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Papineau to Bouchard: Quebec Nationalism

© David Newman

Lucien Bouchard, leader of the separatist Parti Québecois has resigned. It is because of that that I decided to look back at the origins of Quebec Nationalism from the roots to now through revolution, referendums, and terrorism.

The French and the English were often at war and were traditional enemies, as they fought against each other in the hundred-year war and almost all wars until the Seven-year War. In America there was also tension between the Thirteen Colonies and New France. That is why when the British took over New France in 1763, the French were afraid to lose their culture, and it seamed the British wanted to Anglicize them. They probably would have if it weren't for the discontent in the Traditional American Colonies. The British, who though they risked losing the entirety of their colonies in North America, made a deal protecting Catholicism and property rights for French Canadians in the Act of Quebec of 1774, fearing they would join the "Americans". So the French were pretty happy with this so they stayed loyal to the Crown.

Though things have always been tense between the two linguistic groups, the first sign of a Separatist movement came in the 1830s during the Rebellions of 1937-38 where two different rebellions occurred led in Toronto by William Lyon Mackenzie of Toronto and in Montreal by Louis Joseph Papineau. The Rebellion in Lower Canada (Quebec) was for independence from the Crown. When the 92 Resolutions, a list of economic and political reforms, is refused by the British Parliament, Papineau and his supporters (called the Patriotes) begin rebellion against the crown in order to form a Canadian Republic, and they even adopted a flag and emblem (later reused by the FLQ). The whole deal was that the elected Legislative, elected by the French-Canadian mostly-rural population, had less power than the Appointed pro-British/anti-French Executive Branch of government. Although mostly a political fight, this has also the tint of fight for equal status, obviously, since we are still a monarchy here, their attempts failed, and many Patriotes were exiled, deported (to Australia) or executed. The whole incident sparked concern in the Mother country and Queen Victoria sent Dunham to the BNA to figure out what could be done. He said that Upper and Lower Canada should be united as the Province of Canada, but screwed up when said the Canadiens may be expected to be absorbed by British-Canadians, which gave the expected reactions. The way things were, the legislature was filled with a majority of MPs who spoke the then-minority tongue in Canada, English, while Francophones (the majority, then, in fact a majority until 1851, that is ten years later) were a minority in parliament of Canada. So obviously there was not much rejoicing on the Franco- side, while the Anglo- side was pretty content. It is because of this tension between the groups that French-Canadians were sceptical of the Confederation Idea, eventually sold to them by Georges Etienne Cartier.