The Center of Montreal
The Peter’s Scene
Guy had been divorced for some time when I first met him, and he claimed to still be quite the ladies’ man. However, he made it clear that he still didn’t trust women. “S’il y a des plottes qui s’accotent sur moi, je leur dis, Colle pas sur moi! Show ton portefeuille—et là, elles partent toujours,” he laughed. [“If some cunt comes and leans on me, I tell them right away, hey back off! Show me your wallet—and then they always leave me alone.”]
For several years now, he’s been coming here every afternoon to drink a few “big ones” (“les grosses”) with his many friends who also frequent the place. His best friend is a bilingual guy from Victoriaville, with an English name but claims to be French, although Guy is quick to point out that “c’est un rouge”— a Liberal, non-separatist— “mais il est correct.” Guy was living comfortably alone in an apartment in the East End, surviving on his combined military, company and old-age pension. By the way he’d keep bringing up his once-substantial wealth in conversations, though, you could tell he wasn’t all that wealthy anymore. Still, his seemed to be a happy existence, and at least he never got addicted to the lottery machines like most of the other regulars (and even staff) of Peter’s.
Despite being an ardent separatist, Guy defended English, saying Quebecers should learn it if only out of politeness. He favours bilingualism, but he thinks immigrants should speak French at least. He bitterly remembers how French Canadians were once told to “Speak English!”
“Dans le temps de Mackenzie King, tabarnak, les ambassades du Canada parlais juste l’anglais!” [“In the time of Mackenzie King, all the Canadian embassies spoke only English, for fuck’s sake!”]
He cited the expulsion of the Acadians in 1763 in underlining his continuing hatred of the British. I had to concede from my knowledge of history that the British seemed harsher and less tolerant of the peoples under their control than the French were. He said the British triaged the Acadians before throwing them out, trying to make sure they didn’t kick out any of the more competent ones. He’s very mad still that “they invaded us, took our country and said ‘Here, you guys can keep St. Pierre and Miquelon.’”
He’s particularly incensed about the Queen, for whom he was sent to fight WWII to defend. “La reine, qu’est-ce qu’elle a fait pour nous autre? La reine, je la bourra avec de la creme glacée et puis je la fourra dans le cul!” he said, his mouth working his gums overtime on this one. “Le Canada, ca appartient encore à la reine, ca!” [“What did the Queen ever do for us? Fucking Queen, if I saw her I’d grease her up with some ice cream and fuck her up the ass! Canada still officially belongs to the Queen, you know!”] The others at our table agreed that it’s an absurd situation, that we’re still officially considered “subjects of the Queen.” We all agreed the Queen should be taken off our money at the very least, that she had no business being there.
While discussing Canada’s subjugation to the Queen, I asked Guy what he thought of the aboriginals, whether he noticed any change in attitudes towards them through the years, and especially whether he thought they were also an oppressed people. The question seemed to him to come from left field—his gruff reply was, “Les autochtones, qu’est-ce qu’ils on construit? Rien, rien dutout. Quand qu’on est arrivé nous-autres, il n’y avait rien de construit. C’etait vide. C’était des sauvages. Si ils avaient des villes qu’on avait conquis, ça sa sera différent.
“Toute les affaires qu’ils ont là, les sauvages, c’est nous autres qui les ont donnez. Ils auront rien eu si c’était pas pour nous autres.”
[“The aboriginals, what did they ever build? Nothing, nothing at all. When we got here, there was nothing built. It was empty. They were savages. If they had built some cities and we’d conquered them, then it would be different. But everything that they have now, the savages, it’s us who gave it to them. They’d have nothing if it weren’t for us.”]
I didn’t reply, but found his outrageous statement interesting (and unfortunately probably a sentiment echoed by most Canadians– certainly those who recently voted against Native rights in BC.) It seems like in Quebec at least, one of the first things the long-oppressed French Canadians started doing when they finally gained some power was treat the aboriginals like backwards, uneducated second-hand citizens. I don’t doubt that it’s similar to how children who are beaten by their parents end up more likely to beat their own children, but it would be nice, in the wider social context that comprises the long-stormy Quebec-Aboriginal relations, if the once-oppressed oppressors remembered their own long struggle, and acted a little more sympathetically about the whole thing. Perhaps Guy’s argument is at the heart of it, the thought that there was nothing there but a bunch of warring primitive tribes—but the problem is the extension of that to the Indians of today, who really still do have a very distinct thing going in a very distinct part of the country.
Anyway, although heated arguments are very far from unusual at Peter’s, more complex topics such as aboriginal affairs throughout history don’t survive the alcoholic haze of the patrons for very long. Now if we’d been discussing the date of one of the Canadiens’ Stanley Cups or something, and someone got it wrong, then there would’ve been some serious arguing…
Despite what he said about aboriginals, Guy came off as very respectful of the cultural diversity of the city. He mentioned with some pride that all the nations of the world had a place somewhere along the Main (which, for out-of-town readers, I should explain is a boulevard some eight miles long that runs down the center of Montreal and contains just about every nationality you can think of.).
The last time I was at Peter’s, in August 2002, I was sad to hear from André Ouellet that Guy Boisvert was no more. He died in February, 2001, from lung cancer. Apparently it was a good thing, because his last three months were very painful. I asked André if Guy’s son still came here sometimes, and he said no, and that “Guy Boisvert’s son is just a bum anyway.” He didn’t seem to care so much about Guy either, but personally I felt a loss at the thought that this cantankerous character wouldn’t be there anymore like he always seemed to be, at the same table, with the same beer and cigarettes…
