The Media and the Failure of the Meech Lake Accord

Extract from an essay, “Divided We Stand,” by Diane Talbot on the failure of the media to convey the true nature of the Meech Lake Accord (which was to grant Québec special status and bring them into the Canadian constitution). Despite the very real concerns of French Canadians, Talbot suggests that perhaps the media, at least in part, fabricated the frenzy that led to the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord, ultimately leading to multiple referendums for sovereignty in Québec. In particular, she cites an inflammatory documentary film on the Brockville Affair.

— From Ryerson Review of Journalism, 1991

To Consider: Has a (perhaps overly) intense media stir caused political trouble in other nations? One might consider the documentary films of Michael Moore, during the recent presidential election in the United States.

http://www.ryerson.ca/rrj/archives/1991/talbotspr.html

As the debate gained momentum in the winter and spring of 1990, the coverage took on dangerous nuances. Images of intolerance littered our newspapers and polluted our television screens. Again and again, the media showed the spectacle of a handful of zealots in Brockville, Ontario, trampling the fleur-de-lis. Ontario mayors who declared their municipalities English-only were portrayed as anti-French and anti-Quebec. Dissenters, especially provincial premiers, who saw the Accord as flawed, hasty and force-fed, were presented as obstructionist at best, traitorous at worst. People who did not think the Accord was good for Canada commanded little media space. Thus, the real flaws in the Accord were ignored in the panic to see it pass without changes so Quebec wouldn't separate.

Both French and English media can be criticized for the dramatic play given to certain symbols that had little or nothing to do with the contents of the Accord. The Quebec media in particular turned the debate into an emotional battle between French and English.

What happened in Brockville actually occurred on September 6, 1989, long before Meech heated up. At the time, the image was reported around the world in newspapers such as Le Monde and The Guardian. Brockville made the news on television programs such as Telejournal, NBG' Nightly News, Montreal Ce Soir and The National. It was discussed on radio current affairs shows like As it Happens and on the Montreal francophone station CKAC. But the Quebec media kept the image of bigotry alive until the demise of the Accord. Le Point, the French equivalent of The Journal, replayed the incident in March 1990, six months after it made the news. The image remained vivid throughout the debate. The journal reported that out of 1,000 Quebecers, 60 percent thought the flag trampling occurred in March or April 1990.

Brockville was referred to in emotional editorials calling the incident symbolic of

Canada's dislike for Quebec, and in angry letters to the editor in Le Devoir, La Presse and Le Soleil. In a June 23,1990 editorial in LeSoleil, Raymond Giroux wrote: "Many Quebecers, perhaps a majority, are happy that Meech Lake has finally died. After flags were torn, Quebecers lost their honor and enthusiasm for the deal."

The Brockville episode was repeated so many times on television news, radio call-in programs and in editorials that it looked as though an epidemic of anti-Quebec sentiment was forming in English Canada. Disapproval of the Accord appeared to be more widespread than just in Newfoundland, Manitoba and New Brunswick.

In November 1990, CBC's Telejournal ran a two-part feature entitled "The Brockville Incident." A handful of members of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada, who trampled the flag, said they didn't realize how powerful the image had become to Quebecers. The irony was their message had not been intended for Quebec (although, it was clearly anti-francophonic; editor’s comment). It was a protest against then-Premier David Peterson's push for official bilingualism in Ontario. By then though, the ~ image had become firmly fixed as an anti French symbol.

Lysiane Gagnon of the Montreal daily La Presse recognizes that Brockville was exaggerated in the Quebec media. "It was overplayed ~ because it was spectacular. In other provinces, on the other hand, the law on signs, law [Quebec's French-only sign law], was really overplayed...so one can say that anything spectacular and controversial is overplayed-that's partly the nature of journalism."

Journalist Gilles Lesage of the Montreal daily Le Devoir says the flag stomping was emphasized in Quebec because of the timing. It took place when Quebecers doubted that English Canada would accept the deal. "It confirmed a distrust" of English Canada. Journalists like Lesage, therefore, began to doubt the merits of a deal that would not likely be accepted in English Canada.

In a June 7, 1990 letter to the editor of Le Devoir a reader wrote: "The media in Quebec, like in the rest of Canada and the world, sometimes encourage simplifications and sensationalism. It would be a shame if the incident that was repeated on television were to convince Quebecers that all anglophones scorn and detest them."

Many anglophones were disturbed by the flag coverage. Hundreds of anglophone Canadians gathered in a downtown Regina park carrying Quebec flags to express their concern over the flag desecration. A June 9, 1990 article in Le Soleil reported that the Regina anglophones said they wanted to send a clear message to Quebecers that Brockville was an isolated case. "They were frustrated by the negative publicity surrounding the relationship between francophones and anglophones in Quebec," it said.

…In Cohen's A Deal Undone, he observed how symbols had become critical in the debate over Meech Lake. "The towns, villages and hamlets that spurned a bilingual regime that did not apply to them did not necessarily want to be mean-spirited. Similarly, the desecration of the Quebec flag by bigots in Brockville, Ontario, did not represent the feelings of most Canadians, but the footage of the event was played repeatedly in Quebec as if it did. The discussion was no longer rational. It had moved from the merits of the accord to the perception of its impact or the consequences of its demise."