06w38:1 The Address to the Electors of Terrebonne Posted September 21st, 2006 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2006 week 38 number 1 (The Address to the Electors of Terrebonne) The last Goodreads was of John Ralston Saul’s keynote address to the annual Couchiching Conference, and as you may have heard by now, at the 1:22:48 mark (chapter 47 of the m4a file), he brings up Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine’s ‘Address to the Electors of Terrebonne’ of which he says, it is ‘the single most important document in the creation of Canada, and the most beautiful and the most intellectually moving’. Those of you who’ve read his work extensively will have noticed his fondness for this text, and in the Couchiching audio, he goes on to ask the audience, ‘how many of you’ve read it?’ He expresses dismay at its obscurity, noting that ‘I keep hoping that if quote it people will quote it back to me.’ Had I been in the audience, I would have asked, ‘where do you find it?’ Indeed. You’d think it’d be on the internet if it was such a big deal and all. Of course, this lack of net-accesilbility as of last week just prompted me to find it and post it, since that’s part of what Goodreads is about. So, for your Canadian political self-education, here is the newly posted and freshly translated (by yours truly) ‘Address to the Electors of Terrebonne’. – Timothy ——————————————————————— The Address to the Electors of Terrebonne | Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine http://goodreads.ca/terrebonne/ “Education is the first benefit that a government can give to a people. In the past there were schools that the Legislative Council closed. Public money would be better spent on their reopening than on bribing a police force which everyone repels and abhors. The establishment of our colleges everyday makes lies of these false and injurious assertions, preferred by the prejudiced and the impassioned, that the ignorance of Canadians comes from their pretentious indifference to education.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Thursday 21 September 2006 @ 9:28 PM
