In her 1993 book, The Traitor and the Jew: Anti-Semitism and the Delirium of Extremist Right-Wing Nationalism in French Canada from 1929-1939, (Antisémitisme et nationalisme d'extrême-droite dans la province de Québec 1929–1939), French-Canadian historian and political theorist Esther Delisle documented Lionel Groulx's antisemitism as expressed in his writings from 1929 to 1939.
[citation needed] Groulx was opposed to admitting, even temporarily, Jews fleeing the Holocaust in Europe; as outlined by historians Abella and Troper in their study None is Too Many.
"[citation needed] Groulx posited the existence of the French-Canadians as a heroic pure-blooded race that had been degraded by conquest, and lured away from their birth-right by foreign influences; the negative aspects of which he identified with Jews, as well as with the English and Americans.
As he explained in his diary, the French were "l'Israël des temps nouveaux choisi par Dieu pour être le suprême boulevard de la foi du Christ venu, l'épée et le bouclier de la justice catholique" ('Israel of the new times chosen by God to be the ultimate bulwark of the faith of Christ's coming, the sword and the shield of Catholic justice).
[5] In this context, Groulx could be seen as playing a role analogous to the biblical prophets, denouncing the worship of the false gods of secularism, modernity and urban culture while calling his people back to what he understood as their true heritage.
The French-Canadian "nation" whose suffering, Groulx imagined, had been ordained by God, was part of a divine plan as he saw it, to bring the "true faith," in his conception of Roman Catholicism, to the North American continent.
[citation needed] In the inter-war period, Groulx was an avowed admirer of far-right dictators António de Oliveira Salazar and Benito Mussolini and hoped Quebec would find strong leadership.
His anti-semitism had been noted by historians such as Mason Wade and heavily documented by archivist David Rome, but because of the controversy over his alleged expressed hatred of the Jewish people that Delisle's writing brought to the forefront, some individuals raised the issue of the appropriateness of having a prominent Montreal Metro station named after Groulx.