The current third largest party in Canada is the Bloc Quebecois, a federal successor to the Quebec Nationalist parties of the last century. Quebec came close to independence in 1995 through a referendum but narrowly voted against it. Quebec Nationalism has stagnated since then, but as secession movements increase in support in the Western Provinces, it is worth looking at French-Canadians and their 400 year history of distinct community.

After a series of explorations and failed projects, a French trading company set up a permanent outpost in modern day Quebec in 1608, the same name of the settlement. The French increased their outposts, where the main export was the lucrative fur trade (waterproof beaver pelts being especially prized), and unlike the British did not seek to make large population centers. This came to bite them in the ass, as the populous 13 colonies to the south provided military support to the defeat of the French and their subjugation by the United Kingdom during the Seven Years War. Many “Canadiens” fled North America but most stayed, and when the British eventually extended civil and religious rights to them in 1774 the Protestant Americans to the south were incensed that CATHOLICS would be allowed rights, an important straw towards the revolution. Despite this religious bigotry, an American expedition led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold was sent through Quebec to bring all of Canada into the Revolution. Murray Rothbard attributes a great deal of the disastrous failure of the expedition to the cold feelings of Quebecois, who while not loving the British were aware of the hatred of the (especially New England) colonists of their faith.

Americans finally left Quebec alone after their failure in 1813 to capture what was now called “Lower Canada” for themselves. The Quebecois had allied with English speakers in Lower Canada for political reforms and both took part in the 1837-1838 Patriots War which led to their being stripped of what autonomy they had and thrust into union with Anglo Canada, which did not change with the 1867 Canadian confederation act that created the modern Canadian State. Quebec became a populous but minority nation in a large country of englishmen. While French-Canadians in the East did not trouble the British Empire in the rest of the century, the part French part Indian culture known as the Metis (MAY-tis) (Compare to the Griqwa in our South Africa Video) in Western Canada had an uprising in 1885 that was brutally suppressed by the British.

Quebec became mostly integrated into the new Confederation of Canada, being a bulwark of Liberal support (who were of the two factions in Canadian politics the most pro-catholic), but during the First World War the question of conscripting men into the European conflict became a breaking point for the Liberals against the pro-war pro-Anglo Tories. Their loss in 1917 forced Canadian men into combat on foreign shores, where 50,000 died. While Quebec continued to vote overwhelmingly Liberal on the federal level up into the 50s, a conservative aligned moderate nationalist party arose for the first time in Quebec in 1936, the Union Nationale and challenged the provincial liberal party for dominance. Its founder, Maurice Duplessis (do-play-see), spent 18 years as head of the province until his death in 1959. Duplessis and his party represented the “autonomist” wing of Quebec nationalism, which was not separatist and believed in the confederation and Empire. With Duplessis’ death Quebec culture entered what became known as the “Quiet Revolution”, similar to the sexual revolutions all over the world during the 1960s. The province was traditionally very religious and agrarian, and the swiftness of the changes in cultural outlook was stunning and disconcerting to many conservatives in Quebec. Opinions on Quebec Nationalism also drastically changed, with the separatist sovereigntist movement gaining a great deal of support starting in the 60s. This movement was broadly left-wing, in some cases militantly so, and identified with the global movement for decolonization: Quebec, like the old imperial colonies of France and Britain, was a captive nation yearning to be free.

Parti Quebecois, founded in 1968, became the main Provincial Canadian nationalist party and identified with social democracy. In parallel, a marxist leninist group called the Front for the Liberation of Quebec (FLQ) was formed, and rejected electoralism in favor of a campaign of terror bombings. These reached a climax with a bomb attack on the Montreal stock exchange in 1969 and in 1970 the group kidnapped and KILLED the deputy premier of Quebec, Liberal Pierre Laporte, which soured public support for the group in the same way as the Corsican Nationalist assassination of their regional prefect did for them. Meanwhile the peaceful but still sovereigntist Parti Quebecois kept chugging along.  Running on a self-determination referendum, the party gained a majority of legislative seats in 1976 and set to work implementing what became the 1980 plebiscite on Quebec independence. They failed to get a majority of VOTERS in their election however, and this was reflected in the 60/40 split against Quebec becoming a nation-state. Undeterred, PQ again ran on Quebec independence and when reelected in 1994 they tried one more time. This time, the result was agonizingly close, with 50.5% voting “Non” to 49.5% voting “Oui”. The closeness of the result led to accusations of federal manipulation, and blame towards “allophones” (allophons), foreigners whose mother tongue was neither english or french who had come to the major cities in the last few decades and who had no interest in Quebec Nationalism. The federal government later admitted it had no intention of actually letting the Province free, so perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

In the wake of the failed referendum the PQ party leader resigned, and slowly the PQ’s influence began to fade, and as of this video it is the third party in Quebec, with the moderate autonomist CAQ currently heading the government and a more left wing sovereigntist party in 4th place. Indeed, the federal party affiliated with Quebec Nationalism, Bloc Quebecois removed it’s party leader in 2018 because she was seen as “too sovereigntist”. It is hard to say when an invigorated Quebec independence movement will return, and in what form. But it is one of the oldest national movements in North America, and it has yet to fade away for long. Vive l’Quebec! And May 1000 Flowers bloom!