Heroism and Villainy

For the Acadians of New Brunswick, one third of the province’s population, the decade from 1994 to 2004 felt like one long celebration. Just two years after the enshrinement of their own French-language school system in the Canadian constitution, in 1994 they welcomed members of the Acadian diaspora to the first Congrès Mondial Acadien, a symbolic reversal of the infamous expulsion of their ancestors in 1755.

Five years later, in 1999, the Sommet de la Francophonie, a gathering of world leaders from countries with ties to France, was held in Moncton. And after decades of lobbying, the Queen, on the eve of the 400th anniversary of Champlain’s founding of Acadia, issued in 2003 a Royal Proclamation acknowledging “the trials and suffering experienced by the Acadian people”—not quite the apology some nationalists had sought, but a milestone nonetheless.