{"id":2331,"date":"2016-01-16T06:16:55","date_gmt":"2016-01-16T06:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/postconfederation\/?post_type=chapter&p=2331"},"modified":"2019-07-15T18:17:47","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T18:17:47","slug":"9-11-quebec-and-the-roc","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/postconfederation\/chapter\/9-11-quebec-and-the-roc\/","title":{"raw":"9.11 Quebec and the ROC","rendered":"9.11 Quebec and the ROC"},"content":{"raw":"[caption id=\"attachment_3172\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"2688\"]\"Two<\/a> Figure 9.46 Quebec divided: \"Non\" voters felt obliged to insist that they were no less Qu\u00e9becois for wanting the status quo; \"Oui\" voters talked about sovereignty association but imagined a liberated Quebec. [Long Description]<\/a>[\/caption]In the aftermath of the October Crisis, neither\u00a0the nation nor the province of Quebec turned against the Liberals \u2014 not immediately. Trudeau, Bourassa, and especially Drapeau enjoyed a significant bump in popularity and confidence in the months immediately after the crisis. It did not last. In 1972, the Trudeau government was reduced to a minority and the NDP \u2014 led by David Lewis, a vocal critic of the emergency measures \u2014 held the balance of power. Remarkably, it was only in Quebec that the federal Liberals did especially well, losing out to the Tories in every other province. The short-term effects for the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois (PQ) were also disappointing: from seven seats in the National Assembly in 1970, they fell to six in 1973.\r\n\r\nCanadian politics in the post-1970 years involved visibly addressing Quebec\u2019s issues in a variety of ways. Canada joined the Organisation<\/i> international de la <\/i>Francophonie (aka: La Francophonie)<\/i>, an international forum of nations (many of them former colonies of France) where the use of the French language was widespread. The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism reported out in 1969, and there was a new urgency after October 1970 to implement some of its recommendations. Material changes included more French language instruction in schools and a reversal of decades-old policies in Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba that minimized the rights of francophones to instruction in their first language. Access to services in French in the courts was also addressed, and New Brunswick took steps to become officially bilingual. While these initiatives were seen by some in Quebec as a distraction from the substantive issues of power relations between Ottawa and the province, the changes were\u00a0also decried by many in English Canada as evidence that Ottawa was \u201cshoving French down our throats.\u201d[footnote]Michael Hayday, So They Want Us to Learn French: Promoting and Opposing Bilingualism in English-Speaking Canada <\/i>(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2015), 4.[\/footnote] This anglophone francophobia was to cost the Liberals dearly at the polls in the 1970s.\r\n\r\nEfforts to reform the constitutional relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada, moreover, continued to flounder. Premier Bourassa\u2019s efforts to negotiate better terms for Quebec consistently failed. The [pb_glossary id=\"7976\"]Victoria Charter[\/pb_glossary] (1971) held out the prospect of a veto power for Quebec but it was rejected at the last minute by the premier because he feared a nationaliste<\/em> protest. His inability to accomplish any meaningful change in this field contributed in large measure to the success of L\u00e9vesque and the pequistes<\/em>\u00a0in the 1976 election.\r\n

The Pequistes<\/i>\u00a0in Office<\/h1>\r\nIn the 1973 election, the Union Nationale was effectively wiped out. It failed to elect a single candidate out of a full slate of 110. The PQ, with only six seats, therefore, was the Official Opposition, squaring off against Bourassa\u2019s 102 Members of the National Assembly (MNAs). The three years that followed would see L\u00e9vesque reposition himself and his party as more than a movement of constitutional change. This was helped by Bourassa\u2019s physical awkwardness and his stilted speaking style and the cascade of scandals that embroiled the government. The 1976 Summer Olympics were held in Montreal and, despite Mayor Drapeau\u2019s promise that \u201cThe Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby,\u201d it ran up a $1.5 billion debt. (Aislin responded with a cartoon showing a very pregnant Drapeau.) The Olympic Stadium \u2014 the \u201cBig O\u201d \u2014 incurred huge overruns and was incomplete when the games commenced.\u00a0The credibility of the Liberals was now so low that L\u00e9vesque could campaign less on separatism and more on the need for good government.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2320\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1000\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.47 Opening ceremonies at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, marred by extensive boycotts (in the end, only 92 nations participated). Construction cranes can be seen looming over the unfinished trunk of the stadium\u2019s tower.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFor Canadians in what was becoming known as the [pb_glossary id=\"7977\"]Rest Of Canada (ROC)[\/pb_glossary], the election of the PQ on 15 November\u00a01976 signalled the end of Confederation. The combination of terrorist attacks in the 1960s and early 1970s, government misspending, a stagnating local (and global) economy, and fear of what the PQ might accomplish constitutionally contributed to a significant out-migration from Quebec of individuals, families, and households. It is reckoned that 99,000 people left the province, turning whole swaths of western Montreal from neighbourhoods where English dominated into areas in which French was the principal language.[footnote]Marc V. Levine, The Reconquest of Montreal: Language Policy and Social Change in a Bilingual City <\/i>(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 120-1.[\/footnote] Whole corporations exited as well. Montreal was, historically, the centre of banking, insurance, and finance, a position that was being increasingly challenged by Toronto. In the decade after the PQ election, many of these firms relocated their head offices from Montreal to Toronto and, more dramatically, to Calgary. The most prominent of these moves was made by Sun Life Financial, one of the largest employers in Montreal and almost certainly the largest employer of anglophones. Following the PQ government\u2019s introduction of the Charter of the French Language (aka:\u00a0[pb_glossary id=\"7978\"]Bill 101[\/pb_glossary]), which established the primacy of French in all aspects of life \u2014 from street signage to restaurant menus \u2014 and protected the rights of unilingual francophone employees against discrimination, Sun Life made a very public show of its displeasure and then left. Montreal\u2019s loss may have been Toronto\u2019s gain (the two quickly swapped places as the nation\u2019s largest cities) but there was a strong sense that the exodus, as it was called, bode ill for Canada as a whole.\r\n\r\nWithin Quebec and the PQ there were many who hoped for precisely that outcome. As promised during the 1976 campaign, L\u00e9vesque began working toward a referendum on Quebec\u2019s place in Confederation. The first step involved reforming electoral laws so as to permit for a referendum of any kind. The second, was to settle on a question. This became a consuming part of the process, as federalists in Quebec and the ROC mobilized their pitch for continuing with the status quo<\/i>. Within the PQ, there were elements calling for a direct and decisive approach to the question of sovereignty, while others preferred a gradualist approach (\u00e9tapisme<\/i>). Pierre Trudeau\u2019s loss of power in the 1979 election introduced a new player in the game, Prime Minister Joseph \u201cJoe\u201d Clark (b. 1939), elected to lead a minority Conservative government in which western Canadian MPs were a powerful force. For the separatists, this looked like a positive sign. Moreover, Trudeau \u2014 who might have posed a greater threat in Ottawa than the less-experienced Clark \u2014 had announced his retirement from politics. Clark\u2019s government, however, stumbled and fell in a non-confidence vote. The resultant election drew Trudeau back into the role of Liberal leader (a position he had never fully vacated) and, once back in office with a fresh majority, into the fray against L\u00e9vesque.\r\n
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Joe Clark and the Iranian Hostage Crisis<\/h2>\r\nTrudeau had his hostage crisis. Joe Clark had his.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_5328\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"443\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.48 Joseph \"Joe\" Clark wins the Tory leadership in 1976 and lands on the cover of Time magazine.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nJoe Clark\u2019s image was being diminished\u00a0as soon as he moved into the public spotlight at 24 Sussex Drive. He was seen (and depicted) as physically awkward and socially unsophisticated. He was and remains the youngest person ever to become Prime Minister (the Trudeaus, p\u00e8re et fils<\/em>, came to office\u00a09 and 4\u00a0years older, respectively) and so could be forgiven for needing time to adjust. Certainly, time has demonstrated his abilities, but in 1979 to 1980, the public could hardly imagine the extent to which the\u00a039-year-old Clark was prepared to endorse and shepherd along a successful international subterfuge.\r\n\r\nIn February 1979, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was overthrown. A few months later, he departed for the United States for medical treatment. The long history of American support for the Shah\u2019s brutal regime and the offer of refuge for Pahlavi greatly angered Iranian revolutionaries. On 4 November 1979, a group of Iranian students and activists, including Islamic fundamentalists who wished to end the Westernization and secularization of Iran, invaded the American embassy in Tehran and seized 66\u00a0embassy employees. The women and African-Americans were soon released, leaving 53\u00a0white men as hostages. Negotiations failed to free them, and in April 1980, a rescue attempt fell through when the United States aircraft sent to transport them crashed.\r\n\r\nSix of the American embassy staff escaped the compound before it fell and went into hiding with members of the Canadian embassy. The Canadian Ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor (1934-2015), arranged to smuggle the Americans out of the country with\u00a0Canadian passports issued under a special order by the Clark government. The\u00a0[pb_glossary id=\"7979\"]Canadian Caper[\/pb_glossary] was ultimately successful; the arrival home of the American hostages in January produced a burst of pro-Canadian feeling south of the border.\r\n\r\nThe fanfare came too late to save two regimes. The fate of Jimmy Carter\u2019s presidency had been settled in the November 1979 elections, but Joe Clark\u2019s administration still had hopes of recovering from a non-confidence vote. These ambitions\u00a0would be dashed in the February 1980 general election.[footnote]Openstax, U.S. History: \"Jimmy Carter in the Aftermath of the Storm\"<\/a>, https:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/p7ovuIkl@9.5:n8t1hRY9@7\/30-5-Jimmy-Carter-in-the-Aftermath-of-the-Storm<\/a>.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

The Referendum<\/h1>\r\nOn 20 May 1980, nearly 86% of Quebec voters went to the polls to vote in the referendum. Meanwhile, the rest of Canada held its breath. As it turned out, federalism caught a break.\r\n\r\nTrudeau\u2019s commitment\u00a0to Quebecers in 1980 of a revamped federalism in which Quebec\u2019s aspirations might be satisfied played well with part of the \u201cNon\u201d vote constituency. Scholars, however, remain divided over whether the 60% who voted against \u201cSovereignty-Association\u201d were, in fact, voting in favour of the status quo<\/em>. The question posed in the referendum, over which the PQ had laboured so long, was opaque in its meaning. It was entirely possible for a separatist to conclude that the proposed agreement with Ottawa was too light on sovereignty and too heavy on association. Thus, radical separatistes might vote \u201cNon\u201d so as to prevent anything less than complete separation of Quebec from Canada. Certainly the victory of the \u201cNon\u201d side cannot be entirely explained by enthusiasm for the Liberal position.\r\n\r\nThe provincial Liberals under Claude Ryan (1925-2004) conducted a poor campaign, and the federal Liberals were hamstrung by legal restrictions on direct involvement (some of which they simply ignored). A turning point came on International Women\u2019s Day when the Quebec Women\u2019s Affairs Minister, Lise Payette (b. 1931) made the first of two speeches in which she critiqued the character of \u201cYvette,\u201d who, in Quebec schoolbooks, was portrayed as an ideal\u00a0\u2014 a docile, submissive girl. Payette wanted to see these representations removed from the curriculum \u2014 a reasonable goal. The next day, however, she publicly accused the \u201cNon\u201d side of being made up of \u201cYvettes\u201d and she specifically targeted Ryan\u2019s accomplished wife, Madeleine Ryan, as one. Mme. Ryan embraced the title and launched brunch des Yvettes<\/i>, a rally of women opposed to sovereignty-association.[footnote]Stephanie Godin, \u201cThe Yvettes as the Expression of a Federalist Feminism in Quebec,\u201d in Michael D. Behiels and Matthew Hayday, eds., Contemporary Quebec: Selected Readings and Commentaries <\/i>(Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2011): 340-4.[\/footnote] Mme. Ryan\u2019s campaign appealed strongly to Quebec housewives who felt doubly diminished by their social status and Payette\u2019s condescension. Quebec\u2019s vital feminist movement was divided,but now an important block was mobilized in support of \u201cNon.\u201d[footnote]Constance Backhouse and David H. Flaherty, Challenging Times: The Women\u2019s Movement in Canada and the United States <\/i>(Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 1992), 112-13.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nThe results of the vote were decisive but far from conclusive. It was only the first campaign in what became known as the [pb_glossary id=\"7980\"]Neverendum[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2332\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1000\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.49 Trudeau speaks to a \"Non\" crowd hours before the referendum.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n
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The long and short of it<\/h2>\r\nWhen Trudeau first responded to the election of the PQ in 1976, he indicated that he would be glad to see \u201cclarity\u201d on the constitutional issue in Quebec. Since then, the word \u201cclarity\u201d has figured prominently in discussions on this topic. It did not, however, loom large in the final version of the 1980 referendum question:\r\n
The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad \u2014 in other words, sovereignty \u2014 and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?[footnote]Canada. Quebec. 1980 Quebec Referendum<\/em> (announced 20 December 1979).[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nLe Government du Qu\u00e9bec a fait conna\u00eetre sa proposition d\u2019en arriver, avec le reste du Canada, \u00e0 une nouvelle entente fond\u00e9e sur le principe de l\u2019\u00e9galit\u00e9 des peuples\u00a0; cette entente permettrait au Qu\u00e9bec d'acqu\u00e9rir le pouvoir exclusif de faire ses lois, de percevoir ses imp\u00f4ts et d\u2019\u00e9tablir ses relations ext\u00e9rieures, ce qui est la souverainet\u00e9, et, en m\u00eame temps, de maintenir avec le Canada une association \u00e9conomique comportant l\u2019utilisation de la m\u00eame monnaie\u00a0; aucun changement de statut politique r\u00e9sultant de ces n\u00e9gociations ne sera r\u00e9alis\u00e9 sans l\u2019accord de la population lors d\u2019un autre r\u00e9f\u00e9rendum\u00a0; en cons\u00e9quence, accordez-vous au Gouvernement du Qu\u00e9bec le mandat de n\u00e9gocier l\u2019entente propos\u00e9e entre le Qu\u00e9bec et le Canada?<\/em><\/blockquote>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Key Points<\/h2>\r\n