In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada released an opinion on the legality of the unilateral secession of Quebec. In Reference re Secession of Quebec, the Supreme Court stated

1. Since, the principle of federalism and the desire to “reconcile diversity with unity” applies to Canada holistically, which has included Quebec since its inception, unilateral secession was not legal. However, if it were to be decided in a referendum that it was the wish of Quebec to secede, the rest of Canada would have no right to deny them independence.
2. International law “does not specifically grant component parts of sovereign states the legal right to secede unilaterally from their ‘parent’ state” and that the right of a people to self determination was expected to be exercised within the framework of existing states, by negotiation, for example.

Both sides of the debate claimed to be happy with the court’s decision. The Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was pleased that Quebec could not secede unilaterally, while Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard claimed that the ruling validated the referendum strategy which separatists had been pursuing since 1998.

      (Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth II)

The 1982 Canada Act was passed by the British Parliament at the request of the Canadian government, ending the “request and consent” provisions from the 1931 Statute of Westminster that tied the Canadian government to the British in a subordinate way. The Act unilaterally patriated the Canadian government, meaning, for example, that the question of Quebec sovereignty could be explored without reference to the British Parliament.

Furthermore, because of Canada’s bilingualism, the British Parliament produced the bill in both English and French, making the Canada Act the first piece of British legislation passed in French since the middle ages.

Quebec, demanding greater protection for its distinct society, failed to ratify the Canada Act, although this move was symbolic and did not affect the legal application of the Act.

      1980 saw the first referendum on whether or not Quebec should pursue sovereignty. The Parti Quebecois government, led by René Lévesque, strongly favored secession and called the referendum accordingly.

The question on the ballot read:

«Le Gouvernement du Québec a fait connaître sa proposition d’en arriver, avec le reste du Canada, à une nouvelle entente fondée sur le principe de l’égalité des peuples ; cette entente permettrait au Québec d’acquérir le pouvoir exclusif de faire ses lois, de percevoir ses impôts et d’établir ses relations extérieures, ce qui est la souveraineté, et, en même temps, de maintenir avec le Canada une association économique comportant l’utilisation de la même monnaie ; aucun changement de statut politique résultant de ces négociations ne sera réalisé sans l’accord de la population lors d’un autre référendum ; en conséquence, accordez-vous au Gouvernement du Québec le mandat de négocier l’entente proposée entre le Québec et le Canada?»

Ultimately the referendum was defeated 59.56 to 40.44 percent on May 20, 1980.

La Loi 101, or The Charter of the French Language, established French as the official language of Quebec under the first Parti Quebecois government. Expanding upon the 1974 Official Language Act, Loi 101 articulated fundamental language rights for francophones:

1. The right to have the civil administration, the health services and social services, the public utility enterprises, the professional corporations, the associations of employees and all enterprises doing business in Quebec communicate with him in French. (article 2)
2. The right to speak French in deliberative assemblies. (article 3)
3. The right of workers to carry on their activities in French. (article 4)
4. The right of consumers to be informed and served in French. (article 5)
5. The right of persons eligible for instruction in Quebec to receive that instruction in French. (article 6)

The October Crisis was a series of events sparked by two political kidnappings (British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte) by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) after several years of bombings by the same organization.

At the request of Robert Bourassa, Premier of Québec, and of Jean Drapeau, Mayor of Montréal, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the only peacetime use of the War Measures Act, deploying Canadian troops throughout Québec and endowing Police with the extraordinary power to arrest and detain citizens without charge.

(Trudeau on his employment of the War Measures Act)

Although there was much support for the War Measures Act at the time, many criticized the suspension of personal liberties the Act allowed. Critics included Parti Québecois leader René Lévesque and New Democratic Party leader Tommy Douglas, who said, “The government, I submit, is using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut.”

Click here for a full chronology of the Crisis.

               Michele Lalonde recites “Speak White”

The Official Languages Act was a cornerstone of the newly elected Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government. (Trudeau is the last speaker in the video.)

The Act establishes both English and French as national languages of Canada and giving  all Canadians the right to receive services from their federal government in either language of their choosing.

Not only did this Act make government services, including the legal system, more accessible to francophone Canadians, but it also gave them greater access to roles in the civil service. (Before the Act was passed, only 9% of jobs within the federal public service had been occupied by Francophones, even though French-speakers formed a quarter of the Canadian population.)

      Charles de Gaulle excites the crowd at Expo ‘67 in Montreal with separatist sentiments. From the balcony of the Montreal City Hall, de Gaulle shouted ‘Vive le Quebec Libre!” in what has been seen as a show of support for Quebec sovereignty, a movement which gained momentum during the Liberal era of the Quiet Revolution. De Gaulle left Canada shortly thereafter in the wake of his impromptu breach of diplomatic protocol.

On April 21, 1963, after a series of urban bombings targeted at British-owned banks, businesses, McGill University, and so on, the extreme separatist organization Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) claimed its first death: Wilfred O’Neill, the night guard at the Canadian Forces Recruitment Center in Montreal.

Later that year, Gabriel Hudon and Raymond Villeneuve were sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for O’Neill’s death. The increasing violence of the FLQ’s tactics foreshadows the 1970 October Crisis. The following video is the FLQ Manifesto during aforementioned crisis.

          After the end of Maurice Duplessis’s reign as Premier of Quebec in 1959, sometimes referred to as La Grande Noirceur (The Great Darkness), Quebec experienced a period of unprecedented social and economic progression throughout the 1960s, called La Revolution Tranquille (The Quiet Revolution).

Over the course of the 1960s, the newly Liberal provincial government took control of the healthcare and education systems that had formerly been in the hands of the Catholic Church, creating government ministries for both. This was also a period of intense economic reform, unionization of public service, and the creation of a welfare-state.

The Quiet Revolution (or Revolution Tranquille) also produced the surge in Quebecois nationalism that divided the province into Federalists and Separatists, whose enthusiasm was illustrated during Charles de Gaulle’s 1967 visit to Montreal.