Bloc Québécois Leader is accusing the federal liberals of “appropriation” for using a flagship slogan of the province’s Quiet Revolution
OTTAWA – Leadership candidate Mark Carney and the federal Liberals are being accused of “appropriation” by Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet for using a flagship slogan of the province’s Quiet Revolution.
When Carney dropped the phrase “masters of our own house” in a speech near the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont., his advisers were surprised. It was a 1960s slogan used by the Quebec Liberals. The candidate knew it well and felt it applied to the current moment in Canada, with a hostile U.S. president.
“Mark just said it,” a source close to the candidate told this newspaper. He kept saying it across Quebec and the rest of the country.
In front of dozens of supporters in Quebec City, the crowd reportedly went wild when he uttered the words “Maîtres Chez Nous.”
But, like Blanchet, some Quebecer found the use of the phrase grating. Liberal supporters told National Post they weren’t impressed with Carney’s turn of phrase and felt he was using a reference he had recently learned. Others weren’t bothered by it.
“I think it’s probably a smart strategy, because it’s something that people associate positively with. It’s about pride. Economic pride,” said Jonathan Kalles, a former Quebec advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who remains neutral in the leadership race.
But according to Blanchet, this is going too far.
“It takes nerve to appropriate such a strong national theme of the Quiet Revolution while having campaigned so hard to drown its effects in the great Canadian void,” he wrote in a LinkedIn publication.
On social medias, some nationalists and separatists were calling the use of this slogan a “cultural appropriation.”
“‘Masters of our own house’ is a call for dignity, determination and leadership. We are in a time of crisis, and today, faced with (U.S. President Donald) Trump, Canada must build its own future and control its economic destiny,” Carney’s spokesperson Audrey Champoux told the National Post.
“If Mr. Blanchet believes that claiming our economic independence from the Trump administration is a mistake, let him say so clearly. We have no doubt: Canada will remain master in its own house,” she wrote in a written exchange.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Blanchet doubled down on the notion that federal Liberals do not care about Quebec.
“(Carney) doesn’t say anything!” he said. “His answer to everything is ‘I am Mark Carney, I am a crisis manager’.”
In Quebec City, even the minister of Justice and minister of Canadian Relations Simon Jolin-Barrette took a jab at the Liberal candidates after the French debate.
“It would have taken subtitles to understand what was being said. But what I understood, once again, is that there was no one in the Liberal Party of Canada to defend Quebec, which is once again unfortunate,” he told reporters.
His office did not wish to comment on the “Maître chez Nous” reference.
“Right here and now (Quebecers) are like every other Canadian voter. Their first focus is on the future of the economy, how to deal with tariffs, how to deal with Donald Trump, how to deal with economic crisis and get us out of it,” said Kalles.
And that’s why he thinks the “masters of our own house” line is popular right now.
Martin Pâquet agrees. This history professor at Université Laval has worked extensively on the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
In 1960, former federal Liberal minister Jean Lesage put together a young and dynamic team called the “the thunder team.” René Lévesque, who would later be the founder of the Parti Québécois, was one of his ministers, and Jacques Parizeau, who would also become premier of Quebec decades later, was one of his collaborators.
At the time, the Quebec Liberal Party wanted to bring a wind of change and emerge from a period of “great darkness.” “It’s time for a change!” was their first slogan. But two years later, they asked Quebecers for a strong mandate to nationalize hydroelectricity and make Hydro-Québec a state-owned company.
The context was important. Relations between U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker had soured. “The Canada-U.S. relations were very difficult. Very difficult,” said Pâquet in an interview.
American companies had a lot of power in Canada and in Quebec. At the time, 11 private companies, many of which were Americans, were ruling the energy sector in the province of Quebec. Quebecers and the Liberal government wanted to control their own economic destiny.
In 1962, “Maître chez Nous’’ was born. And it stuck.
“It is a slogan that has allowed the mobilization of sovereigntists and the mobilization of Quebec nationalists on a broader scale,” said Pâquet.
“So, I can understand that there is a feeling of spoliation because Mark Carney seizes it… It’s very clever of Mark Carney… and we are reactivating slogans from the past. Very often, it reaches a collective consciousness and allows people to be mobilized,” said Pâquet.
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