Speech on the Plains of Abraham: Carney accused of ‘rewriting history’

Mark Carney’s speech on Thursday, in which he referred to the Plains of Abraham, continues to spark reactions.

While visiting Quebec City, the prime minister said he saw the Battle of the Plains of Abraham as the beginning of a “partnership” between the French and the English.

“The Plains of Abraham symbolize a battlefield, but also the place where Canada began to make the historic choice to favour adaptation over assimilation, partnership over domination, collaboration over division,” he said.

He called for Canadian unity in the face of external threats, saying that “in Canada, it is when we are united that we are strongest.”

PM Mark Carney spoke in Quebec City after his trip to Davos on defending Canadian values, tackling AI risks, and showing how Canada can be both open and secure.

“Yesterday, Mark Carney delivered a speech rewriting history, presenting the Conquest as the beginning of a ‘partnership’ and ‘adaptation’ rather than ‘assimilation,’” Quebec’s Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, said on Friday.

“Two days ago, Mark Carney reminded us of Václav Havel’s famous speech and invited us to stop ‘living in a lie’ and reminded us that ‘the power of the powerless begins with honesty.’ I suggest he go back and read his speech from the day before,” he added in a post on X.

Carney’s speech also angered the leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ), Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, who accused him on Thursday of “falsifying our history.”

“Faced with a growing independence movement, the federal government … suddenly promises an end to contempt for our democratic choices, just like many other promises that will never come to fruition,” St-Pierre Plamondon responded.

“As Jean Chrétien recently reminded us … Canada is founded on lies and on the constant perpetuation of those lies by federal institutions,” he added.

Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet also reacted at the end of the day on Thursday.

“To claim that the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the end of New France is a founding moment in Canadian history that should be celebrated is a grotesque reinterpretation of Quebec history,” he said.

“The only effects this defeat had on the French in America were the loss of rights, submission to English rule, and sustained attempts at assimilation.”

St-Pierre Plamondon also promised to respond “point by point” to Carney at his party’s convention to be held this weekend in Saint-Hyacinthe.

“It was important for the Prime Minister to express how he sees Canada,” Federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne explained at a press scrum on Thursday.

“There is a lot of concern and uncertainty around the world, and I think the prime minister wanted to reassure Canadians that we have a clear vision for the country, that the unity of the country is essential for the future,” he said.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews