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MONTREAL – History textbooks for Quebec high schools are "fundamentally flawed" and should be removed from all schools in Quebec, a panel of experts from the province's largest English-language school board said.
Students in grades 9 and 10 in Canadian and Quebec history receive a "biased and one-sided view of the past that distorts history," according to the committee's report, a copy of which was obtained by La Presse Canadian.
This report is the result of the work of three historians commissioned by the English Montreal School Board to examine the controversial history program, which has been criticized by Aboriginal, English and other cultural communities in Quebec.
The program, mandatory in all high schools in the province since September 2017, "focuses closely on the experience and events of the ethnic / linguistic / cultural group of French-speaking Quebecers from the beginning to the present day. hui, "says the report.
He says that indigenous peoples are presented throughout the course as "others and antagonists, rather than human beings whose place has been colonized by foreigners".
The texts largely ignore the contributions of Irish, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Haitian and other immigrants, while noting "no indication that these groups have helped transform the city of Montreal," he continues.
The report says that black history is virtually ignored "and that women are relegated to a few sidebars or dissociated paragraphs in both textbooks."
The report concludes that textbooks "are fundamentally flawed and need to be removed from all secondary schools". Recognizing that students can not be left without text, he recommends the continued use of current textbooks until June 2021, by which time the corrected versions can be introduced.
A source close to the school board told The Canadian Press that the report dated October 2018 had been submitted to council members on Wednesday night. Council spokesman Michael Cohen declined to comment on the council's next steps.
The members of the expert committee were Terry Copp, professor emeritus of history at Wilfrid Laurier University, Jennifer Lonergan, Canadian historian and social entrepreneur, and John Zucchi, history professor at the University of Ottawa. McGill University.
It is striking how many important aspects of Canadian history are left out.
Zucchi said in an interview that the course should teach students more about Canada.
"It's quite striking how many important aspects of Canadian history are left out," he said.
The new history program has been criticized since being implemented for the first time as a pilot project in 30 high schools from September 2015 to June 2017.
Its design in 2013 under a Parti Québécois government was overseen by Jacques Beauchemin, then Acting President of the Office québécois de la langue française.
Anglo-Saxon advocacy groups, Aboriginal organizations and history teachers were among the most critical critics of this new program, claiming that it reflected a rigid nationalist ideology and diminished the role of non-francophones in the history of Quebec.
Criticism was so strong that the Liberal government spent $ 1.6 million earlier this year to replace the word "Native American" in textbooks and change other aboriginal content.
A spokesman for the Department of Education told The Canadian Press last September that in addition to references to Amerindians or Native Americans replaced by terms such as "First Nations," "Inuit," and " Native ", the content of Aboriginal history has been changed.
For example, images depicting Aboriginal peoples in a stereotypical way have been changed, biographies of Aboriginal historical figures have been added and more attention has been paid to the role of Aboriginal peoples in key historical events.
A spokesperson for the Quebec Ministry of Education was not immediately available to comment on the report of the English Montreal School Board.
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Highlights of the expert report on high school history for the English Montreal School Board:
– "There is virtually no discussion of Irish cultures in Montreal or Quebec. Aside from a "Take note!" Insert Regarding typhus and Grosse Ile (where Irish immigrants were quarantined), there is no story about the province's second largest ethnic community in the 19th century!
– "There is no development of black history, which goes back to the French regime, and the issues of black and aboriginal slavery shine through their absence."
– "Nothing indicates that immigration has turned Montreal into a complex multicultural city … The arrival of thousands of Jewish immigrants and the creation of new Jewish community institutions are an important story, totally neglected in the text. "
– "The lack of integration of women in a coherent narrative is problematic on many levels and constitutes a misrepresentation of the period."
– "There is only one ideological point of view in the textbooks rather than a more objective approach or an attempt to explain the story from different ideological perspectives . For example, economic and social developments are presented in a Marxist perspective, using Marxist terminology, without any contextualization or definition of terms. "
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