MONTREAL — Quebec has announced that its new high school history curriculum will highlight the epic victory by the French at the Plains of Abraham in 1759, which led to Quebec’s glorious win in the Seven Years War.
The curriculum, which was developed by the Parti Québécois, features a heroic General Montcalm who instructed his men to leave the natural fortifications and strength of Quebec’s walls in order to march directly into the path of the “effeminate, tea-drinking” British, something the enemy had not anticipated.
“The cowardly British army lead by the square-headed General Wolfe was overwhelmed by the morally superior French forces,” explains one of the new history textbooks associated with the updated curriculum. “Upon the sight of New France’s tricorn hats, Wolfe peed his pantaloons and fled the battlefield, calling out for his mother.”
Feeling sympathy for english-speaking “wimps”, the French permitted the losing force to stay and administer the colony while the native population holidayed in Mont Tremblant.
The 400-page textbook also details how history began in 1534 and how heroes like Jacques Cartier taught the natives how to hunt, fish, avoid scurvy, and construct longhouses. Samuel de Champlain is championed as the inventor of the canoe and poutine.
But Quebec’s history, according to the province’s Ministry of Education, was not all glory and success. The curriculum addresses the difficult divide between Montreal Canadiens fans and Quebec Nordiques fans and the Good Friday Massacre (la bataille du Vendredi saint), a hockey fight that still scars the nation-within-a-nation’s identity.
Nevertheless, Quebec students can be proud to learn more about how the ‘Yes’ side won two referendum victories in 1980 and 1995.
