By Rob Lurie, CTV Montreal
MONTREAL — The man was walking down Queen Mary Rd., smiling, when I stopped him to ask about his memories of 1995. In a blink, the smile was gone.
“You ask me about that as I’m on my way to Jean Coutu to take my blood pressure—what’s the matter with you?” he asked.
Then he smiled as if to say he was just playing to the camera. But when he started talking, you could see the stress as he briefly relived that infamous—or famous, depending on who you ask—year.
“It was not a good period,” said the man, who was in his 70s.
Over the next hour, I got variations of the same answer again and again when I asked about the referendum, whose 25th anniversary is today.
Given that we were in the D’Arcy-McGee riding, which includes the largely English-speaking communities of Cote-St-Luc and Hampstead, the answers are hardly a surprise. In 1995, more than 96 per cent of the riding voted No, the highest in the province.
“I was freaking because who knew what was going to happen,” said one voter.
Another chimed in, “I was thinking, if we lose, we’re in trouble.”
It’s a stark contrast to the answers you get in the Masson riding, which includes Mascouche and part of Terrebonne. In that riding, 71 per cent voted yes, the highest in the Montreal region, and today some are still bitter.
“We got screwed,” said one voter.