Quebec SovereignismQuebec Sovereignism is a political orientation calling for the attainment of sovereignty for Quebec, a province of the Canadian federation. The sovereignists propose that Quebecers exercise their right to self-determination in order to democractically give themselves their first independent constitutional state of law. Quebec sovereignists are generally not in opposition to federalism as a concept, but are opposed to the present federal system of Canada and do not believe it can be reformed in a way that could answer what they see as the legitimate wish of Quebecers to govern themselves freely. The idea of sovereignty for Quebec is based on the historical and sociological evidence that Quebecers are a people and a political nation, that they have democratic control over a state of their own, but that inside the Canadian federation as it currently stands, this state does not have the constitutional powers necessary for the Quebec government to be the normal national government of all Quebecers. With a sovereign state, Quebec sovereignists believe that the people of Quebec will be better equipped to foster its own economic, social, and cultural development. The central arguments are that a citizenship for Quebec can adequately and permanantly resolve the difficult issue of the majority's language (Quebec French), allow Quebecers to establish their nationality, preserve their cultural identity, and keep their collective memory alive.
HistoryPrecursor ideas and eventsSee: Quebec nationalism Sovereignism and sovereignty are terms that refer to the modern movement in favor of the political independence of Quebec. However, the roots of Quebec's desire for self-determination can be traced back as far as the Alliance Laurentienne of 1957, the writings of Lionel Groulx in the 1920s, the Francoeur Motion of 1917, the flirt of Honoré Mercier with this idea (especially in his historic speech of 1893), the Patriotes Movement of the 19th century and the dawning national identity and consciousness in the days of New France.Emergence\nThe Quiet Revolution in Quebec brought widespread change in the 1960s. Among many other changes, support for Quebec independence began to form and grow in some circles. However, the first organisation dedicated to the independence of Quebec was the Alliance Laurentienne, founded by Raymond Barbeau on January 25, 1957. On September 10, 1960 the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale (RIN) was founded.\nOn August 9 of the same year, the Action socialiste pour l'indépendance du Québec (ASIQ) was formed by Raoul Roy. The independence + socialism project of the ASIQ was a source of political ideas for the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ).\n\nOn October 31, 1962, the Comité de libération nationale and in November of the same year, the Réseau de résistance'' were setup. These two groups were formed by RIN members to organize non-violent but illegal actions, such as vandalism and civil disobedience. The most extremist individuals of these groups left to form the FLQ, which unlike all the other groups had made the decision to resort to violence to reach its goal of independence for Quebec. Shortly after the November 14, 1962, Quebec general election, RIN member Marcel Chaput founded the short-lived Parti républicain du Québec. In February of 1963, the FLQ was founded by three RIN members who had met each other as part of the Réseau de résistance. They were Georges Shoeters, Raymond Villeneuve, and Gabriel Hudon. In 1964, the RIN became a provincial political party. In 1965 the more conservative Ralliement national (RN) also became a party. The historical context of the time was a period when many former European colonies, such as Cameroon, Congo, Senegal, Algeria, Jamaica etc., were becoming independent. Some advocates of Quebec independence naturally saw Quebec's situation in a similar light.
In June 1967, French president Charles de Gaulle, who had granted independence to Algeria, shouted Vive le Québec libre! during a speech from the balcony of Montreal's city hall during a state visit to Canada. In doing so, he deeply offended the Canadian federal government, which reprimanded him, causing him to cut short his visit and leave the country.
Finally, in October 1967 former Liberal cabinet minister René Lévesque left that party when it refused to discuss sovereignty at a party convention. Lévesque formed the Mouvement souveraineté-association and set about uniting pro-sovereignty forces.
He achieved that goal in October 1968 when the MSA held its first (and last) national congress in Quebec City. The RN and MSA agreed to merge to form the Parti Québécois (PQ), and later that month Pierre Bourgault, leader of the RIN, dissolved his party and invited its members to join the PQ.
The Early Years of the PQ\nJacques Parizeau joined the party on September 19, 1969, and Jérôme Proulx of the Union nationale did the same on November 11 of the same year. In the 1970 Quebec election, the PQ elected its first seven members of the National Assembly. René Lévesque was defeated in Mont-Royal by the Liberal André Marchand. In the 1973 election, the PQ won six seats, a net loss of one.
The Referendum of 1980\nIn the 1976 Quebec election, the PQ elected 71 candidates to the general astonishment of all of Quebec and Canada. With one of the highest voting turnouts in Quebec history, 41.4 per cent of the electorate gave their vote to the PQ. The PQ formed a majority government. On August 26, 1977, the PQ passed two important laws: the law on the financing of political parties which prohibits contributions by corporations and unions and set a limit on individual donations and the Charter of the French Language. On May 17, Robert Burns quit the government, telling the press he was convinced that the PQ was going to lose its referendum and fail to be re-elected afterwards. At its seventh national convention on June 1 to 3, 1979, the sovereignists adopted their strategy for the coming referendum. The PQ then began an aggressive effort to promote sovereignty-association by providing details of how the economic relations with the rest of Canada would include free trade between Canada and Quebec, common tariffs against imports, and a common currency. In addition, joint political institutions would be established to administer these economic arrangements. Sovereignty-Association was proposed to the population of Quebec in the 1980 Quebec referendum. The proposal was rejected by 60 per cent of the Quebec electorate. In September, the PQ created a national committee of anglophones and a liaison committee with ethnic minorities. Despite having lost the referendum, the PQ was returned to power in the 1981 Quebec election with a stronger majority than in 1976, obtaining 49.2 per cent of the vote and electing 80 candidates. However, they did not hold a referendum in their second term and put sovereignty on the back burner, concentrating on their stated goal of "good government". René Lévesque retired in 1985 (and he would die in 1987). In the 1985 Quebec election under his successor Pierre-Marc Johnson, the PQ was defeated by the Liberals.
Repatriation, Meech, CharlottetownThe economic "association" part of the Sovereignty-Association concept was in some ways a forerunner of the later Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1989 and NAFTA. Perhaps for this reason, Quebec was one of the few regions within Canada where both sides of the political spectrum supported free trade with the United States.The Referendum of 1995\nThe PQ returned to power in the 1994 Quebec election under Jacques Parizeau, this time with 44.75% of the popular vote. In the intervening years, the failures of the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord had revived support for sovereignty, which had been written off as a dead issue for much of the 1980s. Another consequence of the failure of Meech was the formation of the Bloc Quebecois (BQ) under charismatic former Conservative cabinet minister Lucien Bouchard. For the first time, the PQ supported pro-sovereignist forces running in federal elections; during his lifetime Lévesque had always opposed such a move. The Union Populaire had nominated candidates in the 1979 and 1980 federal elections and the Parti nationaliste du Québec had nominated candidates in the 1984 federal election. Neither of these parties enjoyed the official support of the PQ; nor did they enjoy significant public support among Quebercers. In the 1993 Canadian election, following the collapse of the Conservatives), the BQ elected enough MPss to become Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in the House of Commons. now pursues the ideal of independence and interdependence like his mentor Lévesque.]]
Parizeau promptly called a new referendum. The 1995 referendum question differed from the 1980 question in that the negotiation of an association with Canada was now optional.
This time, the Yes camp lost in a very close vote, by less than one percent. As in the previous referendum, the English-speaking (anglophone) minority in Quebec overwhelmingly (about 90%) rejected sovereignty, and support for sovereignty was also weak among allophones in immigrant communities and first-generation descendants, while by contrast almost 60 per cent of francophones of all origins voted Yes (82 per cent of Quebecers are francophone).
In an ill-considered outburst, Premier Jacques Parizeau attributed the defeat of the resolution to "money and the ethnic vote".
Present TimeThe PQ won re-election in the 1998 Quebec election, which was almost a "clone" of the previous 1994 election in terms of number of seats won by each side. However, public support for sovereignty remained too low for the PQ to consider holding a second referendum during their second term. Meanwhile, the federal government passed the Clarity Act to try to prevent any future referendum from succeeding. In the 2003 Quebec election, the PQ lost power to the Liberals. However, in early 2004 the Liberal government of Jean Charest had proved to be somewhat unpopular, and that, combined with the federal Liberal Party sponsorship scandal contributed to a resurgence of the BQ. The coming 2004 Canadian election is widely anticipated. While opponents of sovereignty were pleased with their referendum victories, most recognized that there are still deep divides within Quebec and problems with the relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada.
The Clarity ActIn 1999, the government of Canada, inspired by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Stéphane Dion, passed Bill C-20 (also known as the Clarity Act), a law that, amongst other things, intended to forbid Quebec City from proposing association with independence in another eventual consultation, a move seen by all parties at the time represented in the National Assembly of Quebec (the PQ, PLQ and ADQ) as a rather paternalist intrusion into Quebec's right to self-determination. It remains to this day but is widely considered by sovereignists as indefensible on the internationnal stage and thus inapplicable.Modernization"Sovereignty-Association" is nowadays more often referred to simply as "sovereignty". However, in the 1995 Quebec referendum, which was narrowly rejected, the notion of some form of economic association with the rest of Canada was still envisaged (continuing use of the Canadian dollar, for example). It remains a part of the Parti Québécois program and is tied to national independence in the minds of most Quebecers. This part of the PQ program has always been controversial. In [[2003], the PQ launched the Saison des idées (Season of ideas) which is a public consultation aiming to gather the opinions of Quebecers on its sovereignty project. The new program and the revised sovereignty project will be adopted at the 2005 Congress.Allies and OpponentsNationalAlthough one cannot generalize, natural allies of sovereignty tend to be found in labor unions, the artistic community, the younger generations and the political left. Opponents are often found in the economical community, the older generations and the political right. There is, of course, quite a few exceptions. Notable examples are: the Conservative but Nationalist Action Démocratique du Québec supporting the OUI ("Yes") side in 1995 (their stance on the issue is now vague), the Progressive-Conservative Party of Canada building links with the sovereignists in the 80's and well-known federalist artists Jean-Louis Roux (actor & once destined to become the representative of Queen Elizabeth II as Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, a plan foiled by controversy) and René-Daniel Dubois (playwright and harsh critic of sovereignism, although self-proclaimed neutral). The option fails at gathering substantial support support among Quebec anglophones and anglicized allophones. About 60% of francophones of all ethnic origins voted Yes in 1995, however with the exception of some support from the haitian, latino, arabic communities, most non-francophones massively voted No. (See Demolinguistics of Quebec). (R) welcomes Lucien Bouchard (L) in Paris.]]
InternationalIn France, although openness and support is found in both sides of the political spectrum, the French "right" has been warmer to sovereignists (like President Charles De Gaulle, who shouted his support of independence to Montreal in 1967) than the French "left" (like nationalism-distrustful President François Mitterrand, who notoriously snubbed Lévesque at their first meeting in the 1970's). This is a paradoxal phenomenon, for the Parti Québécois and most sovereignists are to the political left. French politicians are sympathetic to Quebec for cultural and historical reasons, but the secessionist movement is often negatively perceived because France was built as one indivisible republic. The idea that France is "one nation, one country" is very solidly anchored in the political culture of France (and many other coutries). A lot of French political parties would be in contradiction with themselves if they officially supported Quebec nationalism, but continued to reject Corsican, Breton, and Basque nationalisms. Michel Rocard (who became Prime Minister of the French Republic) has been one of the French Socialists that broke that so-called rule the most (that of the French left being less open), maintaining a close and warm relationship with Quebec sovereignists. Soveregnists also have relationships around the world with other Social Democrat, Civic Nationalist and/or Independentist organizations like in Catalonia or in Scotland (for example: in 2000, Alex Salmond, then leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), wrote a speech to be read to the audience of the PQ National Council in which he spoke of the PQ a as brother party of the SNP).Sovereignist organizations
Sympathizing organizations
See alsoExternal links\n* Parti Québécois website (in French and partly in English)\n* Bloc Québécois website (in French and partly in English)\n* Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society website (in French and partly in English)\n* Council of Quebec Sovereignty (in French)\n* Chronology of Quebec Nationalism Category:Sovereignty movements |
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