The geographically largest province of Canada, Quebec is situated in the eastern region of the country bordering the USA and the North Atlantic Sea. The province possesses unique culture and language practices due to its historical ties with France, contrasting to the majority of English-influenced Canada. That’s why it has advocated for a separate nation since its annexation to Canada which dates back to the 18th century. With time the Quebec Sovereignty Movement has evolved and many new factors have played crucial roles in shaping it.
History of the Quebec Sovereignty Movement
In the 14th century, the British discovered North America and established their colony in today’s America. Soon, France followed them to claim parts of modern Canada to establish their colony. In 1608, Quebec was established as the first permanent settlement for French colonists and their descendants, and Canada was named New France. The colonists called themselves Canadiens or Canayens, which means inhabitants of the new land. In the 18th century, the British expanded their territories in North America and controlled many of the French regions including Quebec. During this period French colonies resisted British rule and gave birth to this movement where French Canadians assimilated to express their indigenous form of nationalism. This is also otherwise known as Francophone nationalism. In later years this movement evolved with time and circumstances and turned into the Quebec Independence movement in modern times.
The origin of today’s Quebec Sovereignty Movement can be traced back to the 1960s, to the period of the Quiet Revolution. The Quiet Revolution was the era of socio-political and socio-cultural change in French Canada (Regions of Canada with a predominantly French-speaking population), which resisted the discrimination that continued upon them and revived their cultural identity through reforms in education, economic and electoral institutions. This reignited the sentiment of Quebec nationalism, otherwise known as Québécois nationalism.
During that time period several organisations like Rassemblement pour l’indépendance nationale (RIN), Parti républicain du Québec, Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) were founded for this common cause. Prominent amongst them was Parti Québécois (PQ) which was founded by René Lévesque in 1967 and is still active in Canadian politics and actively pursues Canadian institutions to achieve sovereignty.
The FLQ, in this movement, chose the violent method to push for this cause. Since its foundation, it has organised violent protests and demonstrations to express their voices. In 19689 they bombed the Montreal Stock Exchange. In 1970 they kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. Laporte was later found murdered. These tactics, however, became the cause of their downfall as public sentiments rapidly grew against them. By the end of 1971 due to the efforts of law enforcement officers and declined public support the group met its end.
However, on the other side, Parti Québécois (PQ) continued to pursue electoral means to achieve sovereignty. In the 1970 provincial election, PQ won its first seven seats and in the 1976 elections, the party won 71 seats forming a majority. The party conducted several reforms that aligned with Quebec nationalism, but the most crucial event in this term was the 1980 Quebec Referendum. The Quebec Independent Referendum of 1980 was a consensus that took place on the topic of whether Quebec should stay with Canada or form its own sovereign country and was brought forward by Parti Québécois. The PQ lost this consensus by the 59.56 percent to 40.44 percent margin.
In the next election, the PQ loses to the Liberal party and the next several years goes unfavourable to their cause. In 1982 Canada’s constitution patriated without Quebec’s consent and in 1992 the Charlestown Accord was rejected in a national referendum.
In 1994 the PQ again came to power and in 1995 again proposed the Second Quebec Referendum. This referendum was also rejected, albeit by a much smaller margin (50.58% to 49.42%). Later the Canadian federal administration took several steps that made the secession of Quebec much more difficult. Amongst the m is the Clarity Act of 1999. The Clarity Act requires a clear to initiate secession talks of any region and controversially the power to give this clear resides with the House of Commons of the federal government.
Since then, the PQ has been active politically in Quebec’s regional politics as well as a prominent political party in Canadian politics due to the majority population of the region being Francophone (French-speaking population). Liberal Party and New Democratic Party have also held influence in the province due to the presence of Anglophones (English Speaking Population), allophones (neither English nor French speaking population, i.e. native population) and first and second-generation immigrants. The Quebec Sovereignty Movement remains active with periodic discussions and debates about the province’s future within Canada.
Reasons for Demanding a Sovereign Quebec
Supporters of the Secession movement often argue that the general Canadian citizen often misunderstands the reasons behind the demand. Linguistical differences could be one of the major contributors to this phenomenon as major literature and studies are done in French instead of English which is the most spoken language in the country.
Economic Factors
Secessionists often claim that economic changes due to secession will go much in favour of the newly formed country compared to the current economy that the region has. Several independent economic studies are put forth as pieces of evidence for that claim. The Commission Bélanger-Campeau is an independent commission that studied this question in deep. The commission has the conclusion that a sovereign Quebec will have $2,1 billion of dollars in surplus. Numerous studies have similar conclusions like Leblanc, Legault, Gobeil, etc. Also, there are a lot of economic organisations that “support” Quebec sovereignty (IREC, Fraser Institute, IRIS, etc) for the same reasons.
Adding to that the economic autonomy that comes with the secession would make the Quebec administration uplift the communities that were historically neglected due to linguistic divisions. Although the initial years will be unstable and vulnerable, the secessionists believe that in the long run, it’ll be beneficial for them.
Historical Injustices
Several historical injustices and discriminations against French Canadians motivate people to resonate with the Quebec Sovereignty Movement. Since the conquest of French colonies by the British in the 18th century, French Canadians became a minority in the land both from a population and administrative perspective and due to this they faced discrimination in various sectors even after the control of the nation shifted from the Queen to the Canadian government. An example of that is, till the 60s, there were higher percentages of African Americans in the universities in the US during the 60s than “Frenchies” (French-Canadians) in the universities in Quebec. Francophones were living in ghettos and most of them were working in factories with poor working conditions and weak labour laws. Most of the factory owners were either English-speaking Canadian or American contractors. Education was under the control of Churches, most of which are English or have origins and connections that span to Britain. The Quiet Revolution of the 60s was a consequence of these social injustices.
Apart from these the treatment of Quebec in modern Canada is also a contributing factor. One example of this is the conduct of the 1995 Quebec referendum. Secessionists claim that the federal government spent above the legal limit in their campaign against the referendum. In Chomedey, where the “Comité pour le Non” with the help of the federal administration spent more than 35 million when the legal limit was 5 million. Through Option Canada they used Canadians in other provinces to vote for the referendum (by mail). There was also a case of planned migration, where 87% of the immigration in Québec (43 855 new Quebecers) was done before the referendum, which dropped to 39% directly after that. The DGEQ also confirmed that 56,000 people did vote illegally during the referendum. The second example is the manipulation of the country’s constitution that makes it difficult for the elected members to put forth motions for secessions even if the popular consensus was in favour.
Cultural Factors
Linguistic differences still stand as the primary factor for the demand for a separate country of Quebec. The federal government constantly tries to form a sort of cultural uniformity that challenges the cultural identity of Quebec. The money to the French community is diverted to promote English. Three-fourths of the cultural subvention of the federal spending in Montreal are sent to the Anglophone community. There are less than 16% of the population in Quebec who consider themselves as Canadian first or only and this number is decreasing each year while there are more people who consider themselves Quebecer first or only. There isn’t a strong Canadian identity in Quebec and the statistic of support for sovereignty has remained somewhat constant since 1995, around 40% until recently.
The Future of Quebec
A recent Leger poll found that the support for a sovereign Quebec has dipped to 29%, the lowest level measured since 1955 and the reason for this is the monumental power shift in the country’s neighbour, i.e. the victory of Donald Trump as the new president of the United States. The Parti Quebecois (PQ), under the leadership of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, has been struggling amid threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to impose tariffs and annex Canada. This has led to a surge in Canadian patriotism, causing a decrease in support for Quebec independence. Despite this, the PQ remains committed to its sovereignty agenda, promising to hold a third referendum by 2030 if it wins next year’s election.