Delisle alleged that Lionel Groulx, a Canadian intellectual and a father of Quebec nationalism, had published anti-Semitic articles under pseudonyms.
This assertion generated great controversy, alongside her reporting numerous anti-Semitic opinion pieces and articles that had been published in the respected intellectual Quebec newspaper Le Devoir in the 1930s.
She notes that the mass-circulation newspaper La Presse, as one example, did not publish as much anti-Semitic content as the intellectually-influential but less read Le Devoir.
[1] Delisle's analysis of Groulx and Le Devoir was covered sympathetically in a 1991 article about the young scholar in L'Actualité, the Quebec news magazine.
Claude Charron, a former Parti Québécois cabinet minister, repeated that assertion when he was introducing a 2002 broadcast on Canal D of Je me souviens, the Eric R. Scott documentary about Delisle's book.
Scott and Delisle said that was an absolute falsehood and asked Canal D to rebroadcast the documentary, as they considered Charron's introduction to be defamatory and inaccurate.
In her history, Delisle claimed that Groulx, under the pseudonym Jacques Brassier, wrote in a 1933 article published in L'Action nationale: "Within six months or a year, the Jewish problem could be resolved, not only in Montreal but from one end of the province of Quebec to the other.
"[citation needed] Referring to Groulx and the Le Devoir newspaper, Francine Dubé wrote in the National Post on April 24, 2002 that "the evidence Delisle has unearthed seems to leave no doubt that both were anti-Semitic and racist.
Yet its spokesmen and ideologues were not cranks, but rather the leaders of French-Canadian society, its clerics, academics, and journalists – people who were universally admired and listened to.
"[6]"Academic Esther Delisle angrily attacks the Establishment for its position of "Everyone knows, but no one should say" with regard to her own attempts to reveal Quebec's shameful intellectual past, including a postwar policy of welcoming Nazi collaborators from France and of trivializing the Holocaust.
"[8]The Delisle-Richler controversy is the title of a separate Wikipedia article that explores in more detail the issues related to Esther Delisle's and Mordecai Richler's discussions about antisemitism among Quebec intellectuals of the pre-World War II years, including Groulx.
They argue that such opinions do not discredit his scholarship or secular Quebec nationalism, either because the antisemitism arises from Groulx' Catholic beliefs or because it is a personal bias unrelated or peripheral to his academic work.
Delisle, by contrast, argues that antisemitism is an integral component of Groulx' race-based nationalism and his enthusiasm for right-wing authoritarian governments.