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Montreal Gazette Editor Explains Why You Can’t Believe Your Lying Eyes with Boris Cartoon

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D. D. Degg August 31, 2022 1 minute 1 comment

From Bert Archer, Montreal Gazette Editor regarding the controversial Boris cartoon:

There has been a good deal of outrage over the most recent Boris cartoon published online Monday afternoon and in print Tuesday morning. It depicted an elderly lady in Montreal not paying attention while her small dog pissed in the direction of a poster commemorating René Lévesque’s centenary.

© Montreal Gazette/Jacques "Boris" Goldstyn

I wouldn’t usually step in to explain or defend a cartoon or column. Their authors are employed to voice their opinions, not ours, and the two don’t always intersect.

But this cartoon has deeply upset some readers, so I’d like to explain what I saw when I was sent this cartoon yesterday afternoon.

Read Bert’s interpretation here.

Boris, for his part, said …

… that his intention was to denounce the contempt that some anglophones in Quebec have for Lévesque, whose 100th birthday was celebrated by heavyweights in Quebec politics earlier this year at the Quebec National Library in Montreal. The former premier is considered the father of Quebec’s independence movement.