Quebec 70. A documentary narrative.

The October crisis of 1970 opened a new chapter in Canadian history that was at once bizarre and tragic, unbelievable and terrifying. For three months Canadians knew only what the FLQ told them. Their communiqués were almost the only hard news the public had, and it is their communiqués and official government statements that form much of this documentary narrative. No useful purpose would be served by another account of the October crisis where fact and rumour, interpretation and polemics, were indistinguishable, as they were in much of the reporting and in many of the instant books that followed hard on the heels of the crisis. This is Quebec 70 as it happened, as the public and the governments experienced it, without the benefit of hindsight or the dangers of speculation.

JOHN T. SAYWELL is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Toronto.