JEAN-PAUL de Montréal écrit:

On the shore of the St. Lawrence River opposite Montreal is an old river town. It has metastasized into suburbia but the part near the river still looks like the old days; it was founded around 1650. The ancient stone church facing the river is a jewel. On the river bank facing the church is a recent stone monument about 6 feet high, in honour of Pierre Boucher who founded the town, Boucherville. About 10 feet away is an identical monument reading “Jeanne Crevier, Co-Fondatrice de Boucherville.” Their dates of birth and death show they both died in their nineties. 

Between the two monuments is a small, low bronze plaque, in a completely different style, apparently installed at a later date. This has only a list of names headed by the inscription: “Les enfants de Pierre Boucher et Jeanne Crevier.” There are fifteen names on that little bronze list. The monuments do not mention the fact that Jeanne and Pierre Boucher were husband and wife, parted only by their deaths in extreme old age, three centuries ago. 

In 1984, the Quebec government made it illegal for a wife to take her husband’s name. The 1984 legislation thus appears to have application in a somewhat retroactive manner: Mme Jeanne Boucher’s long life and accomplishments as a wife and mother of 15 children on the frontier in New France have been sent down the leftwing memory hole as though they never existed. The brutalization of the beautiful French language with PC terms like “co-fondatrice” (and “professeuse” and “skieuse” etc.) easily lends itself to satire, perhaps more so than the English varieties, but all of it reflects a mindset that our old friend George Orwell told us about in 1948 when he wrote you-know-what. Our French-speaking political correctness brigades are quite enthusiastic in the historical revisionism department, but the people who put up that little bronze list without using the forbidden words “husband” or “wife” may have quietly and discreetly gotten the last laugh.

 But I forgot to tell you about the elimination of the terms “mother”, “father” and “parent” in Quebec family law and the amusing corollary provisions flowing therefrom.  And the free, secret, government abortions for 14 year olds, did I mention them? All (perhaps) coming soon to a jurisdiction near you.

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