Fifty years since the Saint-Jean riot

Le Devoir looks back with more than a touch of nostalgia to the Saint-Jean riot after which the national holiday was, for a long time, held down to “des fêtes de quartier, dans une réduction de la dimension nationale à une variable folklorique.” Here’s how the 1968 fracas was reported in the Gazette by none other than Nick Auf der Maur the following day.

I defy anyone to search that news archive in any year and not find, almost immediately, a story that’s echoed today. On the same front page as Auf der Maur’s report is this: “Quebec Liquor Board employees, seeking higher wages in a new contract, have authorized their union executive to call a strike at any time they see fit to do so.”