlefields Park.

    I would like to point out that all members of the commission's board of directors and the vast majority of its employees are of French descent, members of the Quebec nation. These are true Quebeckers who chose to organize, on the site of the battles themselves, a commemoration that is respectful of a nation's collective memory.

    I would now like to address the reasons behind the most hostile comments made against the commission, i.e., the historic re-enactments, particularly because they were deemed to be "festive" occasions.

    However, the ultimate goal was to bring together as many people as possible around the principal event of the Seven Years' War in America.

    The manoeuvres on the ground would have scrupulously respected what took place during those historic battles. The many re-enactments that are done around the world are undoubtedly spectacular, but not festive.

    Furthermore, the "re-enactors" were well aware of the sensitivities surrounding the battle of 1759, as opposed to the 11 re-enactments that have been done since 2005 as part of the commemorations of the Seven Years' War in America. At the end of the two demonstrations, they had planned to pay tribute to the fallen soldiers as well as the civilian victims of the siege of Quebec City and the devastation of surrounding areas. Moreover, the presence of encampments and uniformed militia in Quebec was intended to recreate the conditions of a city under siege.

    The debate was essentially on the form of the event, since everyone agreed that the battles of the Plains of Abraham and Sainte-Foy should be commemorated.

    Although we have a duty to recall and teach historic events, the historical re-enactment of the battles also imposed on us a duty to protect people's safety and security. Given the abusive language heard of late and the threats made in the media, we, as responsible managers, could not: risk compromising the security of the families and children attending the event—including those of the "re-enactors"; and accept that such a popular, pedagogical and historical event for the whole family turn into a clash between law enforcement authorities and demonstrators.

    To those who blamed us for reacting too late to the publication of the first newspaper articles in January, I would like to say that we had not completed our consultations with our partners and wished to do so before announcing the complete program of the commemoration.

    The debate then became political, and we considered that it was not for a public institution like ours to engage at that level. We were totally convinced that the commission's programming was respectful and completely justified on the historical level. At that point, we thought it appropriate that the commission's response would be to present a revised, detailed program, all other aspects being beyond our responsibility. That is what we did on February 17.

    I want to make it clear that it was never the commission's intention to create a festive event out of the commemoration of the battles of 1759 and 1760.

    In fact, all activities that were planned as part of our programming were based on historical events that occurred in the colony at the end of the 18^th century.

    However, the highly emotional nature of the debate allowed us to better understand people's sensitivities regarding such historical commemorations, a sort of unexpected public survey.

    In light of the consultations we held and the various opinions that we received, we decided to: cancel the re-enactment of 1759 and 1760; remove the visual aspect and substitute a more educational activity for the masked ball.

    In summary, here are the main elements of the commission's revised programming to commemorate the 250^th anniversaries of the battles of the Plains of Abraham and the Battle of Sainte-Foy, according to the spirit of the commission's mandate as set out earlier:

    —the book launch by the Éditions du Septentrion of the book entitled Québec ville assiégée, 1759-1760 par les acteurs et les témoins;

    —the exhibition The taking of Québec, 1759-1760 by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the publication of the exhibition's catalogue by the National Battlefields Commission;

    —the exhibition at the Discovery Pavilion of the Plains of Abraham on the Seven Years' War in North America;

    —a historical activity dealing with the various aspects of the battles of Quebec City;

    —the State of Siege: a portrait of the life of Quebec citizens during the siege of the summer of 1759;

    —a rally with the patronymic descendants of the combatants;

    —an on-line database of the British soldiers during the battles of 1759 and 1760;

    —a seminar at the Chapel of the Musée de l'Amérique française: The Seven Years' War in America, in cooperation with the Société généalogique canadienne-française.

    We will unveil memorials: a memorial to the combatants, a memorial to the aboriginal alliances, and busts of Lévis and Murray.

    Several other partnerships are planned as part of the 250^th anniversaries of the battles of 1759 and 1760. The commission has offered to produce a brochure containing the activities of other organizations that had planned to commemorate the events. A number of organizations have accepted our invitation, including Parks Canada, la Grande Ferme de Saint-Joachim and the Société d'art et d'histoire de Beauport.

    I would like to say that the budget of the revised program amounts to approximately $320,000. The sum total of those funds was allocated from the commission's regular budget. No special budget to commemorate the events was allocated by the Government of Canada. A budget transfer was made between fiscal years, thanks to savings made in a number of expenditure items and an increase in own-source revenue. This budget decision was made by the commission in accordance with its mandate.

    A number of individuals and groups are expected to visit Battlefields Park during the summer of 2009. Among other things, they are attracted by the fact that the Battle of the Plains of Abraham was part of the Seven Years' War, and the interest in that conflict both in Europe and America has already been revived, especially since 2005 by the “re-enactors”.

    It is understandable therefore that those who are interested in this world conflict would want to learn more about the site of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which has taken on mythical proportions. The commission will welcome them and facilitate their contact with other institutions, as need be.

    The intentions of the commission should have been assessed based on adequate and established information.

    That way people would have understood the context in which the re-enactments were planned. We find it was senseless and slanderous to say that the commission intended to celebrate a military defeat that, after 1763, has been considered a landmark event in our history.

    In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that the commission's programming is, in historical terms, fully justified, well-balanced and respectful.

    The National Battle fields Commission remains open and willing to cooperate. It has and will continue to listen to people's concerns.

    Thank you.

     Thank you very much for that.

    Our first question comes from Mr. Rodriguez.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Good afternoon, Mr. Juneau. By reading your comments in various articles, I get the impression that you were surprised by the scope of the reactions. Obviously, people knew that it would inflame passions. Personally, I did not think that it was a good idea or the idea of the century. That said, I did not think that it would cause such an outpouring of emotions, threats and aggression directed toward the commission.

    Correct me if I am wrong, but those threats could target the participants or visitors.

    Yes, that is correct.

    Could you give us a little more detail about those threats?

    Very well.

    I would first like to clarify the context. You say that we had not thought that such things would occur. We knew that the re-enactments of the battles of the Plains of Abraham and Sainte-Foy were different from those that were held in 1994, 1998, 1999 and 2004. Those were battles that pitted the Americans against the British. Our innermost feelings as francophones were not stirred by those events. We were aware of that.

    The battles must be replaced within the context of the Seven Years' war. Given that this was a world conflict, an increasing number of historians around the world became interested in the battles of the Seven Years' war, as of 2002, 2003 or 2004. This led us to examine the considerations of historians, especially since the Americans decided to re-enact all the battles in the U.S. in 2005.

    You are not quite answering my question.

    I am coming to it.

    In a free and democratic society, we cannot accept such threats. Since you have first-hand knowledge, I would like to know more precisely what kind of threats you faced. I have only five minutes.

    We received threats through the media, stating that people would prevent us from holding the event using any means at their disposal, whether by hurling golf balls or sandbags, or burning the encampment. We also received emails. These are the kinds of threats we receive when organizing events, but the threats in this case were far greater and more specific.

    We heard Mr. Falardeau say that he was willing to throw excrement, manure or rocks. Did you receive threats directly or through the media?

    We received email threats from other people, but not Mr. Falardeau.

    From Mr. Bourgeois, for example.

    Mr. Bourgeois did send us his comments, but there were no such threats.

    Whose physical security were you concerned about exactly? The participants, the visitors, families, children or other people who would have been on site?

    The commission has vast experience in welcoming crowds to the park. We have a security team and are always cooperating with the city of Quebec.

    We therefore must analyze the type of event we are organizing. When we organize a formal event, with a few invited guests, it is easy to ensure their safety and protect them against threats.

    But in this case, we expect to receive 2,000 people, including families, who will camp out in the park for three days and walk about freely throughout the city, and because they are representing the battle of the Plains of Abraham... You must understand that, at the time, the British had not yet arrived. It would therefore be hard to ensure control.

    So you were concerned about the physical safety and security of participants and families.

    And the "re-enactors".

    Would you have wanted the political parties of which those people are members, namely the Bloc Québécois and Parti Québécois, to have tried to calm things down, instead of pouring fuel on the fire? Could that have helped?

    Certainly, that could have helped, but I respect people's opinions. They decided to do what they did and I cannot comment on that.

    I cannot agree. I would have tried to calm things down.

    Things were a bit distorted in the media. We heard talk about a "festive" event, but that had never been our intention. As we were dealing with historians, we focused on historical elements.

    I understand. I myself have problems with the general idea and I do not think it was a good idea. Whether you are for or against, when you have political responsibilities or are involved on the ground, you have to assume those responsibilities and try to reason with those around you. That is what I am trying to say.

    Are the threats currently being investigated by the police? Is an investigation being conducted?

    Yes, the threats are being analyzed. That is what I have been told.

    That's it.

    A very short answer.

    They are being analyzed.

    Thank you.

    Madame Lavallée.

    Thank you very much.

    Thanks to the Gomery Commission, we learned that you were able to obtain over $1 million in sponsorship funding for various projects. A letter that you sent in 1999 to Alfonso Gagliano shows that you requested those amounts for political purposes, i.e., to promote Canadian unity. You also put in a request for funding from Jean Chrétien's secret Canadian unity fund, and received some $5 million for the National Battlefields Commission.

    The documents tabled with the Gomery Commission also show that the Canada Information Office, an organization...

    Excuse me, Madame Lavallée.

    A point of order, Mr. Bruinooge.

    I really don't see the relevance of this line of questioning. The Bloc member herself called for Mr. Juneau to come here and talk about the Plains of Abraham re-enactment. Her line of questioning has absolutely nothing to do with her actual suggestion for him to come, so perhaps you could ask her to clarify.

     I think Mr. Bruinooge has a point. Mr. Juneau is here to answer questions on the cancellation of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham's 250th anniversary.

    Please keep them a little more to the point.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Indeed, I will continue with my relevant line of questioning because I think that the re-enactment and all the activities that you planned for the 250^th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham were intended to promote Canadian unity, as a sequel to the sponsorship scandal.

    Mr. Juneau, I sincerely think that what we are seeing today is the after-effect of the sponsorship scandal. You said that you cancelled the re-enactment for security reasons, but I think those are false pretences. Furthermore, the Bloc has completely distanced itself from all those security issues, in the past, present and future, and it will continue to do so.

    Excuse me, Madame Lavallée. We brought this gentleman here to answer questions on the cancellation of the--

    I am getting to the point.

    Let's not get off topic; let's not point fingers that way.

    I'd like to know why this was cancelled to start with and maybe why it didn't go forward.

     Please stick a little closer to the questions I think should be asked.

    That is relevant, Mr. Chair, because Mr. Juneau himself said that he cancelled the event for security reasons. I am saying that those are false pretences because he had already announced in the Globe and Mail, for example, that he would reconsider the event if it was taken to be a provocation.

    Mr. Juneau, do you not find that you lacked judgment on a number of occasions? You lacked judgment in taking part in the sponsorship scandal. You lacked judgment by organizing this event. Did you not also lack judgment by organizing a festive activity that would lead to divisiveness, when you were asked to organize a solemn and dignified event? You lacked judgment concerning Quebeckers' sensitivity. You cancelled the event under false pretences. You allowed yourself to be blinded by your partisan and federal interests.

    For all of those reasons, do you not find that the Bloc is justified in asking for your resignation?

    No, and allow me to explain why. To start, I do not need to resign. I will repeat what I said earlier: given the nature of my position, they can dismiss me, and I would have no qualms about retiring. The conclusions that you have reached contain a number of falsehoods. You presume that the event was festive, whereas re-enactments around the world are never festive.

    I apologize for interrupting, but a masked ball is a festive event.

    We gave a very good explanation for the masked ball, and I can repeat it for you. I will come back to the issue of the masked ball.

    The sponsorship scandal and the sponsorship program are two different things altogether. The National Battlefields Commission was more of a victim than a recipient of the sponsorship program. In fact, at one point, the program hit us on the head like a two-by-four. All of a sudden, we learned that a study had been done in Quebec showing that the Plains of Abraham were considered as the federal government's visibility site in that province.

    I asked the minister at the time, Mr. Gagliano, what that meant. He told me that the site would be used for various events. It is from that point on that the program began funding various events that were not—I repeat—under the commission's responsibility. It was—

    I apologize for interrupting, but I only have five minutes.

    You said that it was through you that Mr. Gagliano promoted Canadian unity. That is what you are saying.

    Yes, but we did not decide which programs would be carried out. For example, I read about hot air balloons and the commission in the newspapers. There were hot air balloons on the plains, but that was not the work of the commission.

    A point of order, Mr. Rodriguez?

    Mr. Chair, I would like to make a point of order. We are debating the sponsorship affair. The Liberal Party paid the price for those sponsorships. What is past is past. The Conservatives won the election.

    The Bloc Québécois was not being truthful when we discussed whether or not we should invite Mr. Juneau. The Bloc Québécois assured us that the meeting would be on the Plains of Abraham, so I asked my colleague to keep to the matter at hand, please.

    Go ahead, please. You have less than a minute left.

    Please continue, Mr. Juneau, you were on a roll.

    Would you like me to ask you other questions?

    No, no—

    Don't worry, I have so many that you couldn't possibly answer them all.

    I'm not so sure about that.

    When the current government came into power in 2006, did your mandate change? Were your minister's expectations different from those of the previous Liberal ministers?

    Were you asked to be more visible, more involved in the community?

    Could you repeat the start of your question?

    I was talking about when the Conservatives came to power.

    There were no changes. In fact, ministers change so often that the commission, as is probably the case with other organizations, never has the chance to meet with them. We therefore operate according to the program.

    I have held this position for the past 13 years and have worked under seven Canadian Heritage ministers during that time. We follow the program. There were no instructions for or against that. We are continuing to do our work as before.

    You spoke about extraordinary visibility. I would like to quote the words of Pierre Boucher in Le Devoir, who stated that this was a subliminal visibility.

    Maybe you can get that through in the next round. I have to move on now.

    Mr. Mulcair.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I also wish to welcome Mr. Juneau, a former citizen of Cap-Rouge, and it is with pleasure that I do so.

    I meant to ask him questions that are somewhat in line with those of Ms. Lavallée. I find this all concerning.

    Cancelling the event was the right decision, but I think it was made for the wrong reason. It had to be cancelled because celebrating the conquest was a very bad idea from the outset.

    I had the opportunity to speak about this issue on a number of television shows in English Canada. I remember when I was with Tom Clark from CTV, who introduced the issue as follows:

    “When Wolfe defeated Montcalm”, “The victory of Wolfe over Montcalm”.

    Immediately after, he interviewed Mr. De Waele, a professor from Laval University, who said:

    “That was the conquest.”

    He then turned to me and said: "What do you think?" I replied: "You have your answer." For some it was "the victory"; for others, it was "the conquest".

    When I was a student I did some research into how the Battle of the Plains of Abraham was depicted in the school books of anglophone and francophone high schools in Quebec. It was no surprise to see that the versions were somewhat different. I specifically looked at how the books described the English scaling the cliffs. In the English version, they were often described as being cunning. It was often the Scots, who were familiar with French, who had succeeded in tricking the sentries. The French version referred rather—and this is one of my favourite versions—to a traitor, probably a Swiss, who had sold out, and so on. It all depends on the point of view.

    The 250^th anniversary of this event could have been calmly discussed in a university setting. I do not want to attack you personally, you are a person of experience, but quite seriously, I do not understand that choice.

    I'll remind you of another ridiculous government decision a few years ago. You are probably familiar with Grosse-Île, which is just downstream from Quebec City, after the Île d'Orléans. This was a very important place for the Irish community in Quebec and Quebec City. During the famines, several families lost their kin on that island. Families were prevented from going there because of the significant losses due to health reasons. The federal gnomes decided to make a theme park rather than something a little more sober and respectful. This caused an outcry within the Irish community. Sometimes all you need to do is speak to a few Quebeckers from the outside in order to understand that some of the decisions that are made here are completely disconnected from the people in those communities.

    You come from Quebec City, more specifically Cap-Rouge, which is today part of Quebec City.

    From Quebec City, yes.

    I don't understand. Do you realize today that it was a mistake to plan this type of event? Do you still think that a conquest should be celebrated?

    No, that should not be celebrated. I am in absolute agreement with you. Furthermore, no one ever said that it was going to be celebrated. That is the source of the problem, the word "fêter". At a certain point in time, to provoke some debate—and this was rather clever—reporters said that we were going to celebrate the conquest. Yet it was never our intention to celebrate the conquest. The historians with us, including Mr. De Waele—

    With all due respect, Mr. Juneau, I think that is the problem: there is a disconnect. We won't even talk about the masked ball. Let's stick to the event itself. It's festive. It attracts people from everywhere. It is mostly Americans who would have recreated the event. It is partly a celebration.

    However, this is the battle that branded, if I dare say, the people who were there, that is the French, who now number 7 million in North America, where there are 350 million anglophones. They managed to preserve their civil rights and their customs, and their language, with a good degree of effort. This has been an ongoing battle for 250 years because of that defeat, that conquest.

    Do you not think that your group was rather insensitive about that?

    I think that on the substance we understand each other. I agree with you. We thought about everything you have just said, Mr. Mulcair. There is only one point on which we differ. We know that others come after, because this was part of the Seven Years' War. In fact, those were the last two battles of the Seven Year's War in America. I am also a francophone, and one of my ancestors died during that battle. I am therefore directly affected by that.

    After 250 years, perhaps we could be teaching it—

     Be very quick, please.

    All right. But today, we can look back on the situation with some hindsight because, as a society, we have our institutions and we are able to speak to each other in French, etc. We have noted the sensitivity of the people who have written us beautiful letters. As I said earlier, this was part of the reason why we decided to back down. There was also the issue of security.

    We didn't think that this was forgotten, but rather something that happened quite a long time ago.

    I think that you are aware now that you may have been mistaken.

    We have to move on. We'll move on to our next questioner.

    Mr. Del Mastro, please.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Mr. Juneau, I'm going to speak to you in English, but feel free to respond en français . I'm more comfortable in English, so I'll speak in English.

    First of all, thank you for accepting our invitation to appear before committee today. I appreciate your coming forward.

    You indicated that the National Battlefields Commission has been in existence since 2008. It exists as an independent body, independent of political interference, and you've indicated that there's been no change in your mandate since our government came to power. You also indicated that there is a seat allotted to the Government of Quebec.

    From 1908, yes.

    1908.

    You said 2008.

    Mr. Chair, 2008 or 1908, it's only 100 years. It's semantics.

     I'm just kidding. Thank you.

    Sir, you've been the chair since 1995, and during that time there have been formal re-enactments to mark that date.

    What we're talking about is a commemoration, and I think this is where both the Bloc and Mr. Mulcair are really lost. This is a commemoration; we're marking a date. There were formal re-enactments in 1999, and I understand there was another one in 2004.

     Now, it's been reported that the plan to mark the 250th anniversary had been discussed for a decade. This has been in planning, or has certainly been talked about, for some time.

    Am I correct in asserting that this historic commemoration would have gone ahead if extremist groups, supported by the Bloc and the PQ, hadn't threatened public safety? Is that a correct statement?

    We decided to cancel it for two reasons, the first reason being security. As for the second reason, we did understand the sensitivity of people, we understood what they were telling us. The other re-enactments did not create any debate. We had not thought that, in this case, it would go so far. We did expect some reaction, but we were prepared to listen to people and to modify the re-enactment in order to give it more character, more respect.

    We are talking about the re-enactment because a decision was made on this issue. You would be surprised to see the list of suggestions that we received from everyone, including historians, in order to remember this battle. One of my mistakes—and I am not perfect, I know—is to have been a bit carried away by the ideas suggested by the historians over the past five or six years. Here I'm referring to all kinds of endeavours such as, for example, organizing the ball or having a ship that could have gone up the St. Lawrence to remind us that it had destroyed all the towns in its path. About 15 of the events that had been submitted to the Quebec access to Information Board were cancelled. We retained the idea for the two battles because this type of thing is done throughout the world and we thought that we could do it.

    Thank you, sir.

    I don't have a lot of time, and I did have a couple of questions I wanted to get through.

    In 1999, when that re-enactment took place, you did indicate there was a seat for the Quebec government. What party was in power in Quebec in 1999? Was that the PQ at that time? Is that correct?

    In 1999? The representative?

    It was the PQ.

    It was Mr. ...

    No, no, it was...

    What I'm getting at is that you indicated there were sensitivities this time, which weren't there last time.

    Do you think that's just the Bloc and the PQ playing politics, trying to divide people and in fact inciting violence upon Quebeckers? They incited emotions that literally divided Quebeckers—not Canadians. This was something really quite remarkable that the Bloc has actually played a very significant part in pushing forward.

     Of course the opposition to this thing came from various sources. It came from the Bloc, it came from people, and it came from Premier Charest. We listened to everybody and we said okay, that's a bigger problem than the problem we were expecting, so....

    Right. But it would be fair to say that Premier Charest, in fairness, was not actually supporting or seen to be encouraging those who were threatening the security of some 2,000 people, including families, that you had coming to this event. Premier Charest had nothing to do with that.

    No. I just said that he exposed his view.

    He simply said that he would not go. We understood that he, like many others , did not want to support this event. I wrote about this in the document, which includes just about everything. We listened to people, regardless of who they were, and we reached this conclusion. I gave the example of the visit from a head of state. In such a situation, regardless of the threat, the required police forces are present.

    In our case, this was different. We suggested an event, which raised issues, questions. We thought that it would get a little bit of reaction, but not as much as it did. We were free to withdraw this event. We received a negative reaction in terms of sensitivity and, as far as security was concerned, we were advised not to hold the event.

    Okay. Thank you.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Proulx.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Good afternoon, Mr. Juneau, and welcome to the committee.

    Mr. Juneau, I would like to know whether or not you are an historian, and if you have been involved for a long time in—

    No, I am a forester, sir. But that does not prevent me from loving history.

    I understand that.

    Tell me, you must be part of an international association and have regular contacts with groups involved in re-enactments of this type, held in the United States or elsewhere.

    We are not part of an international association nor are we a member of the "re-enactors". These "re-enactors" are organizations that organize re-enactments. We are in contact with them given that they have come to the Plains of Abraham on a few occasions, but we are primarily in contact with the Quebec re-enactor corps. There is also a group in England and in France.

    You are referring to the Quebec Historical Corps and—

    Yes.

    ...Mr. Tremblay?

    Mr. Tremblay came to speak but I think it is a certain person named Dresler who is in charge of the corps.

    That is where I was headed with my question. Have you ever heard of a re-enactment similar to this being cancelled because people were afraid of security problems?

    Not to my knowledge. We are aware that the situation differs according to the re-enactment, according to the long-term impact of the battle. I agree with what Mr. Mulcair said earlier, the Battle of the Plains of Abraham has had an ongoing effect, whereas in the case of other re-enactments of battles, when it was over it was over. When we re-enacted the battle of the British against the Americans, there was no reaction.

    I do not want to judge, but it seems to me that we might have thought of this before. You now admit that it was perhaps not the idea of the century, as my colleague said earlier.

    Mr. Juneau, I imagine that the decision to hold this event—and I am referring here to the re-enactment and not to the masked ball—comes from the board of directors. You must not have taken it alone.

    No, nor was the decision taken overnight. We were working on several events at the same time. Among other things, there was the conference and the exhibition. The re-enactment was only one component. At one point, sitting around the table, historians had proposed that the re-enactment be done more respectfully and that several components be added, possibly a giant screen upon which the names of the French who died that appeared in Jean-Yves Bronze's book would be projected, and so on. There were choices to be made and they were made. We felt that in order to attract the greatest number of people to inform them about these events, this was the best way to proceed.

    I do not have much time left and I have several questions to ask. Tell me briefly about the mascarade ball. What was the intention behind this idea?

    The historians suggested the idea of the mascarade ball. We were preparing and we had to respect the logical sequence of events. We wanted to invoke life in Quebec City in 1759. We were told that it was an aristocratic era. Then the military authorities arrived, in this instance Montcalm, and the people were neglected, left in poverty. It was despicable. The symbol of this opulence was that, during the winter, the intendant gave two or three balls per week. Montcalm wrote to Vaudreuil several times—I read this text the other day, and I have it here and could read it for you—to ask him to stop having balls that no one wanted. This slowly set Vaudreuil and Montcalm against one another, which had significant consequences during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Vaudreuil meddled in Montcalm's military strategy to prevent him from sending a battalion onto the plains.

    This is what we wanted to demonstrate.

    I would like to come back to modern times.

    Talk to me about the threat issue. I found it tiresome and upsetting to realize that in 2008 and 2009 some groups are still able to make threats. I imagine that some of them were directed to the commission and others to individuals. I know that some threats were repeated by the press.

    You received e-mail threats addressed to the commission or to you personally. Approximately how many did you receive, Mr. Juneau?

    More than 150.

    Did any of them contain physical threats?

    No, none of them contained physical threats to me. Rather, people threatened to disrupt the event, to throw things, to set fires, and so on.

    I hope that these approximately 150 emails were given to the police.

    Indeed, they were handed over to the police, who recognized the need to do a more in-depth investigation of one or two things that truly seemed to be threats.

    Thank you, Mr. Juneau.

     Thank you.

    Mr. Pomerleau.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Good afternoon, Mr. Juneau.

    This re-enactment is unacceptable for one fundamental reason: conquerers never celebrate their victory on the land of those who met with defeat. That is the way of history.

    That's true.

    Exactly. The Germans never asked the Parisians to re-enact Germany's entrance into Paris in order to celebrate the German victory. If ever they made such a request, the Germans would get what was coming to them, even if they promised to respect the historical accounts faithfully, the length of the guns, the time periods and any other historical detail. The Japanese will never ask the Americans if they could re-enact the attack on Pearl Harbour to celebrate their victory. This is what is unacceptable in this entire affair, but there is even more.

    You have abandoned the idea of re-enacting these events. I congratulate you, because this was the right decision. Fundamentally, the original idea was a mistake. However, some other things will have to be abandoned as well.

    I just found out about one thing. On your Internet site, you invite young schoolchildren to take part in battles on the Plains of Abraham. And you say that this is not a festive activity? I have found a few words and expressions on the site. You invite them to take part in entertaining activities and to enrol so that they can participate in thrilling military maneuvers. And if that's not festive, what is? These activities are offered as some kind of reward for the best students from elementary schools. This should be banned.

    There is no method to invite young people to come re-enact battles on a battlefield. How can you justify something like this?

    I think we are straying from the topic somewhat.

    No, this is related to the re-enactment. It's on your website, Mr. Juneau.

    These activities have been around for 15 years or so.

    It is time for them to stop.

    They are very popular. They draw approximately 60,000 students per year.

    It is not important to me whether they are popular or not.

    These activities are offered as part of students' field trips. That's why they are considered festive.

    These activities are not re-enactments of battles. They allow the children to look at the strategies. We show them a large chart made of velcro. The young people learned about the events at school. So they come with their teacher or their parents. They experience this page taken out of history in a lighter way, on the actual site of the battle. We do not show them how to use a gun or how to wage war; we explain history to them.

    Some voices: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Marcel Proulx: The Government of Quebec?

    I can ask questions, Mr. Chairman? In that case, I would like to do so.

    In the description on that site, you talk about re-enactments, thrilling military manoeuvres with flags, drums, cannons, and military artifacts such as period firearms.

    There are some cannons that are made with wood and can be opened up. We show young people how they worked at the time. Gunpowder was inserted here, someone had to clean the cannon, etc. That is what they see. It is the same thing for muskets. We explain how they worked and that soldiers stayed close to one another because bullets did not fall very far from the muskets.

    The purpose is not to show people how to wage war, but rather give them a visual demonstration of how things were done at the time, on the very site where the events took place.

    We can teach history without having to do what you have just described. I have taken history courses my entire life and I have never had to practise on a battlefield to know whether Waterloo was won in this or that way.

    I do not want to get into that, sir. We receive an increasing number of annual requests. Regardless, it is a political...

    Oh, it is political?

    It has to do with work-life balance. Students go on outings. We even get requests to organize day-long activities. We signed agreements with the National Capital Commission, for instance. They take students for half a day and we take them for the other half. There are more students on the plains and in the national parks at some times during the season than there are attending classes. I did not decide that.

    You get ten seconds, Madame Lavallée.

    You said to the Globe and Mail in an article dated January 16, 2009, that Ottawa was telling you to be very careful, they did not want to offend anyone. That there should be no political confrontation. When you say Ottawa, who are you referring to? Ms. Verner's office, Mr. Moore's or the minister's aides?

    No, I was referring to officials falling under the minister's portfolio. They are the ones we deal with.

    Thank you.

    We are an agency. The portfolio includes 18 such agencies. That is our boss in Ottawa. We come under the Department of Canadian Heritage.

    That's it for your questions right now.

    Ms. Boucher.

    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.

    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.

    You have funded it.

    Excuse me.

    Excuse me, Madame Lavallée. You're not on the list of speakers.

    Before all this began, it was funded.

    By the Bloc Québécois.

    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.

    I take back my comments.

    I have a point of order.

    Mr. Chair, I represent the riding of Québec and during the week, when there were charges...

    You're not on the list of speakers. Excuse me.

    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?

    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.

    Were you surprised by the threatening tone of voice some individuals used when speaking about you and the Quebec City region?

    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.

    Thank you very much.

    Mr. Simms.

    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?

    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.

    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.

    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.

    Did you receive any objections at the time or any protests of any sort through the years?

    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%.

     Oh, I see. That's interesting.

    Here is another quick question about the participants themselves. Did the uniformed participants involved here receive any threats that were communicated to you in any which-way? Were they saying to you that they were receiving threats from individuals and therefore they were not particularly excited and were nervous about getting involved with this?

    Are you referring to the “re-enactors”? Yes. You have to take this situation into account. Earlier, I explained the issue involving security. At the Canada Day celebrations, for example, one group of individuals tries to keep the demonstrators to one side and the other visitors to the other side, and the police position themselves between the two groups.

    In this case, the individuals are free to do what they like. The leave the camp in the evening to go to the city and have a good meal with some good wine in one of Quebec City's restaurants. At that point, we have no further control over these individuals. If there is an anti-British soldier atmosphere, guys who go into the city dressed in their red uniform become an outlet for certain people, and there's nothing we can do about that.

    After speaking with the “re-enactors“, we decided that we could not guarantee their safety adequately in the camps or elsewhere. The threat was a little more serious, but it was the type of event that made all of this very difficult to control.

    I would like to ask you a question about the site where you work in cooperation with the Quebec government. You have been doing that for a number of years. You spoke about 15 years.

    That's is correct.

    That includes the eight years during which the Parti Québécois was in power.

    Yes.

    And the government never said anything about this?

    We have always had good relations with all governments.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Poilievre.

    I must confess that my constituents were shocked to hear that a group of extremists funded by the Bloc had threatened Quebeckers with violence and thus violated their freedom of expression.

    Ms. Carole Lavallée: On a point of order.

    An Hon. Member: People are not allowed to say just anything.

    Just one second. Just tone it down a little bit, please.

    Point of order. Ms. Lavallée, keep it very short, please.

    I have a point of order, Mr. Chair, and I want to speak.

    What Mr. Poilievre says is false. The Bloc Québécois does not fund extremists. I would like him to withdraw his comments. I'm asking you to have him withdraw his comments, Mr. Chair.

    It's just an argument right now.

     I hope that doesn't come off my time.

    My constituents are justifiably shocked that a group of extremist thugs who have received financing from the Bloc Québécois have threatened Quebeckers with violence and have censored the freedom of expression of Quebeckers. I am here today to express that viewpoint

    by stressing the facts. The February 21, 2009 issue of Le Soleil reported:

    Excuse me.

    I hope my clock is not running on this.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    First and foremost, I'm going to ask you to respect points of order. Second, I would like to make it clear that the publication Le Québécois is not on today's agenda.

    Excuse me. I don't think this is a point of order.

    The newspaper Le Québécois...

    I don't think it's a point of order.

    ... is not what we are studying here today.

    It's an interruption. Mr. Poilievre, go ahead, please.

    Pierre Falardeau...

    You cannot muzzle me!

    No, but you cannot say...

    Pierre Falardeau, one of the most radical separatists, publishes Le Québécois, which receives 80% of its advertising revenue from the Bloc Québécois and the PQ. This is a fact. Patrick Bourgeois is the manager of the paper and the main contact person, Mr. Chairman. I believe that the Bloc Québécois does not want these facts to be made public, but Mr. Bourgeois has said:

    This was written in Le Devoir. There is no doubt that it is a call to violence against Quebec media. That's a fact.

    In the December-January 2008-2009 edition of the same paper, that is, Le Québécois, Patrick Bourgeois accused Jean Charest of wanting to increase the number of immigrants to Quebec in order to put Quebec's francophones into a minority position. Mr. Bourgeois said: "That level of immigration for Quebec is worrisome".

    He continues by stating that Quebeckers lost the 1995 referendum because of the weak demographic weight of old-stock Quebeckers.

    Mr. Chair, I thought we had turned the page with regard to money and the ethnic vote. It's quite simply racism. And it is funded to the level of 80% by the Bloc Québécois. The same paper even proferred threats—

    I'm having a hard time--

    —I see here that funding... She does not want the text to be made public.

    I'm having a hard time getting translation.

    Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

    And now do we have problems with translation? Do you want it in English?

    Okay, is this a point of order or is this debate?

    I have a point of order. Anything Patrick Bourgeois has said has nothing to do with the re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which is what we are discussing today.

    He is the one who proferred threats.

    I am asking you, Mr. Chairman, to be more rigorous and that members focus on the subject at hand today. You asked the same thing of me, and I respected what you said. I am asking you now to apply the same rule to Mr. Poilievre, who, by the way, is basically talking nonsense.

    Carry on and ask the question of Mr. Juneau, please.

    Thank you.

    I would like to remind the honourable member that these threats were made in Le Québécois, which is mostly funded by the Bloc Québécois and the PQ. They have used their parliamentary budget to place advertisements in these papers which contain racist statements and which threaten Quebeckers with violence.

    I can show you even more, for example on page 5. In this paper there are about five advertisements, all paid for by the Bloc Québécois and the PQ, which help to fund the paper. They have never renounced—

     Mr. Poilievre, could you please ask Mr. Juneau the question?

    Do you feel that the threats contained in Le Québécois influenced your decision with regard to the Plains of Abraham re-enactment?

    As far as the discussions are concerned, we were not involved in that. By that I mean that certain statements were directed at myself and at the commission, and they came from Mr. Bourgeois. Those were threats. I don't think he is denying that. They appeared in newspapers. We reacted to them in the same way we reacted to threats contained in e-mails or from other sources. If you are asking me whether Mr. Bourgeois threatened me, my answer is yes. As for everything which was said in the papers and the issue of funding—

    Thank you very much for your reply.

    I would now like to introduce a motion, which reads as follows:

    The motion has been read, but we can't accept it at this particular meeting.

    I'll give the 48 hours' notice today.

     We have the 48 hours' notice so that it can be reviewed by the committee.

    With that, I thank you, Mr. Juneau, for appearing today, and I am going to adjourn the meeting.

    The meeting is adjourned