Anglo Conspiracies Against Quebec

Master Plan Against Quebec Nationalism Unveiled

OpinionsChristopher Curtis — Published September 28, 2010

After Parti Québécois MNA Pierre Curzi discovered The Montreal Canadiens’ fiendishly clever plot to destroy Quebec nationalism, I can no longer hold in all these secrets. I feel it is my duty as a member of the city’s anglophone community to divulge what I know about the hockey club’s longstanding plan to eradicate separatism and rob Quebecers of their national identity.

Few Quebecers know this, but Montreal anglophones secretly meet in a bunker under Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s Westmount estate every month. It was at one of these very meetings where Canadiens mascot Youppi, who in reality is a British spy working for MI6, revealed the following list of secrets to me:

Réjean Houle is a secret anglophone. This news may come as a shock to most, but this former Canadiens forward and general manager was a well-trained operative working to demolish the Canadiens from the inside. For years, he perfected his French, made up a charming back-story about being from a small mining town in northern Quebec, learned how to play hockey at a professional level and cunningly gained Quebecers’ trust by helping the Canadiens win five Stanley Cups in the 1970s.

After decades of undercover work, Houle became general manager of the club and began dismantling the team from the inside—trading away French-Canadian stars like Patrick Roy, Pierre Turgeon and Vincent Damphousse, and drafting horribly for his five years as GM. Is it a coincidence that Houle was GM the same year that Quebec’s second referendum failed to pass?

Bob Gainey hates Quebec. Even though you would think the hall of famer and former Canadiens GM would have been in on our little anglophone ploy, he actually just hates French Canadians. Sure, he learned to speak French perfectly, but he only did that to intentionally mispronounce certain words and draw the ire of high school French teachers all over the province. And when he offered Quebecer Daniel Briere a more lucrative contract than the young forward signed with the Philadelphia Flyers, he was just doing so to flash his high-roller Anglo money in Briere’s face.

Also, when Gainey tried selling the farm for Vincent Lecavalier, he really just wanted to get his hands on the Quebec-born forward to sabotage his career. Luckily for Gainey, Lecavalier did a great job of that on his own. When Gainey found out Jaroslav Halak was going to be made an honorary Quebecer, he called current Habs general manager Pierre Gauthier and forced him to trade Halak to prevent the possibility of a third referendum. All this after Gainey clandestinely wrote the two terrible sequels to Pierre Falardeau’s Elvis Gratton in part of his sinister five-part plan to humiliate Quebec’s cultural icons.

I would keep spilling the beans about this vast conspiracy, but I’m late for a secret Anglo meeting. Tonight we drink blood under a statue of General Wolfe and play Boggle with Justin Trudeau.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 07, published September 28, 2010.