# Talk:Maurice Duplessis

Sorry, but I have to call POV on those swipes at Duplessis' "left-wing" opponents and on the interpretation of his financial situation as being symbolic of his devout Christianity.  If you can find reputable sources that indicate that most of Duplessis' opponents are "left-wing" and that suggest that his poverty was because of his charity, then they should be cited with the claims. Geoff NoNick 19:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this is a pretty terribly biased article.  Someone who knows something about it give us the other side.  Perhaps some stuff can be brought in from Quiet Revolution.

It's actually an OK article (not great, but all right) once you remove the two blatantly POV passages. What's missing is a political analysis: he was a canny, crafty politician, machiavellian even. And he was an intellectual with populist roots. A fascinating character, even if a little evil. Vincent 06:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree. There is a bias in emphasis in the introduction. I flagged it with two "citation needed" flags, as a starting point. Guillaume Majeau-Bettez (talk)
Is it just me, or is this passage a little POV?:
"The Duplessis period is known as "the Dark Ages" in Quebec history. His regime was infamous for corruption and incestuous ties with the Roman Catholic Church and big business. Duplessis was the master of vote-fixing. Legend has it that Union Nationale troops would arrive in rural towns armed with whiskey, food and appliances in exchange for votes.
"Days before the election of 1960, the chief organizer for the Union Nationale was arrested for fraud when 4,000 fake voters' slips were found inside a train station locker. UN leader Daniel Johnson denied the charges saying it was a Liberal frame-up. Jean Lesage responded by saying corruption, blackmail and political immorality were trademarks of the Union Nationale from the Maurice Duplessis days"
I don't know how to put that "POV Banner" on the front page of the article, otherwise I would do that as well.
72.84.1.200 (talk) 02:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)James

Quebecers more or less did what Duplessis & the church dictated, or faced repression. I studied Canadian history, and wrote aplenty on Quebec as it was prior to the Quiet Revolution and I know for a fact that Quebecers in the early to mid 20th century had, in majority, no real freedom of thought under the Duplessis regime, and were kept in almost complete illiteracy so that they wouldn't really seek thought or ask questions. Duplessis made them believe what was convenient, and told them they were going to hell (Literally, go burn in a place ruled by the devil after they had died) if they didn't believe him. And then, those people went to church, and the clergy told them that if they didn't believe (and vote for) Duplessis, they would INDEED be denied heaven, and go to hell. And the people believed that, and feared it to the point of doing absolutely anything. So whether or not they actually opposed or supported anything or simply parroted the Duplessist view out of fear is pretty much up to debate. I've deleted that portion of the sentence because I feel that the opposition is questionable.
It was convenient for Duplessis that no Quebecers go to war because it would have resulted in casualties, which would have diminished Quebec's population/workforce. One of Duplessis' policies was "encouraging", via threats of damnation, women to reproduce until they couldn't anymore, so that the province's population would grow. More people meant more believers and more workers. There's been theories about a Duplessis Quebec/Axis connection or sympathy, but it is far-fetched and too "machiavellan", as one person said, even for Duplessis.
It was all about obeying the Ten Commandments of God & the Six Commandments of His Church, and living your life following the 7 Heavenly Virtues while evading the 7 Deadly Sins if you were a Quebecer in Duplessis' time. Law was that way, life was that way. You  would have to explain yourself to your priest if you were obese because it was a sign of Gluttony, and some people were expelled from the church and from their town for it. People look at Islamic countries today with their laws based on the Qu'ran, and do not know that there was a Roman-Catholic state just like that within Canada less than 50 years ago. 
It's a very little known part of history because it happened prior to the explosion of communications, and did not involve the international community. It didn't help matters any at all that nobody really cared and had much bigger fish to fry in Europe. Duplessis came into office "democratically" (Via threats of damnation and strong-arm tactics) and stayed in there "democratically" for 20 years, minus a couple of years during the war when he more or less got himself out of office (by calling an early election and letting the folks vote freely, which they did and resulted in a lost for him.) to let the Quebecers go to war without losing face. Then he got back into his office via the usual methods and remained there until he died. Then the whole regime collapsed.
In my opinion, my point of view I guess, he was more or less the very dangerous hybrid of a dictator and a cult leader, and there's more to him than we know, probably more than we'll ever know. His character would be worth studying, but good luck if you try actually digging in his life and regime. I tried. You see, Quebec today isn't the Quebec of then, it's a modern society, a secular democracy, and the people in charge, sometimes in the late 70's, decided that Duplessis was better off being forgotten altogether. So, his name & regime dissapeared from history courses in Quebec, and quite a few archive documents were "misplaced" as well. The time's newspapers are worthless in research, it's all about praise and preaching in there. Today, you're looking at the odd "Duplessis Orphan" survivor (A frightening concept that I suspect would probably embarass Quebec and the church very much should somebody find out what the whole deal was.) telling his story which is almost too horrible to believe and at 1960's revolutionaries writings, which there aren't many for the simple fact that most Quebecers couldn't write, if you want to get an idea.
Duplessis is one of those things where the line between Documented Fact and Original Research can be very blurry sometimes, because the facts are not unearthed yet.
Sorry for being rather lenghty here, I hope this can help improve the article. 67.68.57.181 07:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

You haven't studied Quebec history this much or watched the news in the last 10 years if you do not know of the Duplessis Orphans (of which there are lots of "survivors"). The Duplessis Orphans is simply a term used to describe orphans who had the bad luck of being young during the Duplessis regime. They where left under the (un)care of the fundamentalist Quebec Roman Catholic church, who viewed most of these kids as the product of sin (out-of-wedlock childs, and especially "teen-mother" childs were very often placed in orphanages at the time) and showed them very little christian virtues. To make a long story short, some (a lot) of the kids where incredibly mistreated by their church guardians and have recently campaigned for compensations and apologies from the government and the church.

There was a general anti-conscription feeling among the French-speaking population in Quebec all along the 20th century. For instance, there were major anti-conscription riots during WWII in Montreal, and the city's elected mayor Camilien Houde was jailed from 1939 to 1944 in a secret detention camp in Petawawa (and later in Fredericton). When Houde was finally freed in late 1944, he was greeted by a crowd of tens of thousands in Montreal, and was promptly reelected. He was Montreal's mayor again from 1944 to 1954. Hugo Dufort (talk) 18:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for gaming the system to insert your propaganda term in the article. Would you like to justify its inclusion? Provide examples of things M. Duplessis did that helped families? Or shall we call a spade a spade and describe his actual policies, instead of using Wikipedia prose to promote a POV term used by his supporters that doesn't tell us anything about what he did as premier? Can you name a social policy of M. Duplessis - or even find a reliable source that calls him "pro-family," so we know that it's more than the opinion of a few tendentious editors, as opposed to the RS which describe him as socially conservative? Or are you just reverting me blindly? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

This is an old comment, but I would just like to put it out there that Duplessis created programs to help single mothers. Also, nobody is claiming that he is not socially conservative. CrypticIndividual1000 (talk) 02:13, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

The Death and legacy section cites sources so poorly that one cannot say it does so at all. The citations on Duplessis' claimed 'social conservative' defenders say nothing about such defenders at all; both merely use policies from the Duplessis era as case studies for broader subjects; thus, the only accurate citation is the citation of Conrad Black on a trivial fact. Furthermore, the paragraph attempts to defend those who support the anti-Communist and socially conservative views in the 'cited' sentence, only to turn around completely and decry most defenders as being 'paleoconservatives' even though the detail given on the views of such 'paleoconservatives' happens to fall right in line with the policies we tend to see from the aforementioned 'social conservatives'. This is doublethink, not NPOV.
'Death and legacy' section marked as improperly citing sources and lack of NPOV pending further discussion. Lord Setar (talk) 19:40, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this section needs a big revision. especially could use some new sources.Meatsgains (talk) 19:57, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
I also agree. I just stumbled on this POS with a POV problem, so I edited it. I didn't actually remove anything other than some pointless reference to the fact that a lifelong childless bachelor's family name had not been carried on by his non-existent descendants. I have attempted to remove the obvious ideological spin adjectives implemented by the right-wing Wiki doctors, but I left in some almost equally baffling nonsense about paleoconservatives because I know nothing about it and I'm not about to become an expert. Personally, I think Duplessis was a corrupt self-serving ideologically-driven opportunistic idiot whose legacy is, well, Stephen Harper, for a start. In short, just another stupid privileged sociopath with an inferiority complex. Maybe it's some un-named flavour of autism, I don't know - but it clearly has lasting appeal to about a third of the population. I have tried to keep this personal assessment out of my edit, but it really needs an objective historian who gives a crap to do the thing properly. I think it's better now than it was, but I wouldn't call it good or even acceptable by any standards. However, the obvious misinformation could not be left to stand as it was, when schoolkids are using Wikipedia for research. If the conservative nutbars undo this, please restore it. Thanks. Have a nice day.

This section of the second paragraph of the article clearly needs to be reworked, if not completely deleted:

  "but is also considered the greatest period of Quebec history[citation needed] by traditionalist conservatives who point out Duplessis government support of positive economic and social development based on strong family values in Catholic tradition, his support of private property rights vis-a-vis growing state and labour union challenges, and his strong opposition not only to Communism, but also to secularism, feminism, environmentalism, leftist separatism and other non-conservative political trends and movements that have changed and fragmented Quebec politics and society over the next 60 years[citation needed],"

This is nothing but shameless insertion of one's political views into the article, with absolutely no backing provided.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.162.118.124 (talk) 04:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC) 

My recollection doing history in Quebec, is that's pretty much what the history texts said. Better written and referenced perhaps. Nfitz (talk) 01:10, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

The Bibliography was copied and adapted from the French Wikipedia page of Maurice Duplessis. See that page's history for attribution.

Found this paragraph in the section "[e]conomical and welfare policies" (footnotes and link to French Wikipedia removed):

His social welfare record was somewhat progressive but mixed. Old-age pensions and workplace accident protections were instituted during his first year in office; and some public works projects, such as the completion of the Montreal Botanical Garden, were instituted. The Union Nationale was the first Quebec cabinet to include the Ministry of Health, and it also financed the new Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene of Montreal, a research facility similar to Paris's Pasteur Institute. In line with the Church's teaching, Duplessis gave assistance to needy mothers (but not to unwed, divorced or separated women), as well as to the blind and the orphaned. He also adopted the Fair Wage Act (French: Loi des salaires raisonnables) and created the Fair Wage Board. It was the first time the minimum wage in Quebec was available for all workers (it only previously applied to women), but the legislation was marred by reticence of the trade unions to embrace the scheme (they preferred collective bargaining instead, which led to agreements that were not regulated by the Fair Wage Act), by the government's liberal application of the law[m] and proliferation of often arbitrary decisions of the Board. Despite an increase of minimum wages above Ontario levels, almost a fifth of workers were not paid the mandated wages in 1940, suggesting its rather weak enforcement. Duplessis additionally banned closed shop arrangements and outlawed the practice where the employers fired employees only to return them to work with a lower salary. The latter policy, however, was a double-edged sword, as it gave the incentive for companies not to negotiate with the workers and bypass the trade unions while asking government assistance. This was the case with the Dominion Textile strike in August 1937 and a later strike in a shipyard in Sorel, when Duplessis, who saw the protests as "unfortunate and unjustified", ordered workers to return to work before starting negotiations (the Confédération des travailleurs catholiques du Canada, CTCC eventually secured, with government's mediation, a short-term agreement).
Could anyone please tell me if this paragraph should be split, and if so, where?--Thylacine24 (talk) 04:14, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I've addressed the issue; I will also move the paragraph to the relevant draft, on which I will be working right now. This paragraph, I think, will eventually disappear from the main article. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:00, 6 May 2022 (UTC)