Max Chancy

Education

After his studies at the École Normale Supérieure de l’Université d’État d’Haïti, Max Chancy left for Europe, where he earned a certificate in political science and an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the Sorbonne, in France, and a doctorate at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mayence, Germany. Upon returning to Haiti in 1953, he became a professor of philosophy at the Université d’État d’Haïti and a philosophy teacher at a Haitian secondary school. He was also active in Haiti’s national union of secondary-school teachers.

As the government of dictator François Duvalier clamped down on this union, Chancy left the public-education system to teach at the Centre d’études secondaires, a private secondary school that he co-founded in Port-au-Prince in 1954. He also engaged in the political struggle against Duvalier’s rule, joining the Parti populaire de libération nationale (People’s party for national liberation). He was imprisoned in 1963, released in 1965, and left Haiti that same year. Chancy and his family emigrated to Canada, where he applied for status as a political refugee. (See also Canadian Refugee Policy.)

Community and Social Activism

As soon as Chancy arrived in Quebec, the Chambly regional school board (see School Boards) hired him as a teacher. From 1965 to 1970, he taught Latin and German, first at the Externat classique de Longueuil (a Catholic school that later became Collège Édouard-Montpetit) and then at the École Secondaire Polyvalente de Boucherville ( see Boucherville). He became a professor of philosophy at Collège Édouard-Montpetit in 1970 and a lecturer in the philosophy department at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 1973.

In the 1970s, the number of Haitian immigrants to Canada grew substantially (see: Haitian Canadians; Immigration to Canada), with most of them settling in Montreal. They were regarded as economic refugees (see Economic Immigration to Canada), meaning that they were fleeing poverty and not political persecution. (See: Refugees to Canada; Canadian Refugee Policy.) Many of these new arrivals were irregular immigrants (see Irregular Immigration and Canada), which made it hard for them to obtain political-refugee status. Even though Chancy was still waiting to receive refugee status himself, he tried to show the connection between these population movements and the repressive policies of the Haitian government. He also denounced Western countries, including Canada, for providing support to this government. (See also Canadian Foreign Relations.)

In 1972, Max Chancy, along with his wife Adeline Magloire and other associates, was instrumental in founding the Maison d’Haïti. This organization’s objective is to help immigrants from Haiti to integrate into Quebec society. The Maison d’Haïti also defends their rights as workers and combats racism. Over the years, this organization has become one of the central pillars of the Haitian community.

Involvement in the Quebec School System

In the late 1970s, many students of Haitian origin were experiencing many problems with the Quebec school system. Large numbers of these students were receiving failing grades, while others were placed in special classes. These problems became so widespread that Quebec’s immigration and education ministries established a roundtable to find solutions to the problems that these students were facing. The roundtable’s members included representatives of Quebec’s government, its education system and its Haitian community. Max Chancy sat on this roundtable as representative for the Maison d’Haïti, along with other community leaders such as Jean-Claude Icart and Adrien Bance. In an article that he and sociologist Charles Pierre-Jacques co-authored for an anthology published in 1982, Chancy drew the connection between the problems that Haitian youth were experiencing in school and the often precarious conditions in which they and their families lived, while Pierre-Jacques explained that these problems were due in part to racism in Quebec’s school system.

As the result of Max Chancy’s involvement in Quebec education issues, he became well known. In 1979, the Quebec government appointed him to sit on the Conseil supérieur de l’éducation, a body that advises Quebec’s Minister of Education. In January 1984, Quebec Minister of Education Camille Laurin appointed Chancy to chair a ministerial committee on relations between Quebec’s schools and its cultural communities. This committee issued a report containing a number of recommendations, in particular on the importance of intercultural education—an approach that considers students’ cultural backgrounds in order to communicate with them more effectively.

Fighting for Democracy and Social Progress

Throughout his exile in Canada, Chancy maintained an interest in what was going on back in Haiti. He met regularly to talk about Haiti with youth from Quebec’s Haitian community (see Haitian Canadians), to strengthen their feeling of belonging to this community, and to help them understand Haitian history and their social status as an ethnic minority group. In Chancy’s view, preserving the cultures of origin of immigrant communities was an essential task that helped to enrich the wider society as well. He was a frequent guest on the community radio station Radio Centre-Ville. He took positions on various subjects concerning Quebec and Canadian politics as well as the social and political situation in Haiti, which continued to suffer under the Duvalier dictatorship.

For Max Chancy, though it was important to support the Haitian people’s struggle for liberation, it was also essential to fight in solidarity with the struggles of other oppressed peoples. Hence he supported the peace movements working against the war in Viet Nam and in Latin America. He also played a vigorous role in social organizations in Quebec, in particular as a union activist. In 1975, alongside prominent Quebec trade unionist Michel Chartrand, Chancy participated in a meeting called the Conférence internationale de solidarité ouvrière (International conference of worker solidarity). This conference was held for the first time in Quebec. It brought together many representatives of movements fighting for the emancipation of oppressed peoples.

Return to Haiti and Death

Immediately after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, Max Chancy and Adeline Magloire returned to Haiti. Suffering from an illness that he had fought bravely for many years, Max Chancy died at home on 25 March 2002. His life was marked by constant struggle, both during his period of exile in the Haitian community of Montreal and in Haiti.