Henri Bourassa is one of the most famous Quebec journalists in the history of Canada. His writing at Le Devoir, the paper he founded, was embraced by many as the voice of French-Canadians struggling to assert their place in a rapidly changing Canadian nation. He was a complex man, a devout ultramontane Catholic, a French-Canadian nationalist, but also a man who saw a future where English and French Canadians could cooperate and live side by side in harmony as the two “races” of a strong and proud Canadian nation. Yet he was also deeply disturbed by Canada’s attachment to Britain and Britain’s empire, and time and time again his platform at Le Devoir became the voice of many in Quebec who bristled at this long-standing imperial connection. No event put Bourassa on the national stage like the First World War, while he was already quite well known in Quebec prior to 1914, by the end of that war he would be known from coast to coast. 

The book recommendation for this episode is Duty to Dissent: Henri Bourassa and the First World War by Geoff Keelan published by UBC Press in 2019.

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