Canadian Jewish Congress Protests Anti-semitic Remarks in Quebec Assembly

The Canadian Jewish Congress today protested against anti-Semitic remarks made last week in the Quebec Legislative Assembly by two members of the Quebec Province Cabinet, Minister of Tourism Gabriel Loubier and Jean Noel Tremblay, Minister of Cultural Affairs. The CJC protest was entered into the official proceedings of the legislature by Dr. Victor C. Goldbloom, a Liberal member for the Montreal riding of D’Arcy McGee. He is one of the two Jews in the legislature.

According to the CJC protest, Mr. Loubier asked “how do you say that in Jewish?” when another member, Claude Wagner, charged that the “Mafia black hand” conducts organized crime in Canada. Mr. Wagner is half-Jewish, son of a man who had converted to Catholicism. The Congress charged that Mr. Tremblay defended Mr. Loubier’s remark by stating that it was intended to be “humorous.”

“One would have thought,” stated the CJC protest, “that in the welter of important changes in Quebec and the creation of a better society, the introduction of racist mentality, even if truly in the guise of repartee, could not take place. Alas it does. One can hope that Messrs. Loubier and Tremblay will have the grace to apologize for their ill-advised remarks and to expunge them not only from the record but from their thinking. One can not remove prejudice and xenophobia, but one has the right to expect that their expression be not harbored by Ministers responsible for the government of this country.”