Can-Challenge: Montreal revitalized

Taschereau was very much the grand seigneur, a Grande Allee aristocrat who supported the corporatist status quo. He was a bilingual corporate lawyer who sat on the boards of various companies while a Cabinet member, Attorney General and Premier (the premier traditionally held that post) with whom the province dealt such as LHP, RBC, etc. Duplessis represented their rival Shawinigan Water and Power (nationalized in 1962) in private life.

Taschereau had to drop his only Jewish MLA, Peter Bercovitch, from Cabinet because of the uproar: he would have liked to appoint him to Finance, but the climate precluded it. If Taschereau accepted the proposal, he would face heavy resistance from the public, his own backbenchers, the clergy* and the press. Another problem was that the Jewish community was divided between the wealthy/middle-class, secular, "downtowners" and the poor Jews "uptowners", with the poor favoring a separate system. Bercovitch took the side of the "uptowners", despite representing the "downtown" Jewish riding of St-Louis. As we know, they eventually created two systems, Catholic and "Protestant", which meant ABC in practice. During a time when the political climate was Marcosian corporatist post-1936, Jews were the subject of racist attacks from the pulpit and the nationalist press, Taschereau was not going to stake his government on minority rights.

*In 1924, Taschereau was libelled personally impious by several Quebec City clergymen and a Catholic daily. He successfully sued them for defamation in the $5000 range.
 
Still, it doesn't change the fact that the ultramontanes wanted the Sentinelle Affair to go in their direction, which ended up breaking the connection between Québec and French America. Tascherau seemed to be above that, for some weird reason.

In any case, if the ultramontanes had been isolated early on (i.e. a successful attempt at creating a Québec Ministry of Education in the 1890s), it could probably be for the better - the Québec Conservatives could become more progressive, probably up to the level of Red Tories elsewhere :)D) or the Christian Democrats in Europe.
 
He couldn't, because that would mean choosing between the two central tenets of French-Canadian life: Church and language. Groulx was our Coughlin, but worse because he mentored many young nationalists, including Andre Laurendeau, Claude Ryan and Rene Levesque (who remembered preferring Groulx to the sanitized Index lit then available).
 
He couldn't, because that would mean choosing between the two central tenets of French-Canadian life: Church and language. Groulx was our Coughlin, but worse because he mentored many young nationalists, including Andre Laurendeau, Claude Ryan and Rene Levesque (who remembered preferring Groulx to the sanitized Index lit then available).

And this is where it gets funny - whereas the Québécois preserved language over religion, Franco-Americans preserved religion over language (most French-speakers now are elderly). But still - had the Québec government not abolished the Ministry of Public Instruction in 1875, could that have been a start towards isolating the ultramontanes?
 
The POD is 1945, yours is 80 years before that.

Well, in order for Montréal to remain the Hub of Canada's Universe (yes, I know, appropriating terminology from Boston :eek:), IMO, requires a 19th century POD, not a 20th century one. If one wished a 20th century one, that should require butterflying away Duplessis, at least.
 
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