{"id":2313,"date":"2016-01-16T03:21:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-16T03:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/postconfederation\/?post_type=chapter&p=2313"},"modified":"2019-07-15T17:41:44","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T17:41:44","slug":"9-9-cold-war-quebec","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/postconfederation\/chapter\/9-9-cold-war-quebec\/","title":{"raw":"9.9 Cold War Quebec","rendered":"9.9 Cold War Quebec"},"content":{"raw":"[caption id=\"attachment_2431\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"464\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.38 Maurice \"Le Chef\" Duplessis, ca. 1950.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe mid-20th century produced several provincial leaders who would cast a long shadow over their provinces in an age of growing government involvement in economic, infrastructural, educational, and social policy. This has been called an era of province building. Its chief practitioners \u2014 Ernest Manning in Alberta; Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan; Joey Smallwood in Newfoundland; W.A.C. Bennett in British Columbia; Richard Hatfield in New Brunswick; and a trio of Conservative Premiers (Leslie Frost, John Robarts, and Bill Davis) who governed Ontario from 1949 to 1985 \u2014 were each in office for at least a decade, and for as much as 22 and a half years. Each of them had the time to map out and execute significant changes in their respective jurisdictions. Such longevity in politics was rare before World War II; it has been rarer since 1990. They were, clearly, a generation of leaders who had the good fortune to be in office in rising economic times. In Quebec, the political beneficiary of these circumstances was Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis (1890-1959), an exceptional personality in Canadian politics.\r\n

Pre-WWII Leadership in Quebec<\/h1>\r\nThe first half of the 20th century saw remarkable\u00a0continuity in Quebec\u2019s political leadership. Between them, only four men held the position of premier from 1905 to 1959. Lomer Gouin (1861-1929) became premier in 1905 after a bitter struggle between factions in the Liberal Party in Quebec. Divided between moderate and radical wings, the Liberals were torn on issues like support for modernizing industrial corporations and rapprochement with the Catholic Church on the one hand, versus state control over education and a more aggressively pro-labour policy on the other. Gouin stood out as a compromiser who had Wilfrid Laurier\u2019s support. He spent 15 years extending Quebec\u2019s northern borders, enticing new industrial enterprises to invest in the province, and advancing the nationalist agenda by developing technical schools and programs that would enable more Quebecers to take advantage of the emergent modern economy. Gouin also calmed the clergy by promising to keep the state out of education and even enhancing Church control over technical education. Nationalistes<\/i> and labour complained that Gouin was too keen to attract foreign investment and foreign-owned plants that siphoned off profits to other countries and consigned Quebecers to low paying industrial jobs. Just as\u00a0the West was crafted as an Anglo-Canadian settlement frontier, the growing French-Canadian population was inclined to look to colonization opportunities within the newly expanded Quebec. This was not, however, part of Gouin\u2019s vision. His\u00a0Conservative and n<\/i>ationaliste<\/i> opponents alike attacked him for trading off Quebec lands for timber and mining purposes rather than making those properties\u00a0available for Qu\u00e9becois resettlement and colonization. Gouin\u2019s political instincts were, otherwise, outstandingly shrewd. He supported Laurier in 1911 but swung to Borden\u2019s side at the outbreak of war. As conscription became a sharper issue, Gouin abandoned Borden and joined the chorus of nationalist voices in Quebec, criticizing Ontario\u2019s Regulation 17 and Anglo-Canadian Francophobia generally (see Sections 6.3<\/a> and 6.4<\/a>). By 1919, Gouin was demonstrably an ideological conservative \u2014 a defender of Quebec\u2019s rights in Confederation, while simultaneously a Canadian nationalist. He commanded respect in Quebec City and in the corridors of power in Ottawa.[footnote] Richard Jones, \u201cGouin, Sir Lomer\u201d<\/a>, in Dictionary of Canadian Biography<\/i>, vol. 15, University of Toronto\/Universit\u00e9 Laval, 2003\u2013, accessed January 12, 2016, http:\/\/www.biographi.ca\/en\/bio\/gouin_lomer_15E.html<\/a>.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nGouin\u2019s resignation in 1920 placed the Liberal Party and the provincial administration in the hands of Louis-Alexandre Taschereau (1867-1952). Like Gouin, Taschereau would hold the reins of power for 16\u00a0years. Biographies of Taschereau describe him as more pro-industry and pro-business than his predecessor, as well as less likely to defer to the Catholic clergy on education matters. This is true, but it is certainly the case that Taschereau inherited a more industrialized and modernized society than the one first governed by Gouin. In other words, it may be said that he was simply continuing the arc of earlier developments. And he was faced with long-term Qu\u00e9becois concerns. Emigration from Quebec \u2014 understood as a depopulation that sapped the strength of the French nation in Canada \u2014 had been underway since the mid-19th century. In the 1920s and, even more decisively, the 1930s, this exodus was renewed as young Qu\u00e9becois people searched for work elsewhere and principally in the New England states. Efforts on the part of the National Assembly to slow, halt, and even reverse that trend were applauded\u00a0by all flavours of French-Canadian\u00a0politics and society. To that end, Taschereau was noteworthy for developing some of the first major hydroelectric projects in Quebec, massive employers that offered a foretaste of the economic nationalism of the post-1960 provincial economy. These and other initiatives favoured urbanization over agrarian Quebec, the secularization of education (including an attempt to bring Quebec\u2019s large Jewish community into the educational decision-making process), and adding cosmopolitan aspects to cultural life in an otherwise very provincial province. These more controversial projects ran up against nationalistes<\/i>, clergy, Conservatives, and radical Liberals alike, particularly as the 1930s Depression deepened. Elements of the left-wing of the Liberal Party split off to form Action lib\u00e9rale nationale<\/em> (ALN), a new political party led by Gouin\u2019s son, Paul, which brought together nationaliste<\/i>, socially progressive, and rural groups. Taschereau was in trouble, but he is almost unique in Canada in that he was elected before the Depression and yet was re-elected \u2014 twice \u2014 in 1931 and 1935. A corruption scandal forced him from office in 1936, and the Liberal Party leadership was handed to Ad\u00e9lard Godbout (1892-1956). Quebec returned to the polls in the summer of the same year and the Liberals lost decisively.\r\n\r\nThe 1936 election was a landmark. In 1935, the opposition vote had been split between the Conservatives (with 19% of the ballots cast) and the ALN (29.4%). Although Godbout\u2019s Liberals saw their support shrink in 1936 from 46% to 39%, that would have been enough to defeat their opponents had they remained unaligned. The frustrated Conservatives and ALN, however, had come to an agreement, forming the Union Nationale (UN) coalition under the leadership of Duplessis. Gouin distanced himself from Duplessis even before the 1936 election and unsuccessfully attempted to resurrect the ALN from 1938 to 1939. What emerged was essentially a transformed Conservative Party \u2014 an ideologically conservative UN with a broad base of rural, economically regressive, pro-Church, and nationalistic voters. The UN turned its back on the Taschereau era\u2019s support for hydroelectric projects, a move that condemned rural Quebec to another generation of wood stoves, gas and kerosene lighting, iceboxes, and no radios or telephones. This anti-technological bent would persist in some form for nearly two decades.\r\n\r\nDuplessis\u2019 victory was initially a short-lived one. In 1939, as Canada stood on the brink of war, the spectre of conscription returned to Quebec. Federal Liberals from Quebec promised to block attempts to reintroduce conscription, a commitment that served provincial Liberals well. Godbout was swept back to power with 70 of 86 seats, and the UN was reduced to a 15-seat rump. The Liberal wartime government introduced a slate of landmark legislation, including the provincial franchise for women (thereby bringing Quebec into line with all other provinces), reforms to education to make it simultaneously more accessible and mandatory, and the introduction of Quebec\u2019s first Labour Code. The first steps necessary to creating a provincially owned electricity monopoly were also undertaken at this time. These changes were widely welcomed (and widely criticized in antimodernist quarters), but what led to Godbout\u2019s defeat in 1944 was his government\u2019s insistence that it could obstruct conscription. Tied to that one issue, the government\u2019s fate was all but sealed when Ottawa finally introduced conscription.\r\n\r\nThe 1944 election returned the UN and Duplessis with fewer votes than the Liberals but a modest majority of seats nevertheless. Duplessis\u2019 bedrock of support was rural Quebec, where his antimodernist message had the greatest purchase. Even in the late 1930s, Duplessis was building a populist base, reinforced with attacks on the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and the Communist Party, both of which were despised by the Catholic Church. And a spell in opposition during the Godbout years helped him out: an outspoken moralist, Duplessis\u2019 earlier term in office was marked by binge drinking and a reputation as what was then called \u201ca lady\u2019s man.\u201d By 1944, he\u00a0had dried out and was regarded as a reliable opponent of pro-conscription Ottawa and a champion of Quebec autonomy (autonomisme<\/i>) within Confederation.\r\n

Post-War Quebec<\/h1>\r\nDuplessis, who was nicknamed \u201cLe Chef,\u201d would hold on to office until 1959. During that 15-year era of relative prosperity and economic growth, the Union Nationale \u2014 like other populist parties in Canada \u2014 behaved in contradictory and sometimes confusing ways. While Duplessis sustained the ultramontanist elements within Quebec society and relied heavily on clergy support in rural areas, he also launched initiatives that gradually\u00a0reduced Church control over education while increasing state involvement. It has been argued that shrinkage in the number of active clergy made this shift necessary, but it marks a sea change nevertheless. The UN was outspokenly a part of rural Quebec, but it also now invested heavily in hydroelectric infrastructure. It was traditionalist and simultaneously \u2014 perhaps unavoidably \u2014 modernist in some of its policies. But Le Chef\u2019s anti-Ottawa, pro-rural, traditionalist posture tended overall toward a kind of isolationist parochialism. Rather than encourage Qu\u00e9becois investment in mines and the pulp and paper industry \u2014 let alone acting to create a state presence in those sectors \u2014 Duplessis encouraged foreign investment in industry. These Anglo-American operations provided only low-paying and low-status jobs for French-speaking Canadians and a fraction of the royalty revenues that were won in the same sector by other provinces. (In one dramatic case, Newfoundland was found to be taking nearly ten times the royalty revenue that Quebec won from the same iron ore body located on the Quebec-Labrador border.) Moreover, Duplessis was a social conservative whose social policies left Quebecers behind much of the rest of Canada when it came to welfare provisions. Nevertheless, the UN years saw an overall improvement in economic growth and, for once, the Quebec state system was able to dominate the clergy (to which it nonetheless continued to symbolically defer). This was all executed in an environment of systematized and extensive patronage that ensured loyalty to the party and to Le Chef himself.\r\n\r\nDuplessis\u2019 legacy has been the subject of repeated criticism in the decades since his death. Quebec nationalists dislike his anti-separatist stance, and liberals denounce his social conservatism. Some minorities resent the privileges he granted to the Roman Catholic Church, while other religious groups were actively or passively discouraged. His critics hold that his inherently corrupt patronage politics, his reactionary conservatism, his emphasis on traditional family and religious values, his anachronistic anti-union stance, his rural focus, and his preservation and promotion of Catholic Church institutions over the development of a secular social infrastructure (akin to that underway in most of the postwar western world), stunted Quebec\u2019s social and economic development by at least a decade. It is for this reason that Duplessis\u2019 term in office is sometimes described as the\u00a0[pb_glossary id=\"7960\"]Grande Noirceur[\/pb_glossary], black years in which individual liberties were reduced, corruption abounded, and Quebec stagnated economically.[footnote]Maurice Duplessis<\/a>, Project Gutenberg, Self-Publishing Press: http:\/\/self.gutenberg.org\/articles\/maurice_duplessis<\/a> CC BY-SA 3.0[\/footnote]\r\n

The\u00a0Quiet Revolution<\/h1>\r\nRegardless of Duplessis\u2019 intentional legacy, it is certainly the case that his administration laid the groundwork for the era of accelerated reform that followed. In 1959, Duplessis died and was replaced by the ill-fated Paul Sauv\u00e9 (1907-1960), who followed Duplessis to the grave\u00a0the next year at 53 years of age. Sauv\u00e9\u2019s brief tenure was marked by a severe change in UN direction. From 1944, Sauv\u00e9 served as the Minister of Social Welfare and Youth (a position he continued to hold even as premier-designate), and his first steps in 1959 involved strengthening the public education system and envisioning, publicly, a changed Quebec society. Whether he would have achieved even a part of what he promised matters less than the fact that he urged upon Quebecers an attitude of transformation. The still shorter interregnum government of Antonio Barrette (1899-1968) fell to a revived Liberal Party led by Jean Lesage (1912-1980), campaigning under the banner, \u201cIl faut que \u00e7a change\u201d (\u201cThings must change\u201d).\r\n\r\nQuebec in 1960 was not what it was in 1940. The population had grown from just over 3 million to 5.3 million, and the movement of people off the land and into urban areas rendered Duplessis\u2019 agrarian focus obsolete. Sprawling, metropolitan Montreal in 1961 contained 2.1 million people, 40% of the province\u2019s total population. Liberal Party support \u2014 and support for substantial social and economic change \u2014 was to be found in the politically powerful urban areas first and foremost. And it was there that modernization was most in demand. Improved educational and social welfare programs were a first priority, as was the [pb_glossary id=\"7962\"]nationalization[\/pb_glossary] of the entire hydroelectric sector, vastly increasing the capacity and reach of Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2434\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"3072\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.39 Manic-2 (aka: the Jean Lesage Generating Station) was assembled in the 1960s as part of the Quiet Revolution's province building agenda.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThis prominent initiative was undertaken by the Minister of Hydraulic Resources, a former television journalist named Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque (1922-1987). It represented such a substantial step in public policy that the Liberals called an election in 1962, only two years into their first majority mandate, on the issue of nationalization. They won only 5% more of the vote, but won 12 additional\u00a0seats in the 95-seat National Assembly. This improved mandate was a signal that the key directions of Lesage\u2019s proposed [pb_glossary id=\"7963\"]Quiet Revolution (Revolution<\/em> tranquille<\/em>)[\/pb_glossary] enjoyed broad support. The hydroelectric monopoly allowed the government to ensure that Quebecers had first call on construction-related jobs and that highly skilled francophones would not be denied management and technical positions as they arose. The crown corporation functioned in French first and was\u00a0the centrepiece of a suite of policies aimed to achieve the Liberal goal: [pb_glossary id=\"7964\"]Ma\u00eetres chez nous <\/em>(masters of our own house)[\/pb_glossary]. <\/b>Downstream benefits included a standardized pricing system that would attract industry and energy independence. The provincial government thereafter applied similar nationalizing models to other areas of their resource sector, increasing jobs and government revenue at the same time.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2435\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1280\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.40 The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Montreal found itself increasingly overshadowed by the state, finance, and commerce.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nEducational reforms in support of this modernizing economic vision included improved access to state-run secondary education and an increase in the age of compulsory attendance from 14 to 16 years. These changes were meant to address the parlous levels of high school completion in Quebec \u2014 roughly half the rate found in English Canada in the 1950s \u2014 and to prepare a growing number of Qu\u00e9becois for technical careers. To that end, the old classical colleges were replaced with general and technical colleges, known as [pb_glossary id=\"7965\"]C\u00c9GEPs[\/pb_glossary]. Most of these reforms were mounted in 1964.\r\n\r\nThe timing of education reform was significant. Removing the Catholic Church from its dominant position in education \u2014 sometimes referred to as [pb_glossary id=\"7966\"]declericalization[\/pb_glossary]\u00a0<\/b>\u2014 coincided roughly with the\u00a0[pb_glossary id=\"7967\"]Second Vatican Council (Vatican II)[\/pb_glossary]. Reforms in the Church at this time were extensive and the possibility of careers for nuns and priests as educators and health professionals was now in retreat. What\u2019s more, Vatican II meant that the ultramontanist elements in Quebec found little favour in Rome. The Quiet Revolution was not going to be derailed by an interventionist Pope.\r\n\r\nAll of these changes combined to be revolutionary in the sense that authority increasingly resided with the state, not the Church; it was at home in the cities, not on the land. French-speakers were enabled and encouraged to become managers and directors rather than day-labourers. Francophone technocrats and planners acquired a new kind of prestige as leaders of change. The branchplant economy survived but it was increasingly challenged by homegrown industries and sectors. The Liberals could convincingly point to evidence that Qu\u00e9becois were, in fact, becoming ma\u00eetres chez nous.<\/i> What\u2019s more, they were exporting this pride: as early as 1961, the Liberal government opened its first trade houses or Maisons du Qu\u00e9bec \u2014 <\/i> embassies without diplomatic status \u2014 in London, Paris, and New York.\r\n\r\nThese advances and the rhetoric of nationalism, embraced by the Liberals and articulated by the nationaliste<\/em> newspaper Le Devoir,<\/i> was increasingly articulated in demands for greater autonomisme<\/i> and, for the first time in many decades, separatisme<\/i>.<\/i>\r\n

<\/b>Nationalisme, Autonomisme, Separatisme<\/em><\/h1>\r\nThe 1940s and 1950s witnessed the decolonization of much of Africa and Asia. As imperial forces withdrew from what were, mostly, nations conquered by European armies in the 18th and 19th centuries, some in Quebec began to question whether it was time to liberate New France. Fear of assimilation and English oppression was a driving force in Quebec politics from 1759\u00a0on. Two centuries after the Conquest, nationalistes<\/em> (whose views were articulated in Le Devoir ,<\/i> which was founded in 1910 by Henri Bourassa) were increasingly unconvinced that the strategy of autonomisme<\/i> <\/i>implicit in Confederation was still a viable strategy for their community. The fact that most of the wealth in Quebec was thought to be in the hands of English-speakers (huddled in Montreal\u2019s Westmount and in the Eastern Townships) led some Quebecers to conclude that Canada was an unequal bargain, a colonial relationship\u00a0in which ethnicity, language, and religion worked systemically to the disadvantage of French-Canadians. One example will suffice: clerks in Montreal stores were obliged to speak English to their customers, regardless of the customer\u2019s first language. How could this be experienced as anything other than colonization?\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_5315\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"2999\"]\"Three<\/a> Figure 9.41 The symbolic value of a visit from the French Minister of Culture \u2014 the novellist, veteran of the Spanish Civil War, and French Resistance fighter Andr\u00e9 Malraux (right) \u2014 was enough, in 1963 to bring out Premier Lesage (left), as well as the elite of Canadien culture and society in Montreal.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nAs well, the 20th century was bearing down on Canadien culture. The rise of electronic media like radio, movies, and television exposed francophones to an onslaught of images and values from English Canada and the United States. Antimodernists, of course, were particularly critical of this tidal wave of entertainment-culture and one response was to intensify relations with Metropolitan France, an option that had been largely closed off by years of ultramontanist hostility toward the French Republic. Modernists, for their part, saw in nationalized industries a means to advance Quebec\u2019s economy and society but only if that could be done in a context in which francophones were no longer discriminated against when it came to top jobs. As regards Ottawa\u2019s\u00a0priorities and values in\u00a0international relations, culture, trade, and even monetary policy, nationalistes <\/em>believed those priorities did not reflect their own.\r\n\r\nSeveral strategies to achieve change emerged in the early 1960s. The first of these was constitutional change. In order to address some long-standing concerns and immediate goals, there would need to be a means for amending the British North America Act<\/em>. And, because the Act was a product of the British Parliament, there was the issue of [pb_glossary id=\"7968\"]patriation[\/pb_glossary]. Nine anglophone provinces and one francophone province, however, saw this process rather differently. The [pb_glossary id=\"7969\"]Fulton-Favreau Formula[\/pb_glossary] gained support at this time from every province but Saskatchewan; it proposed consensus agreement on issues involving all provinces, regional consensus or single-province agreement for more localized changes, and further subdivisions of process that made it, in the words of one constitutional expert at the time, \u201can unmitigated constitutional disaster.\u201d[footnote]Bora Laskin, quoted in Editor\u2019s Diary, \u201cThe Search for an Amending Process, 1960-1967,\u201d McGill Law Journal<\/i>, vol.12, no.4 (1966-67): 345.[\/footnote] Nevertheless, opposition to Fulton-Favreau was limited and even Lesage supported it; that support quickly dissipated as nationaliste<\/em> elements in Quebec became more vocal in their belief that this cumbersome system was more likely a means of perpetuating the inequities of federalism rather than replacing them.\r\n\r\nIf federalism could not be changed by its own institutions, it was argued, then Quebec needed to reclaim its pre-1867 authority (such as it had during the Confederation negotiations) or withdraw \u2014 entirely or in part \u2014 from the federation. This was a position taken along a spectrum of alternatives by diverse groups in Quebec in the early to mid-1960s. Conservative nationalistes<\/em> \u2014 like the Alliance <\/i>laurentienne<\/i>, founded in 1957 \u2013 soon found themselves arguing different sides of the same coin with left-wing nationalistes<\/em>. In 1960, the Rassemblement<\/i> pour <\/i>l\u2019Ind\u00e9pendance<\/i> <\/i>Nationale<\/i> <\/i>(RIN) brought together the Alliance <\/i>laurentienne<\/i> <\/i>with more moderate and, eventually, more radical left-wing nationalists inspired by the vibrant campus protests and anti-colonial movements of the time. The RIN engaged in electoral politics without success but maintained a high profile in public protests, such as demonstrations against the Royal Visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1964. When Pierre Trudeau \u2014 freshly appointed as Prime Minister designate \u2014 took a seat in the main viewing platform of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day Parade in 1968, it was the RIN that mounted a noisy protest that threw\u00a0objects at Trudeau. The leader of the RIN, Pierre Bourgault (1934-2003), was a participant in this last event and was arrested, along with hundreds of others. In the midst of these street-level confrontations, more moderate and conservative members of the RIN split off to form the Ralliement<\/i> <\/i>National<\/i>\u00a0(RN), another political party that would compete for separatist votes.\r\n\r\nFurther to the Left was the Action <\/i>socialiste<\/i> pour <\/i>l'ind\u00e9pendance<\/i> du Qu\u00e9bec<\/i> (ASIQ), the R\u00e9seau<\/i> de r\u00e9sistance (RR)<\/i>, and the Comit\u00e9<\/i> de liberation <\/i>nationale<\/i>. These groups had closer relations with communist and anti-colonialist movements and took inspiration from the Algerian and Cuban revolutions in particular. While there was a tradition of civil disobedience in Quebec, this quickly became overshadowed by more violent tactics, including vandalism and destruction of federal property.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_4708\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"640\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.42 Radio-Canada journalist Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque interviews Lester Pearson in Moscow in 1955.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nBeginning around 1967 to 1968, these diverse movements began to coalesce around two principal ideals and organizations. Those who favoured electoral strategies turned increasingly toward the new Mouvement<\/i> <\/i>souverainet\u00e9<\/i>-association<\/i> (MSA) led by Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque, the former cabinet minister who abandoned the Liberal Party over the issue of significant constitutional change. The RN merged with the MSA in 1968 to form the Parti<\/i> <\/i>Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois<\/i> <\/i>(PQ); much of the membership of the RIN joined as well when\u00a0that party was dissolved as well. The concept\u00a0that L\u00e9vesque championed, called sovereignty-association, represented a compromise between continued, reformed federalism and full-blown independence. Quebec would, in this vision, become an independent and sovereign state but one with strong ties to the rest of Canada that bore some similarity to the arrangement struck between the Low Countries in Europe (called Benelux) and the European Economic Community (EEC).\r\n\r\nAgainst electoral separatism of the PQ\u00a0were arrayed the several more starkly nationalistic movements who were inclined to the view that change would not come through the ballot box. The Front de <\/i>Lib\u00e9ration<\/i> du Qu\u00e9bec <\/i>(FLQ) embraced guerrilla tactics being used by Palestinians in their struggle against Israel. It also took advantage of historical images of rebellion in French Canada, including the tri-colour flag used by Papineau\u2019s 1837 Patriotes and the silhouette of an armed habitant<\/i>\u00a0from the 19th century Rebellions.<\/i> Beginning in the spring of 1963, the FLQ launched a series of largely ineffectual bomb attacks. They targeted Canadian Army barracks and a length of rail line east of Montreal. The FLQ quickly graduated from Molotov cocktails to heavy explosives. In April 1963, a 65-year old custodian at a Recruiting Office was killed by an FLQ bomb, and a month later one of 11 explosives\u00a0planted in post boxes severely injured an Army bomb disposal expert. By the end of 1968, the FLQ could claim to have detonated close to 100 explosives of various shapes and sizes, all of which targeted federal property of some kind. They had, as well, engaged in a robbery spree calculated\u00a0to get both money and arms for\u00a0the movement. Along the way, the organization was responsible for the injury or death of at least four people. In other decades, this might have been enough to alienate support but conditions were different in the 1960s. The sustained support for the FLQ has to be understood within the context of growing opposition to the American war in Vietnam, the civil rights and Black Panther movements in the United States, increasing youth unrest on campuses, the spread of various liberation movements internationally (into which the FLQ networked), and the FLQ\u2019s well articulated socialist objectives in Pierre Valliere\u2019s 1968 book, N\u00e8gres blancs d'Am\u00e9rique<\/i> (translated as White Niggers of America<\/i>).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_5317\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"640\"]\"Display<\/a> Figure 9.43 Expo '67 pavilions, built on specially created islands in the St. Lawrence.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn 1967 and 1968, then, and at the height of [pb_glossary id=\"7952\"]Centennial[\/pb_glossary] celebrations in Montreal at [pb_glossary id=\"7953\"]Expo \u201967[\/pb_glossary], Quebecers found themselves confronted by political movements of an unprecedented kind. The terrorist campaign undertaken by the FLQ was decried by L\u00e9vesque and the PQ; the FLQ regarded the PQ as insufficiently aggressive in its objectives and techniques. The Liberal Party, for its part, retained an interest in renegotiating elements of the constitution should a satisfactory patriation formula be found. In short, everyone in Quebec politics agreed that change was necessary, but disagreed strongly on the extent of change and the means to achieve it.\r\n
\r\n

Gaullism<\/h2>\r\nA wildcard in the separatiste<\/em> deck was the French President, General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970). Elevated to power during a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat<\/i> in 1958, de Gaulle viewed the English-speaking world with suspicion and hostility. Rebuilding an independent French military and financial powerhouse was his principal goal, and to that end he sought to diminish the power of his competitors, chiefly the United Kingdom and the United States. Canada, which he understood first and foremost to be an English-speaking country, was a less critical impediment to French advancement, but it was a potentially useful stepping stone. By destabilizing relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada, he would destabilize North America as a whole. Keeping in mind that this was a decade that witnessed leftist revolutions in several countries, the idea of a radicalized, French-aligned, and nationalistic regime in Quebec would cause worry in Washington and Ottawa alike.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_5376\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1860\"]\"An<\/a> Figure 9.44 French president Charles de Gaulle destabilizes Canada at Montreal's City Hall, 1967.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIt was in this context that de Gaulle travelled to Canada in July 1967, ostensibly as part of the centennial celebrations and Expo \u201967. Rather than head first to Ottawa, de Gaulle\u2019s entourage landed at Quebec City and drove in a motorcade along the banks of the St. Lawrence \u2014 through the heart of old New France \u2014 along the route of the 18th-century highway, the Chemin du Roy<\/em>. Passing by throngs of French\u00a0tri-<\/i>couleur<\/i> flag-waving Qu\u00e9becois, it has been suggested that de Gaulle might have been reminded of his own triumphal return to Paris in 1945 as the leader of the Free French. Whatever was on his mind \u2014 whether it was nostalgia, affection for Quebec, or causing a disturbance \u2014 on 24 July, he took to a balcony of Montreal\u2019s City Hall and shouted to an ecstatic crowd, \u201cVive le Qu\u00e9bec. Vive le Qu\u00e9bec libre!\u201d Then he went home without meeting any Canadian officials.\r\n\r\nThe role of France in stimulating French-Canadian separatism is difficult to measure. It was there before de Gaulle and it didn\u2019t need French support to keep it alive. The distinguished Canadian historian, J.F. Bosher, has argued that Gaullists (de Gaulle\u2019s followers in the Fifth Republic of France) conducted a kind of undercover and subversive operation in Quebec, providing resources and succor for a movement that might otherwise feel entirely isolated.[footnote]J.F. Bosher, The Gaullist Attack on Canada, 1967-1997<\/i> (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 1999).[\/footnote] Whatever his motives, de Gaulle\u2019s gun-and-run visit marked a dark day for Quebec federalists, excited support for the sovereigntist and separatist movements, and irritated\u00a0English Canada.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Key Points<\/h2>\r\n