cusses achieved her goal, or at least bate: was French Canadian national- sites, the one absolute good, the other not in the way she envisioned. All ism then, and is nationalism absolute evil: Groulx also maintained were seeking to reconfigure the pri- now, exclusive, xenophobic, and anti- a profound contempt for French vate as well as the public world. They Semitic?lIts author, Esther Delisle- Canadians who he regarded as Trai- shared a "desire to appropriate the who at one point was publicly con- tors committed to modernity and its world of ideas--hitherto, in their demned as an intellectual Vychinsky, concomitants, pluralism, individual- communal tradition the world ofmen in reference to Stalin's show trials ism, liberalism, democracy and capi- alone-and to build a new and egali- prosecutor-rightly likened the con- talism. In Groulx's world, watching tarian relationship with men." Their troversy to caricature. Indeed, look- a hockey game, or listening to jazz most enduring legacy, Shepherd ar- ing beyond the controversy,one finds (that "Negro-Semitic cocktail"), were gues, can be appreciated only when in Delisle's thesis not a vituperative fundamentally acts of treason. In they are seen in the context of Jewish attack against Quebec nationalism, 1935 he concluded, "The great mis- society and history. "Their efforts to but rather an intelligent, well re- fortune of , I must create a new identity for themselves searched analysis of right-wing na- dare to say, is that there are no French as women, in defiance of the norms tionalist thought in Quebec dur- Canadians." The Traitor and the Jew, of their own society, made them pio- ing the 1930s. writes Delisle, fell "into the same neers ofwomen's liberation." A Pricc Translated into English, and pub- vortex of hatred." Behw Rubies tells a fascinating story lished by Robert Davies Publishing Despite his abiding nihilism GrouLr and is an important contribution to of Montreal with a preface by the did not drift into despair. Taking his women's history, Jewish history, and historian Ramsay Cook, The Traitor cue from the European dictatorships the history of radical movements in and the /nu: Anti-Smitism and the ofthe 1930s, Groulxsought salvation modern times. Delirium of Exhemist Right- Wing for French Canada in millenarian Nationalism in French Canada fiom . "Weak minds which believe 1929-1939, thoroughly documents in democracy at the expense of the the vicious anti-Semitism inherent to Church and Christ react with horror the nationalism of Abbe Lionel to Fascism in all its shapes and forms," Groulx, Le Dcvoir, IXction nationak Groulx argued in 1937. "This despite and the youth organization, Jnrne the fact that certain nations are cur- Canada. Although Delisle states very rently very content, experiencing the dearly that "nowhere in my thesis is most glorious kind of rebirth under there any mention of French Cana- this political system." Towards real- THE TRAITOR AND THE dian anti-Semitismn (emphasis not izing a Fascist utopia, wherein French JEW: ANTI-SEMITISM mine) she also states very clearly that Canada "would reconcile itself with AND THE DELIRIUM OF her subjects were neither marginal the soil and its ancestors," solutions EXTREMIST RIGHT- nor insignificant. For example, were required for the Traitor prob- WING NATIONALISM IN Claude Ryan once honoured Lionel lem and the Jew problem. FRENCH CANADA Groulx as "the spiritual father of Inspired by Hitler's early answer to modern Quebec." the "Jewish question," writers at FROM 1929-1939 Moreover, the anti-Semitism of 1Action nationa&including Andre Groulx, Le Dcyoir, IAction nationak Laurendeau who would eventually Esther Delisle. Montreal: Robert and jeune Can& was not isolated, become co-chair of the Royal Com- Davies Publishing, 1993. nor was it merely mischievous as mission on Bilingualism and Andre Laurendeau would later de- Biculturalism-argued that because scribe it; it was essential to their na- pogroms do not work, "government tionalism. The Jew, as a symbolic measures" were required. A euphe- Highly specialized, often burdened construct, represented liberalism, de- mism, "government measures" meant with impenetrable vocabulary, and mocracy, capitalism, and modernity, the building of ghettos, the imposi- aimed at small, academic audiences, all threats to the French-Canadian tion of quotas at educational institu- Ph.D. dissertations, even published nation. Indeed, the Jew remained the tions, the repeal of voting rights, dissertations, rarely attract national ultimate negative Other, defined by deportations to Palestine, mandatory media attention. Yet a 1992 political Michel Foucault as "that which, for a identification cards and the institu- science dissertation from Laval Uni- given culture, is at once interior and tion of economic boycotts. versity, "Antidmitisme et nationa- foreign, therefore to be excluded (so Meanwhile the Traitor, that lisme &extreme droite dans la prov- as to exorcise the interior danger)." "French Canadian incapabk of soli- ince du Quebec, 1929-1939," found However, and this is central to darity" (emphasisnot mine), required itself at the centre of a contentious, Delisle's thesis, the French Canadian a thorough political and national re- emotional, and at times puerile de- and the Jew were not binary oppo- education: the Jew would always be a

VOLUME 14, NUMBER 4 Jew but the Traitor could be re-edu- FIRING THE HEATHER: tainment and entertainment was cated, ultimately transformed into THE LIFE AND TIMES home-made, not technologicallypro- something great, a superman, even a vided, she quickly became widely in God, living in a utopian paradise. OF NELLIE MCCLUNG demand h beyond her own district. Inspired by the Fascist aesthetic, Gradually she began to give speeches Laurendcau dreamt of a day when Mary Hallett and Marilyn Davis. on topics that engaged her loyalties, "Doctors, dentists and gymnasts will Saskatoon: Fifth House Publishers, temperance first and always, with 1993. help build a strong, chaste race of women's suffrageand women's rights handsome young men and beautiful in general a dose second. The time young girls." was right for her: married to Wes Delisle ultimately condudes that McClung, a pharmacist, and living in the writers, intellectuals and nation- No one at all interested in the his- the little town ofManitou, she speed- alists associated with Lionel Grouh, tory of women's rights in Canada ily became known as a riotously suc- Le Devoir, l'Action nahnahandjnrne could fail to know the name of Nellie cessful speaker throughout Manitoba, Cad,all expressed "the same wish, McClung, but few of us have an then across Canada and finally, from at heart: via dictatorship, by the re- appreciation of the range and im- the mid-teen war years on, when the education of the Traitor and the cx- portance of her manifold activities. suffrage movement was at its hottest, pulsion of the Jew, the chaos and We have heard a good deal about in the States and . decay which surround us will end." her, but in sporadic bits and pieces; In these same years she had five If Tbe Traitor and theJew remains this book is the first gathering to- children, wrote and sold innumer- an important contribution to Cana- gether and presentation of the whole able short stories, and in 1908 be- dian intellectual history it is also a complicated and colourful tapestry came a continental bestseller with the timely investigation into white he- of Nellie's "life and times." There is novel, Sewing See& in Danny. Wes gemony. In her introduction Delisle something today in the very sound McClung gave up a prosperous phar- discuses the notion of government- of "Nellie," a name that has gone macy business because of a serious defined cultural communities, that completely out of fashion, that has and lengthy bout of ill health the is, government efforts "to assimilate too often encouraged a hint of nature ofwhich remains mysterious; new immigrants into the fmcophone amused and condescending over-fa- and in 191 1 they moved to Winni- majority without destroying their miliarity in her treatment, perhaps peg where he became an insurance presence as defined minorities whose because one of her most engaging salesman, then after some years to very existence testifies to and con- qualities was a readiness to laugh at Edmonton, where Nellie became firms the presence of the majority." herself. This book should go a long deeply engaged in Alberta politics, a Delisle is led to ask, "But when does way toward persuading readers of member for the Liberals from 1922 one cease to belong to to a 'cultural her paramount importance in Cana- to 1926. At the same time, along with community' and actually become da's feminist history. Emily Murphy, her friend and equal 'Quibkcois? Just how many genera- For many years many of us have in energy, zest, humour and activism, tions have to be counted, and what been devoted readers and teachers of and Irene Parlby, Louise McKinley characteristics must be acquired, be- Ckaring in the West and The Stream and Henrietta Muir Edwards, the fore the club takes in some new mem- Runs Fast, the two volumes of other three of the "Famous Five," she bers?" McClung's autobiography; for us it was relentlesslypushing along a move- English Canada would do very well is particularly interesting to have this ment that would climax in the 1929 to ask itself the same question. fleshed-out account of the develop- decision of the Judicial Committee ment of McClung, the passionately- of the Privy Court in London, Eng- 1For a good overview ofl'affaire Delisk engaged activist, from the eager, land that women were indeed per- see Charles Foran, "That Book of clever, energetic and often frustrated sons under the B. N. A. Act and could Esther's," Saturday Night, 108, 8 child ofIrish-Scottish Manitoba emi- therefore be appointed to the Senate. (October 1993). grants from Ontario. First, as soon as Just as relentless was her campaign she had achieved independence as a for the ordination of women in the teacher, she jumped the hurdle ofher United Church and her continuing mother's disapproval of a show-off battles for legislation against alcohol. daughter to begin giving readings "Relentless" and "ruthlessn were al- and poetry recitations at all kinds of ways theoperative words when Nellie neighbourhood social events. Shewas McClung and her army ofsupporters a natural mimic, a "stand-up comic" were on the move, and by the mid- of her day (always ladylike, mind twenties, women had been embold- you) and at a time when publicspeak- ened by the franchise and in most, if ing was an intensely popular enter- not all oftheir causes, had been joined

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESlLES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME