Robin Philpot
Robin Philpot (born in 1948) is a Quebec journalist and electoral candidate for the Parti Québécois.
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[edit] Background
Originally from Thunder Bay, Ontario, where his father Roderick Philpot was an alderman of the city of Fort William, Philpot is a graduate of Fort William Collegiate Institute and earned degrees in literature and history from the University of Toronto. After working in Africa, he established himself in Quebec in 1974. In 1999, he became director of communications for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society in Montreal.
[edit] Public profile
He is notable for having called into question the testimony of Roméo Dallaire on the Rwandan Genocide; his brother is the Montreal lawyer John Philpot, who represented Jean-Paul Akayesu and other defendants accused of genocide and crimes against humanity at the trials conducted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.[1]
Philpot is also notable for his role in attacking the former federal Liberal government over the Option Canada program, a promotional enterprise funded by the federal government intended to promote federalism in Quebec and counter the Quebec sovereignty movement.
Philpot has also written a book about the way the Oka crisis was used as a political tool for English Canada, following the failed Meech Lake Accord: Oka: dernier alibi du Canada anglais (1991)
A People's History of Quebec (Montreal: Baraka Books, 2009) by Philpot and Jacques Lacoursière is described as the first concise English-language social history of Quebec.
[edit] Political career
Philpot was an unsuccessful candidate for the riding of Saint-Henri—Sainte-Anne in the 2007 Quebec general election, representing the Parti Québécois. During the campaign, certain of Philpot's remarks about the Rwandan Genocide from his book Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard were widely republished and proved embarrassing to PQ leader André Boisclair.
These included the statement "In none of my writings have I denied that there were mass killings, some even of an ethnic character. However, I categorically reject the abusive use of the expression 'genocide,'".[2]
Philpot claims never to have denied the existence of the genocide, but has been criticized by researchers Pierre Trudel and Callixte Kabayiza for supporting the thesis of the double genocide.
[edit] References
- ^ Release of Rwanda's mastermind of death promotes genocide denial, Harvard Law Record, 4 December 2009
- ^ Ha, Tu Thanh (8 March 2007). "Boisclair under fire over candidate's genocide remark". Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070308.wqueelection0308_1/BNStory/National/home. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
[edit] External links
- Official website of Robin Philpot (French) (inactive)
- Rwanda 1994: Colonialism dies hard by Robin Philpot, online e-book (English)
