Doctor Who?

On June 8, 2020, the University of Ottawa political scientist François Charbonneau turned on his computer and read a column by Jean-François Nadeau, who often writes about historical issues in Le Devoir. Nadeau told the story of George Cannon, a physician who had experienced racist treatment from the staff when he and his wife stayed at the Château Frontenac in August 1945. It was an incident, Nadeau argued, that confirmed the racism of Quebec society.

Something didn’t feel right about the account for Charbonneau. He found it improbable that the staff on their own initiative could have asked an American guest to leave the dining room. Later he stumbled across a 1948 article by the journalist Miriam Chapin, who referred to the absence of colour prejudice in Quebec. In her telling, when the historic hotel closed its dining room to a Black guest for fear of offending white American ones, the doctor who was the victim of the policy received dozens of calls from...