Although it is the news medias’ well-known vocation to report “the news” in as clear and as objective a way possible, often the media makes news itself. This has become a means
of social manipulation, as in the current Trump era, especially malicious when incorporated into the upside-down digital world of so-called “social media”. This makes the job of
journalists and publishers all the more difficult and it usually involves the bigger media with more reach. However, some smaller partisan news outlets are designed just for the purpose of manipulating public opinion during certain public upheavals or campaigns.
The Journal, with over 10,000 copies distributed, has not been immune — and this phenomena has not always been negative.
During Quebec’s last independence referendum, October 30, 1995, the Journal du Pontiac proposed that the province’s linguistic minority explore remaining within Canada — as a newly created Crown Duchy. This seemed feasible thanks to a quirk of history which constituted Canada as formally ruled by Great Britain’s rules of a monarchy. Although it took many editorials and interviews to explain, the concept of a Duchy of Pontiac (because Pontiac was the region then holding a majority of non-francophone Quebeckers), made historical sense, and caught minority Quebec’s imagination. The concept soon spread like political wildfire across certain parts of the province, until the actual independence
referendum was narrowly defeated.
The media in the “Rest of Canada”, alarmed by the county’s possible break-up, covered the story almost everywhere. McGill Law School’s graduating class of that year undertook to explore and prepare a brief to that effect: was it a legal possibility within the Dominion of Canada?
Curiously, the Journal’s proposal was covered by our national media more than by some local media, especially anglo media!
In fact, even the local provincial representatives, MLAs, stayed mum on the subject except to threaten any public expression of its popularity. For example, at the Chapeau Fair, an
outraged MLA for the Pontiac, Robert Middlemiss, attempted to actually upset a card table distributing pro-Duchy bumper stickers, ball caps and t-shirts, and intimidate the youths
manning the table.
National media like the CBC and Mclean’s magazine covered the story as did the Vancouver Sun and other significant media across Canada, east to west. The Journal’s editor was interviewed by several European outlets, comparing this Duchy to the functioning Duchies of Luxembourg and Lichtenstein and various European constitutional monarchies. These were heady days, exploring the potential of this “far-out” alternative to the status quo.
With the narrow victory of the pro-Canada side, the issue lost steam, although some groups, such as one in Fort William on L’Isle-aux-Allumettes, tried to keep
the concept alive since the separatists were promising to try again.
Several years after the original Duchy debate the region’s francophone daily, LeDroit, covered the problem again — this time on its Sunday front pages, with two local spokes-
persons: Lionel Tessier for the separation side and myself on the unity side — we both were editors of the Pontiac Journal / Journal du Pontiac at the time. The Ottawa Citizen also gave it a Sunday featuretreatment.
This public debate represented the Journal’s commitment to good journalism; it addressed
the value of having and supporting local media and indicated to our community what we might expect of independent media acting with our best interests at heart.
The issues raised by the concept of the Duchy and the threat of separation are still with us—here in Quebec as well as in Alberta. Rural populations often feel they have more to lose than larger urban populations. Watch for future editions of this column with more information and discussion on the topic.