First, a little history lesson. After the British defeated the French in Québec and the colony became part of British North America, the Crown ensured that the rights of the French inhabitants and their language were safeguarded. Once established as a nation in 1867, Canada went on to ensure that the French language and culture were protected under its constitution. The federal Official Languages Act was first enacted in 1969. Substantially revised and more recently modernized, the act gives English and French equal status, rights, and privileges in all institutions of the Parliament and Government of Canada. In 2006, the House of Commons of Canada adopted a motion recognizing that “Québécois form a nation within a united Canada”.
However, support for sovereignist movements fluctuated through subsequent decades under shifting provincial governments. Québec’s governments under various parties have always pushed to ensure that French language and culture were promoted under the province’s policies and laws. Formed in 1968 by René Lévesque, the first truly Québec separatist party is the Parti Québecois (PQ). At the time the PQ combined multiple sovereignty groups into a major provincial party. They won power in 1976 and made French the sole official language in Québec via the province’s Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) in 1977.
The PQ held Québec’s first referendum in 1980 on “sovereignty-association.” Voters rejected the proposal by a margin of 60% to 40%. In 1995, a second more successful referendum on full independence was held under PQ Premier Jacques Parizeau. The “No” side won by a razor-thin margin of 50.58% to 49.42%. The federal government had waited to the last minute to finally enter the debate, not wanting to overly interfere in the provincial fray at that time.
Consequently, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that a province cannot secede unilaterally. Moreover, only a clear majority vote on a clear question would legally oblige the federal and provincial governments to enter into constitutional negotiations. Parliament then followed in 2000 with the federal Clarity Act which provides that the results of any referendum had to be ‘significant’ with respect to allowing for separation and not basically won by a simple majority.
Québec has always played a very important part within Canada, allowing Canadians to appreciate and support its role throughout the 159 years of the country’s existence as a nation state. Indeed, since its founding Canada has had four explicit French-Canadian prime ministers. Other more recent prime ministers such as Brian Mulroney and Justin Trudeau grew up bilingual or had very significant French-Canadian heritage/ties. However, despite guaranteed Québec representation in the Canadian parliament and other institutions such as the Supreme Court, Québecers have continued to express concerns over the province’s ability to oversee its political, social and economic development. At times, clearly being a very emotive issue, the question of independence still surfaces.
In early October of this year, following the provincial government’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) political and economic struggles, the separatist PQ, led by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, won a mandate to govern. Of course, this put future independence discussions back into the spotlight. However, his is a minority government having gotten only 28% of the total popular vote. There is little doubt that the spectre of Donald Trump hovered over the election, leading to major gains by the two pro-federalist Québec parties, the Liberal and Conservative parties, who together with almost 45% surpassed the PQ’s popular vote. Interestingly, the CAQ party won no seats after having previously governed as majority governments, once again illustrating Québec’s often quite volatile political environment.
As for the future minority PQ government, St-Pierre Plamondon has stated that a referendum would only take place after the Trump administration is no longer in power. This is despite the fact that, in recent polling, over 70 percent of Québecers indicated that they don’t want another referendum. Indications are that, unlike in the 80s and 90s, support for independence has rapidly diminished. Today, economic and social issues affecting ordinary Québecers have taken on much more urgency. Any provincial government will have to immediately concern itself with the impact in particular of American tariffs on Québec enterprises which have been negatively affected by the trade war. For this reason and the apparent lack of enthusiasm for separation among Québec’s younger generation, the initial threat to Canadian unity should prove to be somewhat minimal as compared to past separatist movements.
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