And The duty recognizes in an editorial the notoriety of Elizabeth II, he immediately admits that “His death plunges us into mixed feelings. We are stuck, between a great respect for the person but a detestation of the function she occupied.
Quebecers, adds the daily, thus pay homage to the character, “but hate the fact of being still also subject to the Crown”, the British sovereign being de facto king of Canada. A poll published last year revealed that 75% of Quebecers felt that the monarchy no longer had a place in Canada.
The Montreal Journal also flaunts its anti-Crown colors, writing:
“Quebec has no interest in keeping the remnants of the monarchy. The rest of Canada lives with the illusion that the waves of new immigrants who will populate it within a decade or two will identify with the monarchy. Good luck. In fact, only a democracy based on secular and republican values can found the Quebec and Canada of tomorrow.”
“Saturday of the truncheon”
If the Queen had a good eye for Canada, which she visited twenty-two times during her reign, it must be said, note The Press, that his relationship with the former colony was not just a fairy tale: “his visits have notably given rise to more than one debate on the monarchy in Canada, when they have not provoked demonstrations”. The daily particularly remembers its visit to Quebec on October 10, 1964, “where nationalist riots were violently suppressed in what is now known as ‘Laststick Saturday’”.
If Quebec had been favorable to the Crown until then, writes the publication, this feeling changed in the 1960s, “while the wind of independence was blowing over most of the former British colonies”. Monarchy, summarized for The Press historian Carolyn Harris, then became a symbol of colonialism, “whereas it was previously seen as a system that protected the rights of minorities”.
“Political flames”
The disappearance of Elizabeth II causes “political flames” in the Quebec election campaign, observes The sun. The Prime Minister of Quebec, François Legault, lowered the flags of the province on public buildings, attracting the opprobrium of the leader of the Parti Quebecois, an independentist party: “François Legault should not treat the Queen of England as head of the Quebec state, nor give credit to an illegitimate British colonial regime in Quebec”, reacted Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
In view of the ballot on October 3, note as follows The sun, “the Parti Québécois will obviously seek to take political advantage of the situation opened up by this death”.