History of the Quebec sovereignist movement
Although previous generations had their strong advocates of Quebec nationalism, including Honoré Mercier, it was not until the latter half of the 20th century that the notion of independence for Quebec began to be openly and widely discussed.
The 1960s: pro-sovereignty forces emerge and unite
The Quiet Revolution in Quebec brought widespread change in the 1960s. Among many other changes, support for Quebec independence (usually referred to as "sovereignty" in the political vocabulary of Quebec) began to form and grow in some circles.
The historical context of the times was a period when many former European colonies such as Algeria were becoming independent. Some advocates of Quebec independence naturally wished to see Quebec's situation in a similar light.
As early as 1960 the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale (RIN) formed. Pierre Bourgault became leader in 1964 and turned it into a political party.
In 1965 the Ralliement national (RN) formed and also supported independence.
In June 1967, French president Charles de Gaulle, who had granted independence to Algeria, spontaneously shouted Vive le Québec libre! to a crowd 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 souverainetÃÂé-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 QuÃÂébÃÂécois (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
Jacques Parizeau joined the party on September 19, 1969, and JÃÂérÃÂôme 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. RenÃÂé LÃÂévesque was defeated in Mont-Royal by the Liberal AndrÃÂé Marchand.
In the 1973 election, the PQ won six seats, a net loss of one.
The first PQ government and the first referendum
In 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 Quebecers 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.
The sovereignty-association project was proposed to the population of Quebec in the 1980 Quebec referendum. The project 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.
The second PQ government and the second referendum
The PQ returned to power in the 1994 Quebec election under Jacques Parizeau. 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 QuÃÂébec 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 QuÃÂébÃÂécois.)
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.
Parizeau promptly called a new referendum. The 1995 referendum asked only if Quebec should offer a new economic and political partnership to the rest of Canada before declaring independence.
This time, the sovereignists 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, whose government supported sovereignty, attributed the defeat of the resolution to "money and the ethnic vote". Parizeau resigned, although he had always intended to do so in the event of a referendum loss.
The 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.