Sources: A Legal Crime: The Origin of Desjardins?
This page gathers the sources of the video “A Legal Crime: The Origin of Desjardins?”.
Watch the video on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Links checked on October 10 and 13, 2026.
How to read this page
The facts told in the video rest on the sources below. When the archives are silent, the video says so. A few staging details (how long a hearing lasted, the language of a speech) are reasonable inferences from these sources. Our own calculations are marked as such on screen.
When the period document cannot be shown, or was not preserved, it is reconstructed and carries the label “Reconstruction”: the text comes from the source, the layout is ours. The detail is further down.
What we do not know (Michaud’s first name, whether he ever paid, who took down Quinn’s speech) is said in the video, not hidden here.
One point on which the newspapers contradict each other: La Presse prints 1893 for the date of the note, while the Herald and the Witness print 1894, which the calculation of the judgment confirms. The video uses 1894.
Sources consulted in October 2026. The BAnQ links open the issue at its first page: the page cited is given in the reference.
1897 newspapers
Issues from BAnQ numérique (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Quebec’s national library and archives).
La Presse (Montreal), “5 p. c. par jour! Un crime légal... Les législateurs devraient intervenir. Un billet promissoire” [5 per cent a day! A legal crime... Lawmakers should step in. A promissory note], March 10, 1897, p. 8.
In the video: The text of the note, the “per day” that is “not too visible,” Judge Gill’s remarks and the headline “A legal crime.”
The Daily Witness (Montreal), “Incredible!!! Five percent per day. What appalling transactions our laws allow,” March 10, 1897, p. 3.
In the video: The note in English, the pre-printed form, the lawsuit of February 26, 1897 and the judge’s calculation ($5,985 + $150 = $6,135).
The Herald (Montreal), “Five per cent. per day is what J. L. Michaud has to pay on a note,” March 10, 1897, p. 8.
In the video: The headline that names Michaud, Lafortune and Judge Gill, the date of the note (November 30, 1894) and the words “per day” carried over to the next line.
The Herald (Montreal), editorial “Usury and Garnishee,” March 11, 1897, p. 4.
In the video: An editorial on the case, shown on screen.
The Daily Witness (Montreal), editorial “Interest,” March 12, 1897, p. 4.
In the video: The projections of nearly $9,000 and then nearly $12,000, and the line “It is not right, though it may be lawful.”
Le Courrier de Saint-Jean, “Le Herald et l’usure” [The Herald and Usury], March 19, 1897, p. 2.
In the video: The case taken up by a French-language newspaper, shown on screen.
Le Monde illustré (Montreal), no. 672, March 20, 1897, p. 2.
In the video: The passage “Cette cause a fait sensation, et l’on demande la promulgation d’une loi contre les usuriers” (our translation: “This case caused a sensation, and people are calling for a law against usurers to be passed”).
The Herald (Montreal), “Bills by Mr. Quinn” (parliamentary report) and editorial “Mr. Quinn’s Usury Bill,” April 7, 1897, p. 4.
In the video: The link the paper draws between Quinn’s bill and Judge Gill’s judgment.
Lovell’s directories
Montreal directories, for the Mansion House hotel on Common Street.
Lovell’s Montreal Business Directory, 1894-95, classified directory, “Hotels,” p. 156 (file page 170).
In the video: “Mansion house, A. Lafortune, manager, 98½ Common,” listed among the city’s hotels.
Lovell’s Montreal Directory for 1894-95, Montreal, Lovell, 1894.
In the video: “Lafortune Ambroise, prop Mansion house, 98½ Common”: the lender’s address.
Lovell’s Montreal Directory for 1896-97, Montreal, Lovell, 1896, street directory, Dalhousie Street, p. 173.
In the video: “Lafortune A., hotelkeeper”: the hotel keeper.
Parliamentary debates
Canada, House of Commons, House of Commons Debates (English edition), 8th Parliament, 2nd Session, vol. 1, April 6, 1897, pp. 550-552, “The Rate of Interest.”
In the video: The exchange “Explain, please,” Bill No. 15, the rates of nearly 3,000% a year, the 6% limit and the first reading. The pages are not shown: the words are reconstructed on screen.
Biography and history
Pierre Poulin and Guy Bélanger, “Desjardins, Alphonse (baptized Gabriel-Alphonse),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto and Université Laval, 2003-, accessed October 1, 2026.
In the video: His birth and family, his post as a stenographer, Quinn’s bill as the turning point, the founding of December 6, 1900, the Quebec law of 1906, the 136 caisses and the figures for 1920.
Guy Bélanger, “Desjardins, Dorimène (Desjardins) (baptized Marie-Claire-Dorimène),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto and Université Laval, 2003-, accessed October 1, 2026.
In the video: The caisse’s head office in the family home, her role as manager without the title (1903-1906) and the allowance of $50 a year.
David Camirand, “La fondation de la Caisse populaire de Lévis : aux sources du Mouvement Desjardins” [The founding of the Caisse populaire de Lévis: At the sources of the Desjardins movement], Histoire Canada, April 8, 2025 (first published in Traces, vol. 63, no. 1, Winter 2025, pp. 23-28). Article in French.
In the video: The $242.80 deposited in the first month and the first loan, $50 to Olivier Jacques, a marble cutter.
Desjardins Group, “Our history,” desjardins.com, accessed October 1, 2026.
In the video: The institution’s own account: Desjardins, scandalized by the revelations of 1897, who takes down the words of an MP.
Period works
Alphonse Desjardins, The Cooperative People’s Bank: La Caisse Populaire, New York, Division of Remedial Loans, Russell Sage Foundation, August 1914, p. 27 (chapter “La Caisse populaire de Lévis”) and p. 30 (publisher’s note).
In the video: His own words on the Montreal lawsuits (p. 27), the opening of the caisse on January 23, 1901 and the absence of a federal law for cooperative banks (p. 30).
Henry W. Wolff, People’s Banks: A Record of Social and Economic Success, London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1893.
In the video: The book Desjardins studied, according to his biography. Its title page is shown on screen.
The Town of Levis and Environs, Montreal, Commercial Magazine Co., 1912, p. 45 (French column “Les banques”).
In the video: The page shown on screen: the caisse populaire founded in Lévis in 1901 by Mr. Alphonse Desjardins.
Statutes of the Province of Quebec, 6 Edward VII (1906), chap. 33, “An Act respecting cooperative syndicates” (assented to March 9, 1906), pp. 127-135.
In the video: The title of the 1906 Quebec law, reconstructed on screen.
Today’s figures and laws
Desjardins Group, “Desjardins Group’s financial results for fiscal 2025,” press release, Lévis, February 24, 2026.
In the video: More than 10 million members and clients; assets of $510.2 billion at December 31, 2025.
International Co-operative Alliance and Euricse, World Cooperative Monitor 2025, 13th edition, November 2025, p. 40.
In the video: Desjardins Group is the 8th largest financial cooperative in the world: a co-op bank “on a world scale.”
Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, s. 347 (criminal rate of interest of 35% a year).
In the video: Today, a loan at more than 35% a year is a crime, with some exceptions.
Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, s. 347.1 (payday loans).
In the video: The exception behind “with some exceptions.”
Order Fixing January 1, 2025 as the Day on Which Sections 610 to 612 of the Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1 Come into Force, SI/2024-25, Canada Gazette, Part II, vol. 158, no. 13, June 19, 2024.
In the video: The criminal rate of 35% has been in force since January 1, 2025.
Bills of Exchange Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. B-4, s. 176 (definition of a promissory note).
In the video: The definition of a note: a written, signed promise to pay a sum, on a set date, to a specific person.
Images and credits
One line per image. “Public domain” means free of copyright in Canada (for BAnQ, according to the notice on each issue). The cut-paper characters are our own creations.
Newspapers and directory (BAnQ numérique)
The judgment column, the headline “Incredible!!!” and the judge’s remarks
- Source
- The Daily Witness, p. 3, BAnQ numérique
- Author
- The Daily Witness (Montreal)
- Date
- March 10, 1897
- Licence
- Public domain
The headline that names Michaud, Lafortune and Judge Gill
- Source
- The Herald, p. 8, BAnQ numérique
- Author
- The Herald (Montreal)
- Date
- March 10, 1897
- Licence
- Public domain
The editorial “Usury and Garnishee”
- Source
- The Herald, p. 4, BAnQ numérique
- Author
- The Herald (Montreal)
- Date
- March 11, 1897
- Licence
- Public domain
The newspaper’s title and the editorial “Interest”
- Source
- The Daily Witness, p. 4, BAnQ numérique
- Author
- The Daily Witness (Montreal)
- Date
- March 12, 1897
- Licence
- Public domain
The article “Le Herald et l’usure” [The Herald and Usury]
- Source
- Le Courrier de Saint-Jean, p. 2, BAnQ numérique
- Author
- Le Courrier de Saint-Jean
- Date
- March 19, 1897
- Licence
- Public domain
The report “Bills by Mr. Quinn” and the editorial on the bill
- Source
- The Herald, p. 4, BAnQ numérique
- Author
- The Herald (Montreal)
- Date
- April 7, 1897
- Licence
- Public domain
Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue: the canal lock and the Grand Trunk bridge
- Source
- Le Monde illustré, vol. 11, no. 546, p. 295, BAnQ numérique
- Author
- A. J. Rice; Laprés & Lavergne
- Date
- October 20, 1894
- Licence
- Public domain
The “Hotels” page of the classified directory, with the Mansion House
- Source
- Lovell’s Montreal Business Directory, 1894-95, p. 156, BAnQ numérique
- Author
- Lovell (Montreal)
- Date
- 1894
- Licence
- Public domain
Photographs and portraits
Saint-Jacques Street in Montreal in 1895 (detail)
- Source
- Flickr, “Vieux-Montréal 1895. La rue Saint-Jacques Ouest, depuis Place d’Armes.” [Old Montreal 1895. Saint-Jacques Street West, from Place d’Armes.], after a photograph in the archives of the McCord Stewart Museum
- Author
- Wm. Notman & Son, photograph; Philippe Du Berger, digitized detail
- Date
- 1895
Changes: Image cropped, tinted in the colours of the film and cut into layers for the animation.
Montreal in 1896: panorama of Saint-Jacques Street (detail)
- Source
- Flickr, “Montréal 1896. Panorama (détail), la rue Saint-Jacques Ouest.” [Montreal 1896. Panorama (detail), Saint-Jacques Street West.], after a photograph in the archives of the McCord Stewart Museum
- Author
- Wm. Notman & Son, photograph; Philippe Du Berger, digitized detail
- Date
- 1896
Changes: Image cropped, softened, tinted in the colours of the film and cut into layers for the animation.
The Parliament in Ottawa (Centre Block)
- Source
- Ottawa Illustrated: Photo-Gravures, Ottawa, Chas. H. Thorburn, 1900, p. 4, via Internet Archive Book Images (Flickr)
- Author
- Albertype Co., New York (photogravure)
- Date
- 1900
The portrait of Alphonse Desjardins
- Source
- Frontispiece of The Cooperative People’s Bank, Internet Archive (University of California libraries)
- Author
- Photographer not named in the book
- Date
- c. 1914
- Licence
- Public domain
Alphonse Desjardins: cut-paper character created for the video, based on this portrait and the 1882 photograph (further down). The pose is identical to that of the portrait that Wikimedia Commons attributes to A. G. Pittaway, 1913.
The portrait of Michael Quinn
- Source
- Plate from Men of Canada, Montreal, Canadian Historical Co., 1901-1902, p. 23, Internet Archive (University of Toronto libraries)
- Author
- Photographer not named in the book
- Date
- 1901
- Licence
- Public domain
Michael Quinn: cut-paper character created for the video, based on this portrait.
The portrait of Wilfrid Laurier
- Source
- British Library, HS85/10/8511, via Wikimedia Commons, “Sir Wilfred Laurier (HS85-10-8511)”
- Author
- Quéry Frères, Montreal
- Date
- 1896
- Licence
- Public domain
Wilfrid Laurier: cut-paper character created for the video, based on this portrait.
Dorimène Desjardins: cut-paper character created for the video. Card: photograph by A. G. Pittaway, 1913, public domain
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, “Dorimene Desjardins.jpg”
- Author
- A. G. Pittaway, according to the original caption
- Date
- 1913
- Licence
- Public domain
The face of the cut-paper character of Alphonse Desjardins, based on this photograph and the 1914 portrait
- Source
- McCord Stewart Museum (II-64954.1), via Wikimedia Commons, “Alphonse Desjardins 1882”
- Author
- Notman & Sandham, Montreal
- Date
- April 27, 1882
- Licence
- Public domain
The photograph itself is not shown. Wikimedia Commons names the sitter “A. Desjardins.”
Books and maps
The title page of People’s Banks
- Source
- Internet Archive (University of California libraries)
- Author
- Henry W. Wolff
- Date
- 1893
- Licence
- Public domain
Page 27 of The Cooperative People’s Bank
- Source
- Internet Archive (University of California libraries)
- Author
- Alphonse Desjardins
- Date
- August 1914
- Licence
- Public domain
Page 45 of The Town of Levis and Environs (“Les banques” column)
- Source
- Internet Archive (University of Toronto libraries)
- Author
- Commercial Magazine Co., Montreal
- Date
- 1912
- Licence
- Public domain
The map of the Province of Quebec (turned a quarter turn)
- Source
- The Graphic Atlas and Gazetteer of the World, map no. 66, Internet Archive (University of California libraries)
- Author
- J. G. Bartholomew
- Date
- 1892
- Licence
- Public domain
The coastlines of the paper map (Europe and America)
- Source
- Natural Earth, data at the 1:110m scale
- Author
- Natural Earth
- Date
- undated
- Licence
- Public domain
Reconstructed documents
These items are our own compositions. They carry the label “Reconstruction” on screen when they stand in for a document that cannot be shown or that was not preserved.
Michaud’s note
The text comes from La Presse (March 10, 1897, p. 8), whose page is not shown: its quotation and its headline are recomposed. The date of November 30, 1894 comes from the Daily Witness and the Herald (March 10, 1897). The original has not been digitized.
Lafortune’s pre-printed form
No printed form of Lafortune’s has been preserved: the wording is ours, based on the published note and the Witness’s report.
The Mansion House model
A model based on the “Hotels” page of the 1894-95 Lovell’s directory, with no invented signboard.
The January 1895 calendar
Our calculation: due date estimated around January 15, a month and a half after November 30, 1894.
The summons
No copy found. Only the lawsuit of February 26, 1897 is sourced (The Daily Witness, March 10, 1897).
The debt counter
Our calculation: 5% of $150 is $7.50 a day. The Witness rounds to “nearly $9,000” and “nearly $12,000.”
The words of Quinn and Laurier, April 6, 1897
Text composed from the House of Commons Debates, pp. 550 and 551, whose pages are not shown.
The title of the 1906 Quebec law
Title taken from the Statutes of the Province of Quebec, 6 Edward VII (1906), chap. 33.
The paper map and the sets (House of Commons chamber, the Desjardins home, the caisse’s room)
Our drawings and our cut-paper constructions. The sets make no claim to document the places.
How the video is made: the paper sets and the characters were created with artificial intelligence image tools, from period documents and portraits. Real documents are shown as they are, and reconstructed documents carry the label “Reconstruction.” The music and sound effects were created with ElevenLabs.
Music
Original music created with ElevenLabs Music.
About
David Ponce, mortgage broker (courtier hypothécaire), AMF 3002114550, and responsible officer of Groupe ZenFi. Groupe ZenFi (9498-0356 Québec inc.), firm in mortgage brokerage (cabinet en courtage hypothécaire), AMF 3003043028. This video is general information, not personalized advice.