Mouvement Desjardins boosts Quebec Studies program

ERIC SMITH | A gift of $300,000 over three years from the Mouvement des Caisses populaires Desjardins to McGill's Quebec Studies Program was announced on Monday. The donation will translate into several important new projects for the interdisciplinary program, according to its director, Alain Gagnon.

The Grandes conférences Desjardins, a lecture series funded by the grant, was launched on Monday evening with a talk by York University's Bettina Bradbury on women in 19th century Quebec.

In addition to the twice annual lecture, the program will publish a quarterly journal, Cahiers du Québec.

Through an agreement with publisher Québec Amérique, the program is launching a new book series, "la collection Débats." The first book, co-edited by Gagnon, is a study of Maurice Duplessis's impact on the evolution of Quebec society.

The grant will allow the program to hire a visiting lecturer each semester. Daniel Chartier will give a course next term on the contribution to Quebec's national literature by authors born elsewhere. A $1,500 bursary will also be awarded to an outstanding student in the program each year. Student Damion Stodola was awarded the first such prize on Monday.

And Gagnon expects the money will help defray costs for the program's documentation centre and its web site.

But the grant is significant for reasons other than its practical applications, according to representatives of both the Mouvement Desjardins and McGill.

"It would have been difficult to imagine 20 or 30 years ago," says Gagnon, who sees Quebec society evolving from a mutually respectful division between French- and English-language institutions towards what he calls "interculturality."

This evolution is an asset for his program, he argues. "We are well positioned for Quebec studies here where the two cultures join."

And it is an asset for Desjardins to invest in an institution that is as open to the world as McGill. Jocelyn Proteau, president and CEO of the Fédération des Caisses populaires Desjardins for Montreal and Western Quebec, says McGill, in addition to being "one of the great forces of our cosmopolitan city," is attractive to the Mouvement "because 12 per cent of its client base comes from 100 countries and it is a place to reach out to the allophone community."

Quebec studies is a natural sphere of interest for the Mouvement Desjardins, says its president, Claude Béland. "I believe it important that our projects draw on an awareness of who we are and where we are going as a society."

Dean of Arts Carman Miller agrees. "It is very appropriate that the Mouvement Desjardins fund the study of Quebec," he says. "It's hard to think of an institution more rooted in this province." And Miller adds that he is personally "a great supporter of co-op movements. I had passbook number 5 or 6 in Nova Scotia when I was 11."