Quebec sovereignty movement

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Template:Quebec politics The Quebec sovereignty movement is a political movement aimed at attaining sovereignty for Quebec, a province of the Canadian federation. The sovereigntists propose that Quebecers exercise their right to self-determination in order to democratically give themselves their first independent constitutional state of law. The term separatist is often used by non-sovereigntists.

With a sovereign state, Quebec sovereigntists believe that the people of Quebec will be better equipped to foster their own economic, social, and cultural development. Quebec sovereigntists 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, according to its proponents, on 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 which the Quebec government needs to be the normal national government of all Quebecers. Within Canada, the national policies of Quebec clash with the national policies of the federal government.

Various attempts at reforming the federal system of Canada have thus far failed due to the conflicting interests between the majority of Quebecers and the majority of other Canadians (see Constitutional debate of Canada).

René Lévesque, architect of the first sovereignty vote, was willing to work for change in the Canadian framework after losing the 1980 referendum. The 1982 reform of the Canadian constitution did not solve the issue in the point of view of the majority of Quebec politicians. The failures of both the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord in the late 1980's and early 1990's have strengthened the conviction of most sovereigntist politicians and led many federalist ones to place little hope in the prospect of a federal constitutional reform which would satisfy Quebec's historical demands. These include most noticeably a constitutional recognition of the fact that Quebecers constitute a distinct society, as well as a larger degree of independence of the province towards federal policy. A significant proportion of Quebecers have historically believed in the need for a sovereign Quebec going as far back as the mid-1900s. For a majority of Quebecers, whether sovereigntists or not, the problem of Quebec's political status is considered unresolved.

Although Quebec sovereignty is primarily a political question, cultural concerns are also at the root of the desire for independence. The central cultural argument of the sovereigntists is that only sovereignty can adequately ensure the survival of the French language in North America, allowing Quebecers to establish their nationality, preserve their cultural identity, and keep their collective memory alive (see Language demographics of Quebec).

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Sovereignty-association

Main article: Sovereignty-Association Movement

The sovereigntist movement of Quebec is generally considered to have started in the 1960s with the Quiet Revolution. The use of the word "sovereignty" and many of the ideas of this movement originated in the 1967 Mouvement Souveraineté-Association of René Lévesque. This movement ultimately gave birth to the Parti Québécois in 1968.

Sovereignty-Association (French: Souveraineté-Association) is the combination of two concepts:

  1. The achievement of sovereignty for the Quebec state.
  2. The creation of a political and economic association between this new independent state and Canada.

It was first presented in Lévesque's political manifesto, Option Québec.

The Parti Québécois defines sovereignty as the power for a state to levy all its taxes, vote on all its laws, and sign all its treaties (as mentioned in the 1980 referendum question).

The type of association between an independent Quebec and the rest of Canada was described as a monetary and customs union as well as joint political institutions to administer the relations between the two countries. The main inspiration for this project was the then-emerging European Community.

The hyphen between the words "sovereignty" and "association" was often stressed by Lévesque and other PQ members, to make it clear that both were inseparable. The reason stated was that if Canada decided to boycott Quebec exports after voting for independence, the new country would have to go through difficult economic times, as the barriers to trade between Canada (including Quebec) and the United States were then very high (the NAFTA treaty has since then changed this situation). Quebec would have been a nation of 7 million people stuck between two impenetrable protectionist countries.

After the signing of the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States, the sovereignty-associationists revisited their options, and the need for an association with the rest of Canada was made optional. That is, an association with Canada is still wished for, but were it to fail, sovereignty would be economically viable because Quebec can (and currently does) freely export to the U.S. market. At the present, PQ members and outside supporters will often speak of 'sovereignty' alone, insisting on the idea that a sovereign Quebec would be legally capable of entering into international agreements it would deem suitable.

Those in favour of independence vacillate between terming it "sovereignty" and "independence," but the two terms are considered to be synonymous. A small group of people prefer "independence" over the other term. The use of the term "Sovereignty-Association" is a lot less frequent, but is still heard (refer to the Modernization section below).

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History

Main article: History of the Quebec independence movement

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Precursor ideas and events

See: Quebec nationalism

Sovereigntism and sovereignty are terms that refer to the modern movement in favour 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, Honoré Mercier's flirtation with this idea (especially in his historic speech of 1893.)

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Emergence

The Quiet Revolution in Quebec brought widespread change in the 1960s. Among other changes, support for Quebec independence began to form and grow in some circles. The first organization 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. On 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).

On October 31, 1962, the Comité de libération nationale and, in November of the same year, the Réseau de résistance were set up. 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 in order 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 Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale members who had met each other as part of the Réseau de résistance. They were Georges Schoeters, 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, and Jamaica, were becoming independent. Some advocates of Quebec independence saw Quebec's situation in a similar light, though Quebec's history puts them more properly as colonizers rather than colonized. Nonetheless, numerous activists were influenced by the writings of Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi and Karl Marx.

Image:De Gaulle, Vive le Quebec libre.jpg

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, and many Canadians felt he had demonstrated contempt for the sacrifice of Canadian soldiers who died on the battlefields of France in two world wars. The visit was cut short and De Gaulle left 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.

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The early years of the PQ

Jacques Parizeau joined the party on September 19, 1969, and Jérôme Proulx of the Union nationale joined on November 11 of the same year.

In the 1970 provincial election, the PQ won its first seven seats in 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. However, its share of the popular vote had significantly increased.

Image:Referendum 1980, The Flag and the People.jpg

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The referendum of 1980

In the 1976 election, the PQ won 71 seats -- a majority in the National Assembly -- to the general astonishment of all Quebec and the rest of Canada. With one of the highest voting turnouts in Quebec history, 41.4 per cent of the electorate voted for the PQ.

On August 26, 1977, the PQ passed two important laws: first, the law on the financing of political parties, which prohibits contributions by corporations and unions and set a limit on individual donations, and second, the Charter of the French Language.

On May 17, PQ Member of the National Assembly Robert Burns resigned, 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 from June 1 to 3, 1979, the sovereigntists 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 election with a stronger majority than in 1976, obtaining 49.2 per cent of the vote and winning 80 seats. 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 died in 1987). In the 1985 election under his successor Pierre-Marc Johnson, the PQ was defeated by the Liberal Party.

Image:Bouchard & Parizeau, Referendum.jpg

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Repatriation, Meech, Charlottetown

The economic "association" part of the Sovereignty-Association concept was in some ways a forerunner of the later Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1987 and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

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The referendum of 1995

Template:Main The PQ returned to power in the 1994 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 the Meech Lake Accord was the formation of the Bloc Québécois (BQ), a sovereigntist federal political party, under the leadership of the charismatic former Progressive Conservative federal cabinet minister Lucien Bouchard. Several PC and Liberal members of the federal parliament left their parties to form the BQ. For the first time, the PQ supported pro-sovereigntist 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 election, but neither of these parties enjoyed the official support of the PQ; nor did they enjoy significant public support among Quebecers.

In the 1993 federal election, following the collapse of the Progressive Conservative Party, the BQ won enough seats in Parliament to become Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in the House of Commons.

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.

The "No" camp again won, but only by a very small margin — 50.6% to 49.4%. 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. By contrast almost 60 per cent of francophones of all origins voted "Yes". (82 per cent of Quebecers are francophone.) Later inquiries into irregularities determined that some "No" ballots had been rejected without valid reasons, and that also that the 27 October "No" rally had evaded spending limitations because of out-of-province participation[1].

On election night, Premier Jacques Parizeau attributed the defeat of the resolution to "money and the ethnic vote". Most sovereignist politicians condemned the declaration, which eventually lead to Parizeau's resignation from his position as chief of the PQ, announced on October 31, the day following the referendum.

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Present

The Parti Québécois won re-election in the 1998 election despite losing the popular vote to Jean Charest and the Quebec Liberals. In the number of seats won by both sides, the election was almost a clone of the previous 1994 election. 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 govern the wording of any future referendum questions and the conditions under which a vote for sovereignty would be recognized as legitimate. Federal liberal politicians stated that the ambiguous wording of the 1995 referendum question was the primary impetus in the bill's drafting. The constitutionality of this bill remains doubtful.

In the 2003 election, the PQ lost power to the Parti libéral du Québec. However, in early 2004, the Liberal government of Jean Charest had proved to be unpopular, and that, combined with the federal Liberal Party sponsorship scandal, contributed to a resurgence of the BQ. In the 2004 federal elections, the Bloc Québécois won 54 of Quebec's 75 seats in the House of Commons, compared to 33 previously.

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.

Image:Bouchard & Chretien Divided.jpg

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The Clarity Act

In 1999, the Parliament of Canada, inspired by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Stéphane Dion, passed the Clarity Act, a law that, amongst other things, set out the conditions under which the federal government would recognize a vote by any province to leave Canada. Controversially, the act gave the House of Commons the power to decide whether a proposed referendum question was considered clear, and allowed it to decide whether a clear majority has expressed itself in any referendum. It is widely considered by sovereigntists as indefensible and thus inapplicable. Indeed, a contradictory Act respecting the exercise of the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the Québec people and the Québec State was introduced in the National Assembly of Quebec only two days after the Clarity Act had been introduced in the House of Commons. This was purely a symbolic act, as, unlike the Clarity Act, it had no effect on the law.

Former Prime Minister Chrétien, under whom the Clarity Act was passed, has remarked that the act is among his most significant accomplishments.

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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, especially since Canadian federal politicians usually refuse the concept.

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 was adopted at the 2005 Congress.

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Allies and opponents

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National

There is a large semantic confusion, sometimes fostered by the Parti Québécois itself, between the terms sovereignty, separatism, independentism. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but PQ supporters usually prefer the term "sovereignty", considered less radical and emotional than "independentism" (preferred by hard-liners), while "separatism" is usually considered pejorative. The separatist movement draws however above the Left and Right spectrum, a sizeable minority of more conservative Quebecers supporting the PQ's political agenda because of the sovereignty issue, despite reservations about its social democratic/socialist political agenda.

Although difficult to generalize, natural allies of sovereignty tend to be found within the Left, labour unions, the arts community, students, the media, anti-globalization supporters, and the academic community. Opponents are often found in the business community, the older generations of francophones, anglophones and anglicized immigrants, libertarians, and critics of Keynesianism, statism, and government intervention in general.

Right and Left must be interpreted within the provincial context; Liberal Party politics generally coincide with those of other liberal parties, while PQ politics are more social democratic in orientation. There is no mass conservative movement in Quebec's political culture on the provencial, due notably to strong government interventionism and Keynesianism shared by all parties since the 1960s (the so-called "Quebec Consensus" since the Quiet Revolution), and the province's Catholic heritage.

There are, of course, quite a few exceptions. Notable examples include:

Sovereignty fails at gathering substantial support among Quebec anglophones and anglicized allophones. About 60% of francophones of all ethnic origins voted "Yes" in 1995, and with the exception of some support from the Latino and Arabic communities, most non-francophones massively voted "No" (see Demolinguistics of Quebec). Adversaries to the sovereignty movement routinely attempt to discredit the project based on its rejection by non-francophones, a position refuted by the PQ, which considers its project all-embracing and essentially civic in nature.

Image:Bouchard and Chirac in Paris.jpg

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Rest of Canada

The other nine provinces of Canada have always been opposed to sovereignty-association. The most resistance is from the wealthier provinces of Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, since they pay out more than they receive from the federal government in equalization transfer payments, whereas it is the reverse for the less-affluent Quebec; provincial premiers were vehemently against subsidizing and giving economic benefits to an independent or autonomous Quebec. In both referendums, the sovereigntists (especially Jacques Parizeau in 1995) were seen outside Quebec as power-hungry individuals who wanted to rule as an independent nation and yet also enjoy all the exisiting benefits as a component of Canada. Although the Alberta government had clashed with the federal government in the 1980s over the National Energy Program in what some saw as another challenge to national unity, Premier Peter Lougheed never considered separatism even as a negotiation ploy.

The Charter of the French Language and other attempts to make French secure as the primary language in Quebec had also deeply offended the Canadian population outside Quebec, since many of the other provinces had implemented Pierre Trudeau's initiatives to billingualize their institutions. To the surprise of sovereigntists, a large majority of non-Quebec francophones did not support the sovereignty movement.

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International

In France although openness and support is found in both sides of the political spectrum, the French "right" has been warmer to sovereigntists (like President Charles de Gaulle, who shouted his support of independence to Montreal in 1967) than the French "left" (like President François Mitterrand, who was distrustful of nationalism and notoriously snubbed Lévesque at their first meeting in the 1970s).

This is a paradoxical phenomenon, for the Parti Québécois and most sovereigntists 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 countries). A lot of French political parties feel it would be hypocritical if they officially supported Quebec nationalism, but continued to reject Corsican, Breton, Catalan, 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 sovereigntists.

The People's Republic of China has from time to time drawn comparisons between Taiwan (Republic of China) and Quebec and stated that like Canada, it was their duty to keep the country united from any separatist "threats". However, this interpretation is subject to debate, since Taiwan neither pays taxes to nor receives money from the PRC, and both operate as separate governments. In addition, many nations maintain relations with Taiwan that are all but diplomatic in name, which is not the case in Quebec.

Most countries including Poland, the United States and the United Kingdom support a strong Canadian federation.

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Ambivalence

Quebec federalist nationalists think that the Quebec people should be recognized as a de facto nation by the federal government of Canada and initiate the constitutional reforms that presuppose such a recognition. Their position is often so close to that of some moderate Quebec sovereigntists that many have jumped the fence both ways (former Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard and Quebec lawyer Guy Bertrand are well-known examples of this). A great proportion of Quebec sovereigntist politicians were formerly in the reformist camp of the greater liberal family before joining the MSA or later the PQ.

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Sovereigntist organizations

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Sympathizing organizations

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Sovereigntist media

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See also

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External links

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