Quebec: The History and Future of A National Province
Nationalism, which forcefully ushered in the modern era throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, has not escaped modern political discourses so much as it has morphed. Traditionally, people united along the basis of a shared ethnic, religious, or linguistic-historical identity have expressed solidarity through common political associations and a mutual desire for sovereignty. Simultaneously, however, the tendency of nationalist movements defined by their particularistic attitudes to advocate for political expansion or the consolidation of a large group of industries under a new sociological category revealed a critical element of nationalist politics. The desire for sovereignty leads to the political aspirations of these groups as much as a shared sense of identity due to the difficulty of finding political unity without some corresponding degree of independence. The quest for sovereignty and for the power that establishes that condition of political independence may have ceased to drive unification and expansion movements in the Global North since the Second World War, but it has not disappeared from the dialogues of states.
Regarded as one of the leading separatist movements, the Quebec Independence Movement is a protracted effort on the part of principally French-speaking Quebec to separate from the federal state of Canada and establish their province as an independent state. Under their conception of sovereignty consisting of the right to levy tax, sign treaties, and control all domestic laws, supporters of the independence movement wish to create a newly independent non-anglophone state bordering two of the West’s leading powers, the US and Canada. Founded in 1608 by French colonist Samuel de Champlain as part of New France, Quebec has long enjoyed the status of being the central feature in North American French culture and politics. Embittered by the transfer of the province to British colonial administration following its 1760 conquest in the Seven Years War, Quebec saw long periods of passive resistance to preserve its distinct identity and political liberties. By the early 1800s, French nationalism within the region had expanded to encompass sufficient portions of the population, sparking the Lower Canada Rebellions of the late 1840s, a bout of political violence strong enough to seriously frustrate the British administration before being swiftly repressed.
As other powers engaged in projects of political consolidation interfering with regionalist identities, including the Russian Empire, Austria, and China, the Canadian government attempted to dissolve Quebec culture to destroy the cohesion required for further insurrection or dissent. The federalizing program sought to change the linguistic and religious heritage of Quebec, experiencing minor degrees of success but ultimately inspiring an especially stern and persistent form of covert nationalism long cultivated by groups in times of oppression. The 1840 Act of Union meant to impose a cultural imperialism to end the Quebec movement became the main catalyst for ‘The Survival’ period as it is known to the Quebecoise. For nearly a century, French speakers in Quebec remained largely alienated from the national government, and indeed only in the early parts of the 20th century did politically organized French nationalism resurge in the form of a distinctly clerical and conservative lobby for independence. As the origin of the modern Independence Movement, this wave of nationalistic and religious fervor influenced Quebec historiography and attitudes enough to spurn the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and 70s which manifested popular sentiment in the form of political parties like the RIN and more extreme FLQ which went on to commit several acts of domestic terrorism.
Despite a small minority of overall independence support, the majority of Quebecois consistently elected moderate ministers of nationalistic but politically liberal disposition to regional government positions, culminating in the 1995 Referendum which asked voters if Quebec sovereignty and separation from the federal state was desirable. Defeated in a highly sectarian and linguistically aligned vote of 50.6 to 49.4 percent, the Independence movement faltered in successive elections. Although the House of Commons adopted a motion recognizing Quebec as a culturally unique and historically distinct area in 2006, very few Canadians and Quebecois believe that Quebec will soon find independence.
To see an independence movement wither in our time is not an altogether unexpected thing. Movements seeking smaller levels of political organisation have faced unfavourable circumstances in the face of protracted, global issues in the past three decades. However much one might like to think that the surge of nationalist thinking and policy across the globe is a force for devolution, these patterns of change need to be understood in the context of states’ increasing desire to consolidate power in response to potential social and political challenges requiring quicker and more absolute degrees of control. States may embrace the type of nationalism that one might otherwise associate with the Quebec Independence Movement, but regional secession offers an altogether different prospect for the same western states which are trying to increase the scope of pluralistic organizations like NATO. For the dignity and continuity of such cultures and identities as those of the Quebecoise, it is legitimate in the opinions of many that greater degrees of nationality for the French-Canadians be preserved, but the circumstances of world history seem to nonetheless preclude those minds from a reality of their desire for independence.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
