MORE NEWS

By Carol Fiedler 

Have you ever admired the artwork that adorns the walls and shelves of the Thomas More Institute and wondered how a small non-profit academic institution acquired such beautiful works? For over forty years, from 1962 to 2008, the Thomas More Institute held an annual Exhibition and Sale of Art, organized by exceptional volunteers Martin O’Hara, Hedwidge Asselin, Uve Von Harpe, Cassie Cahoon, Tony Joseph, and others. The exhibition was known as an opportunity for young Quebec artists to show their work. Sarah Valerie Gersovitz, Tony Joseph told me, “participated in almost all of our TMI exhibitions. She was a famous and well-known Canadian artist whose name gave extra prestige to our exhibition and drew attention from other artists wanting to participate.” The exhibit also served as a fundraiser for the Institute. Should an artwork sell, a percentage of the profit would go to the Thomas More Institute, while the rest would go to the artist.

Hedwidge Asselin, who held a Ph.D. in philosophy and studied art history at the Sorbonne and McGill University, was engaged in the local art scene and knew many contemporary artists. Through her connections, the Institute was able to show important up-and-coming painters and sculptors. Quebec artists such as Louis Belzille, Sylvia Safdie, Luba Genush, and Fritz Brandtner displayed their works at the exhibition. Each show held a competition for the top prize, with the winning work purchased by the Thomas More Institute, thus contributing to its collection. The show was made possible by the hard work of the Associates, a committee of dedicated volunteers who worked to organize the academic and cultural events of the Institute (learn more about the Associates in our December 2025 edition of More News). Each year the art exhibition would be shown for ten days, often in such fine venues as the Lotto Québec premises. Lotto Québec was one of the biggest customers of the show, sometimes ordering five or more paintings. In the final exhibition in 2008, one year after her passing, several pieces of Gersovitz’s work were displayed in a separate space, in recognition of her extraordinary talent and her generosity to the Institute throughout the years.

By Louise Jarrett

I emigrated from England to Canada, at the beginning of my twenties, to escape Thatcherism. Ten years later I “migrated” from Toronto to Quebec, where I have lived for 42 years. Not growing up in Quebec, the place has remained something of a mystery for me. I was very pleased to attend the interview with Dr. Mireille Paquet, on March 24 (Encountering the Other: Migration and Democracy) and learn more. Apparently, Quebec has a unique and interesting history of immigration.

Dr. Paquet, who was interviewed by Brian McDonough and Carol Fiedler, gave a very personal and lively account of immigration in Canada, in general, and Quebec in particular. She grew up in Sherbrooke: a really homogeneous part of the province. Her first real encounter with “the Other” was when a group of Yugoslavian refugees attended her high school. It was a seminal moment that led to her studying social sciences and focusing her research on immigration. Her interest grew out of her realization that these refugees were more like her than not like her: the Other was not other but the same.

Dr. Paquet stressed that there is generally “fuzzy thinking around immigration.” The terms migrant and refugee are often confused when they should not be. While there is no clear definition of what a migrant is, this is not the case for a refugee. An Administrative Tribunal, created after WWII, decides who has refugee status according to strict criteria. These criteria have changed to now account for violence on the basis of gender and sexual orientation. However, climate change and poverty, which are major causes of human migration, are not criteria for refugee status. “Economic refugees” is a relatively new term for an age-old problem.

Canada is unique in that jurisdiction over immigration is shared by the federal and the provincial governments. No other country in the world has this arrangement. Interestingly, and not surprisingly, Quebec is unique among the provinces: it receives federal funding for the integration of its immigrants. In Quebec, immigration is a package deal: it is inseparable from integration.

In the Duplessis era, Quebec was opposed to immigration. Following the Quiet Revolution, the province became very proactive on the issue. In 1968, the Department of Immigration was created and was based, rather significantly, in Montreal, rather than Quebec City.

Dr. Paquet explained how Quebec has experienced three waves of immigration. From the sixties to the nineties there was heated debate around the subject. From the nineties to 2012 there was a period of consensus: immigration was stable but growing. With the CAQ entering the political scene in 2012 and then coming to power in 2018, there was a radical shift. In order to distinguish itself from the Liberal Party and the Parti Quebecois, the CAQ sought to reduce the number of immigrants. Unfortunately, immigration is a wedge issue dividing the province today. While polls show that immigration is not something that preoccupies voters, it is increasingly the issue being politicized by the right wing movement. Traditional, moderate parties are forced to respond to the rhetoric around immigration and in the process become fractured. The constant reiteration of immigration as an issue means that, eventually, it becomes an issue. Sadly, this is where we stand today in Quebec, in Canada and in the world at large.

There is evidence that foreign interference is using the issue of immigration to divide and conquer. Our news routinely provides more opinions than facts. As Dr. Paquet expressed it, “we are living in a media echo-system.” Immigration is now beset by issues regarding policy cancellations, back-logs, delays and even concerns surrounding AI-generated documentation.

In the next five years Quebec will face an essential workers crisis. The demographic future of Quebec is in doubt. There is currently a 16-17 year delay for immigrants seeking to become Permanent Residents. This delay allows workers to be exploited for decades. One million residents of Quebec are about to lose their status as temporary workers. What will their fate be?

Listening to Dr. Paquet, I realized that I had been a Canadian immigrant in the Golden Age. My journey had been simple, with no roadblocks along the way. Canada is in a new, darker era now and immigration may never be straightforward again. As Democracy unravels, immigration will become a more divisive issue, but only if we allow it to.

Read the full PDF version of the December 2025 More News here.

By Louise Jarrett

Over many decades, courses that combine literature and film have proven very popular at the Thomas More Institute. Andrew Byers has designed and led many of these, including a course on Raymond Chandler, one on Henry James and the upcoming Graham Greene on Screen. This term, Friendship Through Fiction and Film was well attended and Shakespeare in the Spring is a TMI favourite.

Including films in a course presents a particular dilemma: should the films be watched in class or should participants view them at home before discussing them? Andrew Byers believes that “watching films is a communal experience,” so he always shows the films in class. He feels that the “immediacy of watching together” makes the discussion more spontaneous. Furthermore, watching together is also “a reward for doing the required reading” and a welcome “change of pace” from the TMI discussion method.

In the Friendship Through Fiction and Film course, participants watched the films at home via a streaming service. Interestingly, some participants elected to watch together at one location. This course has been rather unique as a group of friends registered together. They not only watched the films together, but offered lots of insights into friendship as one voice. When one member of the class could not access a film, she was invited to watch with a fellow classmate. This seemed in keeping with the TMI spirit of shared learning. Happily, the one man who signed up for the course continued, despite being seriously outnumbered. We have appreciated having a male perspective on friendship.

Asking people to watch movies at home does allow for more discussion time in class. Oftentimes, it is easier to hear at home than in a classroom. In a short survey of those taking Friendship Through Fiction and Film, the majority said that they preferred watching films at home. Participants also said that they experienced no discernible difference in discussing films as opposed to novels. This suggests that today, film really is just another form of text for most people.

In the case of this course, it was the topic of friendship that attracted people, rather than the novels and films selected. The majority of members of the class had never taken a course combining fiction and film before, and were unanimous in planning to do so again.

The Shakespeare in the Spring course provides short clips from films, courtesy of YouTube, during the discussions. This creates more work for the leaders, but can really enhance understanding and student engagement. Most fiction and film courses offer film versions of the texts read. If there is more than one film version, a difficult choice lies ahead. For Andrew Byers the choice is an easy one: always choose the original version, rather than a re-make and/or the version where the author has written the script.

In Friendship Through Fiction and Film, we read three novels and watched three films on the theme of Friendship. There were also weekly supplemental readings on current research. Each text revealed different aspects of what we now understand to be an extremely complex subject.

We live in a highly visual age, so it seems likely that courses offering literature and films will continue to appeal to members of the TMI community.

As we approach our annual holiday gathering, we wanted to look back at the celebrations from previous years. Members of the Thomas More Institute have been coming together at a Feast of Lights celebration since the late 1980s, when a dynamic committee called the Associates, hit upon the idea of a holiday get-together as a fundraiser for the Institute.

The Associates Committee was made up of a small group of dedicated Thomas More volunteers, including Rolande Sentenne, Uve von Harpe, Cassie Cahoon, Tony Joseph, and others. This group believed in the mission of the Institute and gave their time and ingenuity to finding ways of raising money to support Thomas More, which despite its popularity, was (and is) always in need of financial resources. The Associates were best known for putting on an annual art exhibition of Québec paintings (read more about this in the next issue of More News), but they also organized the following fundraisers every year: a book fair, a spring tea, a trip to the Stratford Festival, and, starting in the late 1980s, the Feast of Lights.

The first Feast of Lights celebration took place in 1987 as Thomas More was searching for a permanent home. All attendees were invited to come to enjoy classical music played by students, delicious food prepared by community members, and the good company of fellow learners. They were also asked to bring a financial contribution to support the institute and to help fund the purchase of a new home. Once Thomas More had moved to its new premises at 3405 Atwater in 1991, the tradition continued, made easier by the availability of a party room in our new home. Tony Joseph remembers greeting Thomas More students as they arrived at the party, and receiving cash or a cheque from each one.

As the years passed, Thomas More transitioned to receiving most donations by mail, and later online, but the Feast of Lights continued, giving staff, students, leaders, and designers a chance to gather and celebrate the holidays and our common passion for lifelong learning.