False Positives

As I began to write this review, the occupation of downtown Ottawa by anti-mandate protesters, anti-vaccine militants, and right-wing populist extremists was unfolding. For weeks, the horns of big rigs that jammed the streets near Parliament Hill had kept residents awake. In a city of rule-respecting public servants, the culture shock was huge.

In this context, it was almost a relief to return to the early shock of another crisis, through Alec Castonguay’s Le printemps le plus long (The longest spring), a detailed account of how Quebec responded to the first wave of the coronavirus. Castonguay is a talented reporter who, not long after his book was published, in March 2021, left the magazine L’Actualité to become the host of Radio-Canada’s daily news program Midi info. His narrative begins with a phone call from Yves Ouellet, the province’s top public servant, to a long-time colleague, René Dufresne, the deputy minister of agriculture, fisheries, and...