2012/02/28

Quebeckers charged in child-porn case

Glancing through The Globe and Mail, this headline caught my attention: "Five Quebeckers charged in international child-porn case". It felt odd. I wondered what information was being conveyed by using the word "Quebeckers". Or was I simply being too sensitive?

I googled the headline to see if other media carried the news. I found out that other publications simply referred to "Quebec men". Which somehow didn't feel as odd.

Then I thought... would The Globe and Mail publish something using the headline "Five Ontarians charged in international child-porn case"? I can't picture it.

What do you think? Is Québec such a different place that Canada's national newspaper dares not calling its inhabitants Canadians?... or is the newspaper pointing at something else?

Writer's note: The report was updated and the headline changed at 7:35PM. My imagination is playing tricks on me.

4 comments:

sassy said...

Your imagination is NOT playing tricks.

goggle picked up that first Globe headline 10 hours ago

sassy said...

Yes, it was a bad headline, most likely you were not the only one to notice and that is why it was changed.

Raman said...

Your now retired colleague, Angry French Guy, once determined that a racist incident happening in Quebec was several times as likely to be reported in Ontarian newspapers than a similar incident happening in... Ontario.

On a lighter note, I always find it amusing that pedophiles caught in Quebec will systematically be labelled "Quebeckers" in English-Canadian media. But Denis Villeneuve, Philippe Falardeau and Denis Arcand are just "Canadians"...

Rick Monaghan said...

You are NOT being hypersensitive. It could be that Ontarioans is too difficult to say, but I doubt it. There is a Loyalist aversion to Quebec that seems ingrained. In the last issue of The Walrus, a silly article of the War of 1812 simply assumed that it was conducted entirely in Upper Canada - nothing east of Cornwall was of any strategic, operational, or tactical value. Of course, without the brilliant defence of Montreal by canadiens, the defence of Upper Canada would have collapsed. But let's not dwell on that - it is an uncomfortable truth for some.