by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Residents of sleepy Quebec City have taken to the streets in protest. Against what, you ask? Famine in Africa? Political prisoners in the Third World? No, Quebec City is protesting in defence of a radio station's right to use terms like "stinky niggers" (even though you'd have trouble finding a visible minority on the streets of the city) and to allow loudmouth DJs the right to suggest that the handicapped be killed.

The streets of Quebec City and Ottawa were teeming with placards waved by angry radio listeners, outraged that Ottawa will pull the license of CHOI FM, which goes off the air at the end of this month. To their credit, many other residents of that burg backed the CRTC.

Here's something about Quebec City to remember for a long time, or at least a week or two: Quebec City is not our friend. It has never shared Montreal's culture and has its entirely separate agenda.

It has always been thus, since de Maisonneuve was stopped there in 1641. He had a deed for Montreal but the Governor of New France, Charles Huault de Montmagny, kept him in Quebec City and tried to persuade him to settle on l'Île D'Orléans. De Maisonneuve thought Montmagny to be a numbskull and said he'd continue on to Montreal, "even if every tree on the island was an Iroquois."

De Maisonneuve would ignore Montmagny's subsequent orders and later, Quebec authorities would continue to harass his efforts, denying him the use of smaller ships that made navigating from Quebec City up to Montreal easier, and they'd constantly try to pressure Montreal nuns to move to Quebec City.

Montrealers of that early era were largely Sulpicians, a type of mendicant, beggar gang inspired by the clothing-averse St. Francis of Assisi. Quebec City settlers were Jesuits, a stern, questioning, hardnose sect.

Maisonneuve brilliantly organized Montreal's first settlers and finally prevailed against his Quebec City meddlers in 1663, thanks to donations from a French benefactor named de Bretonvilliers. Unfortunately, two jealous Quebec bureaucrats conspired against de Maisonneuve, forcing him to return to France in 1666.

Later some regrettable papers were signed and Quebec City became our provincial capital. According to Canadian rules, provinces control cities, thus Montreal's overlord remains the same jealous small-minded town that has been trying to spite us from the start.

It's said that Montreal's powerful mayors kept wishy-washy provincial premiers from meddling on our turf until Drapeau screwed up the Olympics and Bourassa came in and took charge. But in fact Quebec election ridings have forever been unfairly rigged against Montreal in an effort to keep our city's power disproportionately low, an illegitimate and inexcusable practice that continues unabated.

Montreal's population outstripped Quebec City's around 1840, when the Irish moved here to build the Lachine Canal. We've grown several times Quebec City's size thanks largely to waves of immigration from around the world, a sometimes painful process that has enriched us and made this a fascinating place; my only lament is that Montreal doesn't have even more immigrants.

Conversely, Quebec City has bucked the diversity trend, remaining overwhelmingly culturally and ethnically homogenous. It's partly a result of the provincial bureaucracy's longstanding policy of refusing to hire minorities, which must have taken some resolve in the face of countless task forces and studies condemning the racist hiring practices.

Even Quebec City's former hockey team, the NHL Nordiques, celebrated the city's white heritage, bearing a name that my dictionary defines as, "Of or relating to a human physical type exemplified by the tall, narrow-headed, light-skinned, blond-haired peoples of Scandinavia."

When essayist Daniel Sanger pointed out the obvious lamentable lack of minorities in Quebec City, he was denounced by the political elite, including a laughably illogical scolding by the Quebec Press Council.

Quebec City is a nice place to visit but anything worth seeing there was built when there was still a push and pull happening between its now nearly-vanished minorities. As a non-cosmopolitan city, I question Quebec City's legitimacy to rule the province; just as Toronto is the logical provincial capital of Ontario, Montreal should be the capital of Quebec.

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