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Hi, I skimmed through part of this article and found some blatantly false information, gross misquoting of certain sources (even saying the opposite in some cases), the use of heavily biased sources that create a false narrative (whether intentionally or not), and even some non-existent sources.
I made a few edits on April 14–15 as examples, but until the article is thoroughly reviewed and corrected, I recommend adding the POV tag to avoid misleading readers.
The article seems to be an automatic translation of the older French version, which has already been cleaned up significantly. Referring to that version could help speed up the process.
Let’s work together to make this a solid, reliable article. Mat27fr (talk) 18:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for offering to help, but your comments/edits are too vague to act on, please point out the exact sentences you believe are false and explain why, show which quotes are misattributed and how they should read, and list any biased or non-existent sources with full details (title, author, URL or ISBN). Keep in mind that each Wikipedia has its own rules and this is not the French version. If you can post those examples on the talk page, we can compare them with the "cleaned" French article and update or replace sources to restore neutrality. Wilfredor (talk) 02:15, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am unsure what you mean by "vague." Do you agree with the changes I made on April 14–15?
I believe my edits are fairly self-explanatory, but let’s go through them methodically.
First, the article is not by Stéphanie Redmond but by Camille Cottais.
Second, this is a highly editorial source from a small student-run journal. It should not be cited in this article at all.
For example, the following sentence appears in the section on nationalism:
"Si le nationalisme québécois était autrefois plutôt ancré à gauche et dans les luttes pour la justice sociale, il s’agit aujourd’hui d’un nationalisme raciste et de plus en plus à droite."
This quote is blatantly inaccurate. The general consensus is that the nationalist movement in Quebec has historically been and remains a left-wing movement. This is better supported by a more reliable source:
Linda Trimble; Jane Arscott; Manon Tremblay (31 May 2013). [https://books.google.com/books?id=rsvBqIXfJbYC&pg=PA258Stalled: The Representation of Women in Canadian Governments]. UBC Press. p. 258. ISBN 978-0-7748-2522-1.
2. Regarding this part of the article:
“Paul Plamondon, leader of the Parti Québécois, described the law as ‘supremacist’ while speaking about systemic racism, causing even more controversy and significant backlash against the PQ from the Muslim community and federalists. The nationalism and separatism of Quebec are based on ethics, and this situation is further evidenced when the PQ held a protest in Montreal on November 23, 2020, calling for the assimilation of immigrants and the strengthening of the French language in the city. On this occasion, fewer than 150 people attended.”
The person who wrote this clearly did not understand the French source—or worse, deliberately misrepresented it. Paul St-Pierre Plamondon was referring to someone else who had called the law “supremacist,” and he was criticizing that person. There is absolutely no mention of a protest "calling for the assimilation of immigrants." I have not found any source to support this claim. It appears to be a fabrication.
I have additional examples, but these two already raise serious concerns. The fact that such misrepresented sources remained in the article for so long suggests either (giving the benefit of the doubt) a misunderstanding of French by an editor, or a significant political bias.
If you agree, we should revert the edits made by @Augmented Seventh and continue form there.
"First, the article is not by Stéphanie Redmond but by Camille Cottais." Yes, and just change the name of the author — maybe an automatic reference generation tool error?
"This is a highly editorial source from a small student-run journal", their own site says 'Véritable institution depuis 1932.' So if we mention it's student-run, we should also mention it's been around for nearly a century and is a well-established publication. Otherwise, it misleads the reader about its relevance.
"The general consensus is that the nationalist movement in Quebec has historically been and remains a left-wing movement", you said it yourself, historically. But this has changed, and that’s exactly what the source refers to. You can also read the Wikipedia french entry on "Souverainisme au Québec", which describes how some contemporary souverainists like François Legault and Mathieu Bock-Côté combine nationalist ideas with conservative positions, moving away from the progressive nationalism of earlier decades.
"The person who wrote this clearly did not understand the French", I agree, this person either misunderstood or twisted/fabricated it, we’ll never know. But we could remove this part.
Finally, about reverting "Augmented Seventh", I disagree. I think it's better to edit specifically corrections 1 and 4. Wilfredor (talk) 23:11, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nice, happy that we have some common ground. Thanks for the quick answer btw :)
1. (reached agreement)
2. I think we need to go back to the definition of what a good source is. I don't think the self-declaration of the journal as "reputable for a century" constitutes any ground to say it is a reputable source but even this is unimportant; the article is an Editorial. It is written by Camille Cottais as an opinion like we can see above the title. It engages only the opinion of Camille and is not by nature a journalist's work. If we really want to keep that in we could replace it by something like: "According to Camille Cottais in her first year of a master's in gender and feminist study and writer in La Ronde: "Nationalism in Quebec, which once had leftist roots, is now perceived as more right-leaning and associated with racism." But even that is questionable considering there is no reason to present her as an expert on the subject. It is just the opinion of some random student. Maybe we can find a better source expressing this point of view?" Let me know what you think.
3. I said "has historically been and remains a left-wing movement". We could make the argument that some part of the movement have become right-leaning but we have to concede that by far the most famous and popular nationalist party at the time of writing this (Le Parti Québécois and Bloc Québécois) are left-wing parties and represent the majority of the movement. Both François Legault and Mathieu Bock-Côté are extremely unpopular in Québec right now, I don't see how we can conclude anything about the movement as a whole. But anyway, we would need reputable sources to conclude anything. In the mean time, this is at least a controversial claim that should be removed or at least followed by the order side of the argument if we find a reputable source.
4. (reached agreement)
5. (new point 1)
I also found that sentence and I immediately removed it because it is objectively false. Just confirm with me if you agree.
"The president of the Quebec human rights commission, Philippe-André Tessier, a separatist, referred to the term "systemic racism" as an "attack against the people of Quebec"."
Also there is also no evidence that Philippe-André Tessier is a "separatist". He could even be considered an anti-separatist. The editor totally made that up. This is yet another example of total fabrication weirdly leaning towards the narrative of "Québecers and/or separatists are racist".
6. (new point 2)
This part of the article is also a weird fabrication. "A large part of the population believes that Quebec's nationalism and separatism are ethnic and it's often perceived that the sentiments of Quebec nationalists are insular and parochial, concerned about preserving a "pure wool" population of white Francophones within the province. Even though these accusations have been denounced by certain Quebec nationalists who see both the separatist and nationalist movement as multi-ethnic, there is substantial evidence that both movements are based on ethnicity, more than territory. An example of this is when the Prime Minister of Quebec, Jacques Parizeau, speaking about the failure of the 1995 Quebec referendum, said: "It's true, we were defeated, but why? Because of money and ethnic votes, essentially"."
There is absolutely no source for this paragraph except this:
This source, if anything, tells the opposite of what is written and defends the quote "It's true, we were defeated, but why? Because of money and ethnic votes, essentially" explaining it was misunderstood and referencing the 40 thousand immigrants quickly naturalized by Canada before the referendum as a strategy to influence the results of the referendum. Anyway, this is beside the point. The source is again an opinion article, although from a much more reputable journal but still should be taken with a grain of salt and quoted appropriately.
There is absolutely no mention in the source of: "A large part of the population believes that Quebec's nationalism ...." or " ... preserving a "pure wool" population of white Francophones" or "...substantial evidence that both movements are based on ethnicity, more than territory.".
Conclusion:
So again we are faced with pure fabrication by a previous editor. I think we can agree that this is not a mistake and that an editor contributed with the goal of giving their political opinion on this article. Right?
Let's continue from there and tell me what you think. There are still many examples of this kind of behavior in this article but it takes a lot of time to explain methodically. I am going to try to keep you updated often.
