The Regional Association of West Quebecers held a public screening of a documentary titled What We Chose to Remember last Saturday night in Pontiac High School’s auditorium. The filmmaker, Guy Rex Rodgers, also attended the screening to present his thoughts on the film and get the perspectives of the audience.
The documentary was structured around conversations with different generations of a diverse group anglo-Quebecers, focusing on their experiences of Quebec’s past and present.
Rodgers said in an interview with The Equity that he intended the movie to be a celebration of anglo-Quebecers and a rebuttal to the myth held by some francophones Quebecers that anglos are a privileged, monolithic minority.
The movie was not unsympathetic to claims of the French being a language under threat in North America, nor did it try to erase the history of discriminatory practices against francophones in the 19th and early 20th centuries, however, it did paint a picture of a contemporary anglophone community being unjustly discriminated against on the basis myths of privilege and entrenched prejudiced.
To accomplish this, Rodgers took a broad look at Quebec’s anglophones, ranging from descendants of families who have been in the province for over 200 years to first, second and third-generation immigrants.
The film also presented the interviews as group discussions between different contributors, which in Rodgers’s view, allowed people to share stories that they may have otherwise been afraid to.
The film detailed Quebec’s history dating back to the early 19th century in an effort to explain how certain segments of Quebec’s current anglophone community came to be, why they stayed in the province, and how they adapted to the provinces evolving language laws.
The movie payed specific attention to anglos from Montreal, though it did include a special section on the trials of anglos from the regions, where they often isolated minorities in very tight-knit communities.
Some of the major takeaways from the anglos interviewed, who were all at least bilingual, were striking. Many spoke of how they had been explicitly discriminated against on the basis of their lack of a perfect Quebecois accent in the province’s job market or their struggles in Quebec’s French-language education system. Anglophones from isolated communities in the region lamented the disappearance of their communities and lack of economic opportunity, especially for those unable to achieve proficiency in the French language.
Non-white anglos complained of the broader xenophobic aspects of Quebecois nationalism and its ‘besieged’ mentality, with one line being repeated in the film being along the lines of “You can’t see yourself as an oppressor if you believe you are constantly oppressed.”
Overall, despite spending time on the trails of anglos in Quebec, Rodgers, in both film and during the talk afterward, tried to strike an optimistic tone about the resilience of the anglophone community and genuine personal and community ties between the two francophones and anglophones.
He said a prime motivator behind the creation of the movie was the hope of creating a positive dialogue between francophones and anglophones, which could be used to move past the animosity, especially in the context of Bill 96.
“What bothers me is that something like a third of adult anglos are or have been in romantic relationships with francophones,” said Rodgers in a talk after the move. “You’re not going to see that in any other place is really divided between two people that really hate each other. So we don’t really hate each other. It’s sort of a performative thing.” You can watch the full movie for free at https://whatwechoosetoremember.ca/.
Brett Thoms
Shawville May 13, 2023
