400 years of Canadian history

400 years of Canadian history reveals...
Quebec, a grown-up orphan, living in Canada, a hurting blended family!

When we survey our history beyond the politico-economic window, taking a fresh
look at relationships among French, Native and the varied English-speaking peoples
of Quebec and Canada, some questions arise concerning the values underlying their
coming together and pursuit of happiness.
As French and English settlers arrived in America, the old, ongoing European conflicts,
their slavery-influenced attitudes toward the indigens ("the Indians"), the Catholic
religious intolerance toward French Huguenots and English Protestants and the European
bent towards possession and business opportunity at any cost poisoned the relationships
among the three founding nations. Didn't our original history books assert that France
came to "civilise" and "evangelise" the Indians of America in the name of God? A closer
look reveals that the Indians were indispensable to the lucrative French and English
fur business.
We also discover that the relationships between the "mother" country, France, and her
settler "children" were exceedingly dysfunctional. At the British Conquest (1760),
Quebec, abandoned in deep pain and fear, wonders how "mother" could have used,
cheated, abandoned and, most tragic of all, sold her children to the English, their "eternal
enemies, "for some offshore fishing banks?
The landmark conquest and the threat of an American invasion launched Canada. We
observe the first steps of a hurting blended family that has yet to resolve the relational
pains of ancient and recent origin. The "children's" relationships are characterized by
ongoing dealings aiming to get material gain and "reasonable accommodation" for
their disparate cultures. The centrality and strength of the Catholic Church in the life
of French parishioners ensured their lifestyle would remain isolated - separated - from
the English alternative, keeping them out of the business and marketplace. It held the
schools back from progressive ideas, while calling on families to "make babies" and be
content living with only "a little bread" as farmers. This became the ideal, in reality the
"survival formula," for the French Catholic parish.
The Quiet Revolution (1960) became a wake-up call for the orphan, the Québécois
people who were largely still hurting in silence. The government, shifting its vision
to modernity from that survivalist parish mentality, set its focus on freedom and
material advancement. Clergy in leadership were displaced by professionals, and
God's Providence by "L'État providence" (modern welfare state). The Québécois began
abandoning the Catholic Church, pursuing instead the secular "religions" of pleasure
(hedonism) and the Nationalist venture. Where would this lead Quebec?
Imagining Quebec as a person, we note that his lifestyle, relationships and achievements
reveal a hurting orphan whose soul is bleeding while he searches for identity. Who is
responsible for his misfortune and pain? Is he still hoping to find a scapegoat for these?
Or, in his quest to make life work for him, might he open a new window, a "Window of
Hope... and Reconciliation" and rise to the personal challenge of the vision it provides?