Quebec was very close to gaining independence. I think there was a refenderum, and Quebec only needed 50% to secess from Canada, and it was extremely close, something like 48%? And it was said that the 2% needed was “sabotaged” because of the immigrants, who were against independence. How true are all these? How close was it? And was it really because of the immigrants?
Even if the will had been there, they might have lacked the means. I don’t know that any concrete planning was done, nor funds allocated for the venture. If they had gone ahead, it might have taken years or decades to achieve. The rest of Canada would have been quick to cancel transfer payments.
The requirements for secession from Canada aren’t entirely clear, but the Supreme Court of Canada has since decided that provinces do not have the power to unilaterally secede, even with a large majority voting in favor:
“Quebec could not, despite a clear referendum result, purport to invoke a right of self-determination to dictate the terms of a proposed secession to the other parties to the federation. The democratic vote, by however strong a majority, would have no legal effect on its own and could not push aside the principles of federalism and the rule of law, the rights of individuals and minorities, or the operation of democracy in the other provinces or in Canada as a whole.”
But the referendum results were extremely close. 49.42% voted yes.
It wasn’t a vote on secession - it was a vote on a very confusing question, which some interpreted as nothing more than to trigger negotiations with Ottawa on Quebec’s place in Canada; others interpreted as a vote for outright independence; others interpreted as a range in between those two extremes.
The vote was close, but blaming it on “immigrants” was a form of bigotry, in my opinion. Only Canadian citizens could vote. Anglophone and allophone Quebecers tend to be federalists in Quebec, but blaming them for the defeat of the question is really saying that their views should not count since they’re not francophone.
The meme that the “No” result was due to immigrants, by the way, was largely due to Jacques Parizeau’s concession speech once the results were in. It was widely criticized for drawing a distinction between “real” (i.e., francophone) Quebecers and everyone else.
(One could even read “money” in that speech as code for “anglophones”. Historically in Quebec, the anglophones were much better-off than the francophones — or at least that was the perception; I’m not sure what the data is.)
Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?.
Okay, let’s say I agree that it should. Now what the heck does that mean in a legal sense?
I can see where it would lead to some confusion. Sounds to me like it’s making a position statement rather than enacting a law.
Conversely, consider the 1980 question:
Certainly a lot clearer on the “this will happen, then this will happen” without referring to other documents front.
And hence the eventual creation of the Clarity Act following a submission to the Supreme Court on the Right to secede
My favourite anecdote about the referendum was: Quebec had 1/4 the population and the national debt of Canada was about $600 billion. One point made by the non-idependence side was that Quebec should assume a debt of $150 billion as an independent country. Somehow the independence side translated this as “when we become independent, Canada will give Quebec $150 Billion dollars!”
How close did they come? If they had reached 50% plus 1 votes, the negotiations and most likely, Canada insisting on a more clear referendum would have followd. Dividing up the assets and debt of Canada would be contentious. If Quebec can split from Canada, can’t Ungava and some parts of Montreal split from Quebec? (With impecable logic, the independentistes said “Of course not! Quebec is a complete and indivisible nation!”) The largely native-inhabited north was only given to Quebec after confederation. Of course, it contains the lucrative power generation dams, and the natives generally don’t identify with French Quebec and don’t want to leave Canada - I guess they are monnaie or ethniques.
Any thought of separation brings up a thousand “what-if’s”. IMHO it would have resulted in interminable negotiations and a result so complex that in the next referendum to ratify any deal, the vote would be “no”. A lot of the referendum vote may be related provincial politics, doing what their preferred politician asks, rather than a legitimate and deep desire to separate.
The real outcome is hat the rest of Canada has become weary of the whole mess. basically, the reaction to the referendum was “stay or go - make up you f****ing mind!” This resulted in the Clarity Act, a plethora of politicians who keep saying “you can’t just keep having referendums until you finally get a yes” so expect one no more often than every 20 years. they are figting a downhill battle anyway. The majority of spearatist sentiment was a reaction to Anglo domination of the province - but since about the 1970’s they’ve pretty much run their own house and forced out a lot of the anglos. English on signs is heavily regulated, etc. The current generations have a lot less enthusiasm for punishing the English.
[quote=“md2000, post:10, topic:649573”]
My favourite anecdote about the referendum was: Quebec had 1/4 the population and the national debt of Canada was about $600 billion. One point made by the non-idependence side was that Quebec should assume a debt of $150 billion as an independent country. Somehow the independence side translated this as “when we become independent, Canada will give Quebec $150 Billion dollars!”
How close did they come? If they had reached 50% plus 1 votes, the negotiations and most likely, Canada insisting on a more clear referendum would have followd. Dividing up the assets and debt of Canada would be contentious. If Quebec can split from Canada, can’t Ungava and some parts of Montreal split from Quebec? (With impecable logic, the independentistes said “Of course not! Quebec is a complete and indivisible nation!”) The largely native-inhabited north was only given to Quebec after confederation. Of course, it contains the lucrative power generation dams, and the natives generally don’t identify with French Quebec and don’t want to leave Canada - I guess they are monnaie or ethniques.
Any thought of separation brings up a thousand “what-if’s”. IMHO it would have resulted in interminable negotiations and a result so complex that in the next referendum to ratify any deal, the vote would be “no”. A lot of the referendum vote may be related provincial politics, doing what their preferred politician asks, rather than a legitimate and deep desire to separate.
The real outcome is hat the rest of Canada has become weary of the whole mess. basically, the reaction to the referendum was “stay or go - make up you f****ing mind!” This resulted in the Clarity Act, a plethora of politicians who keep saying “you can’t just keep having referendums until you finally get a yes” so expect one no more often than every 20 years. they are figting a downhill battle anyway. The majority of spearatist sentiment was a reaction to Anglo domination of the province - but since about the 1970’s they’ve pretty much run their own house and forced out a lot of the anglos. English on signs is heavily regulated, etc. **The current generations have a lot less enthusiasm for punishing the English.[/**QUOTE]
(My bold.)
I think they’ve been punished enough. When I lived in Montreal in the 70s my immediate and extended family amounted to 17 people there. There’s only one left now. The rest have all moved to other parts of Canada, or to the U.S. And there’s a lot more of us, since many of us have now married and have families of our own.
A saga retold through the chronicles of Angloman (making the world safe for apostrophes).
the thing was, that in the good old days, the “English” included the ruling class, the executives who ran the mill towns and mining towns were English and of course the poor and lower class French felt excluded and oppressed. To a certain extent, this was correct. To succeed in a cross-Canada enterprise, you had to speak English. Poor English, whether a french or other europan accent, was likely a significant handicap. etc, etc. it didn’t help that the central government was empowered by Britain, and the british had conquered Quebec in the mid-1700’s.
This provided the initial impetus for the separatist movement. You can see the depth of the feeling from this sort of stuff: Pierre Vallières - Wikipedia
Once these people got elected as the government of Quebec, they used to power of the state (province) to enforce progressively more restrictive laws. English on public signs was illegal - eventually overturned, but the law for a while. unless you met specific criteria (parents educated in Canada in English, IIRC) your children must attend a french school. Certain professions (e.g. nursing) you had to pass a French language proficiency test, giving rise to the absurdity of nurses raised and speaking French all their lives being threatened with firing because they could not pass the test. Many jobs, especially with the civil sevic, required French proficiency.
They contemplated banning movies unless a French version was already available, but that simply meant movies would not appear in Quebec until months later when the hype was over and everyone had seen them in Ontario or on TV - effectively killing the cinema industry. They gave up on that idea.
As a result, suranyi’s experience is typical of what I’ve encountered. Many English people left for other parts of Canada where they are more welcome. Meanwhile, the pressure from non-spearatist politicians in Ottawa sucking up to the Quebec electorate with policies of incluson, has meant that the French feel far more a part of Canada than before. As a side effect, though, the current Quebec generations don’t have the visceral hate for the former English overlords that fueled a generation of separatists. Current polls put the separatist vote in the low 30% at best.
The story I heard was that Quebec Premier Parizeau was planning that very night to announce that the negotiations had failed and declare independence. He had lined up some financial support too.
Independence failed by about 60,000 votes. In addition, there were 50,000 votes, nearly all no votes, stolen by being declared spoiled. There was one heavily anglo district in which 102 of 203 ballots was thrown out as spoiled. The way this was done was to instruct the ballot counters in Anglo ridings only, to throw out any ballot in which, for example, the line drawn either didn’t quite fill out the circle of went over it at all. Of course, no such instructions were given in French ridings. Of course, this is all really speculation as the government spent several years fighting to keep the contents of the ballot boxes secret before getting permission to destroy them.
And then Parizeau gave the (in)famous speech in which he blamed the loss on the money (read Jewish) and ethnic votes.
One interesting vignette: a friend of mine was having a workman cut down trees that were threatening his property. He started talking (in French) to the guy about the referendum and what a disaster it would be if they separated. So my friend then said he assumed the guy was voting no. “Oh no”, the guy said and explained that just couldn’t cut them off at the knees that way. He had to vote yes, even though he knew it would be a disaster. Of course that is just one man’s reaction. I haven’t any idea how widespread it was.