MONTREAL–It's the battle no one wants to fight – except the CBC.
Canada's national broadcaster will mark the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham with a documentary on the decisive British-French conflict, months after threats from hardline separatists forced the cancellation of a planned re-enactment in Quebec City.
The one-hour documentary, set to air during prime time next Thursday, is already ruffling the feathers of those who opposed the real-life re-enactment.
"Why is the CBC choosing to invest money from the Canadian government to reconstruct such a painful moment of Canadian history, one that caused so many deaths, assassinations, fires, and thefts?" said Jean-Paul Perreault, president of Impératif français.
"It's the battle no one wants to talk about because it's perceived to be too politically charged," said CBC documentary unit executive producer Mark Starowicz.
"It's quite striking that one of the principal turning points ... in Canadian history is going by in a very muted way."
The CBC's French sister network, Radio-Canada, said it's not planning anything special to mark the anniversary.
Asked whether that decision had anything to do with the previous controversy, a spokesperson said "absolutely not."
Perreault, who helped plan a Parliament Hill protest against the planned re-enactment in Quebec City, said its cancellation by National Battlefields Commission was an excellent idea. "It's bizarre the CBC" would air a re-enactment, he said.
Organizers and participants of the Quebec City event received threats from separatist fringe groups that raised fears of violence.
The groups felt a re-enactment of the battle would have been a disrespectful reminder of the defeat of their French ancestors, which set the stage for British dominance in North America.
They vowed to disrupt the event. The militant separatist Réseau de Résistance du Québécois warned tourists would "not forget their visit for a very long time."
Commission president André Juneau said his agency couldn't guarantee the safety of the public at the event.
"We don't want it to become a clash. There was one in 1759 and we don't want another," he said at the time.
The battle will now be marked on its Sept. 13 anniversary with the simple unveiling of a monument. A poetry and prose reading is also being organized.
The re-enactment became an orphan of sorts after the commission nixed it. Offers were made to hold it in Ontario, but then Premier Dalton McGuinty told Radio-Canada that he disapproved of it taking place in his province.
Mario Beaulieu, president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society, which also protested the re-enactment, said the subject is still sensitive because the defeat marked the beginning of an assimilation and political domination of French Canadians.
"The battle is still not finished because in Quebec the future of French (culture and language) is not assured," Beaulieu said.
In Battle for a Continent, CBC viewers will see the largest reconstruction of the battle ever made, said Starowicz, which required years of research, 2 1/2 days of filming, and re-enactors from the U.S., Quebec and the rest of Canada. It was completed for the epic TV series, Canada: A Peoples' History, and has been re-edited and narrated for the documentary.
The characters in the documentary speak in English, with English or French accents. There were 180 actors in the reconstruction, versus about 4,400 English soldiers and 5,000 French.
"I regret we have a constructed amnesia," Starowicz said. "It was a vast story on a human scale that deserves to be remembered and respected regardless of what side you're on."
He said most don't know about the fact there were two battles on the plains, or the "Dresden-like" destruction of the city for nine weeks, or that one-quarter of the British navy was sent to the battle.
Responding to the criticism, he adds, "There's no argument about hiding one's national history. Where are we going to go after that? Never speak about what happened to aboriginal people in this country?
"This is an act of history and journalism by a documentary unit and people should understand what happened. It's not a celebration of anything."
Starowicz also emphasized that the documentary plainly outlines the brutalities committed mostly by the British, and makes sure to highlight the subsequent French victory in the Battle of Sainte-Foy.
One of the loudest voices against the re-enactment, Patrick Bourgeois, said in an interview that since it's the CBC, he expects the documentary to be politically biased, whitewashing British atrocities in order to "promote unity."
When told of Starowicz's description, however, he changed his tune. "Then I have nothing to say!" he laughed.
The documentary will run on Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. on the main CBC network.
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