The Michaud Affair (in French l'Affaire Michaud) was a political controversy in Quebec that began in 2000. It revolved around the comments of Parti Québécois supporter Yves Michaud, those of the Quebec Jewish community (through the B'nai B'rith organization) and the subsequent censure motion from the National Assembly of Quebec members of parliament.
What has been called the "Michaud Affair" started on December 5, 2000, in an interview on the Montreal radio station CKAC. Talk show host Paul Arcand asked: "Don't you feel that there is a lack of interest of a good part of the population on the question of sovereignty and the national question, people who have had enough, for whom it is all over, (who say) let's move on to something else?".
To which Yves Michaud replied: "Well, I will tell you an anecdote. I was... I went to get my hair cut about a month ago. There was a Liberal senator who I will not name who doesn't speak [French]... even though he represents a French-speaking riding and who asked me: 'Are you still a separatist, Yves?' I said 'Yes, yes I am separatist just as you are Jewish. It took 2000 years for your people to have its homeland in Israel.' I said: 'Me, whether it takes 10, 50, or 100 more years it can wait.' So he told me: 'It's not the same.'"
"It's never the same for them. So I said: it is not the same? The Armenians did not suffer, the Palestinians did not suffer, the Rwandans did not suffer. It's always (just) you. You are the only people who suffered in the history of humanity."
"After that, I was fed up. And here we are, I am completely indignant... that some suggested to rename the metro station [named after] Lionel Groulx, who was the spiritual father of two generations of Quebecers and is almost a Quebec idol. It's the B'nai B'rith that did that, which was the extremist phalange... There has been world Zionism... "