Andrew Potter, the author of a controversial article on Quebec society that was published in Maclean’s magazine this week, has resigned his position as the director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.
He submitted his resignation to McGill University “in order to protect the integrity of the institution,” Dr. Potter said. He will continue to teach as an associate professor in a non-tenure track three-year contract post.
The Board of Trustees for the Institute said that Dr. Potter “organized numerous conferences and strengthened the participation of Indigenous leaders and communities.” The resignation letter was sent Wednesday.
In a Facebook message posted on Thursday morning, Potter wrote: "I deeply regret many aspects of the column -- its sloppy use of anecdotes, its tone, and the way it comes across as deeply critical of the entire province. That wasn't my intention, it doesn't reflect my views of Quebec, and I am heartbroken that the situation has evolved the way it has."
The resignation will raise questions about how McGill has handled the controversy over the article. On Monday afternoon, the university publicly distanced itself from the piece, saying on Twitter that the “views expressed by @JAndrewPotter in the @Macleansmag article do not represent those of #McGill.”
On Twitter and in other media, some academics were outraged that the university would make such a statement.
McGill’s tweet was “in fact a reprehensible attack on the core of the academic mission, and specifically on academic freedom,” wrote Emmett Macfarlane, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Waterloo, in Maclean’s. “[If] any administrator voiced displeasure to Potter or threatened to sanction him, that individual is simply not fit to have a role in university governance,” Dr. Macfarlane continued.
In the original article, Dr. Potter had argued that a massive traffic gridlock that left 300 cars stranded overnight on a Quebec highway last week revealed an “essential malaise eating away at the foundations of Quebec society.” Quebec, he said, was a “pathologically alienated and low-trust society.”
On Tuesday, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard lambasted the article, saying, according to media reports, that it “[aimed] to paint a negative portrait of Quebec, based on prejudices.”
Dr. Potter has apologized for the piece, writing on Facebook that the story “contains some rhetorical flourishes that go beyond what is warranted by either the facts or my own beliefs, for which I wish to apologize.” He added that he did not intend to “insult Quebec and Quebeckers.”
“As naive as this sounds, it came out of a good-faith attempt to understand what happened with the closure of Highway 13 during the snowstorm,” his Facebook post said.
Dr. Potter, who is in his 40s, was hired by the university last year after a career in journalism, including a stint as editor-in-chief of the Ottawa Citizen. He earned a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto and taught for three years at Trent University. At the time of his hiring at McGill, the university praised his “reputation as a public intellectual in Canada.”
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