The ongoing sensitivities relating to Quebec separatism make this topic one of ongoing interest.
‘A Mere Rustle of Leaves’ caused a bit of a stir before it was even published. CMJ editor, the late John Marteinson, published my first article waaay back in 1991 and when he moved to CMJ he asked me for something that was more contemporary than the Second World War. This article was the result. However, when John sent it for translation, the Quebecois translator refused to translate it because she violently disagreed with the content. John had to get a Belgian to complete the work. This episode was somewhat disturbing. It was the first encounter I had with unofficial censorship that exists in Canadian publishing. And it was not the last.
I get emails on this piece fifteen years after it was published. Indeed, there is still material on the FLQ Crisis that remains unavailable to Canadians. It shouldn’t and it is a ridiculous state of affairs that this is the case. It pumps oxygen to the hysterical conspiracy theorists who seek to portray operations in 1970 as something akin to say, French COIN operations in Algeria.