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Maîtres chez nous: Québec

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Last month the Parti Québécois won Québec's provincial elections, securing the separatist agenda in that province for the immediate future. The PQ's monopoly in Québec is rooted in the electorate's firm intent to remain a French-speaking people. Recent dithering in the party platform suggests that not all PQ voters are hard-core separatists, but it is clear that the people of Québec have lost faith in Canada. Why this is, and what to do about it, are problems embedded in Québec's unique 500-year history.

Québec was founded by loyal French subjects and devout Roman Catholics, in sharp contrast to the English practice of sending dissidents overseas. However, by 1760, the year Québec fell to the British, its language, customs, and mores had evolved into a vibrant new culture as different from France as Boston was from England.

Following capitulation, Québec's civic leaders offered the British an attractive deal: allow our religion, defend our property rights, and leave our language alone, and in return, we will follow all decrees and pay all taxes promptly and in full, without gripe or petition. Canada's military governors saw reason, and accepted. Unfortunately, they also had orders to "Anglicise" the population. Thus, francophones moved freely in local circles, but were barred from the upper levels of business and government.

Meanwhile, Americans poured in to plunder Québec. The immigrants loudly protested the occupation government, particularly its protection of the King's new subjects. So sharp was the contrast between the indigenous community and native British subjects from the Lower 13 that General Murray, Canada's first governor, requested the King ban British immigration to Québec as an unwholesome influence on an honourable, trustworthy (if non-British) people.

Canadians lived under an uneasy armistice for two centuries. The English-speaking ruling class tolerated Québécois culture temporarily as it awaited a chance to liquidate it, while French Canadians fortified their position against the eventual assault. The tension effectively demolished the trust required for true unity.

By the 1960s, French Canadians tired of the veiled insults and overt discrimination this caste system engendered. For the first time, a true nativist movement arose, one that rejected not only anglophone domination, but also the cultural superiority of France. Québécois artists established an authentic Québécois voice. The movement's political wing, under the slogan "Maîtres chez nous" ("Masters of Our Home"), pushed for transfer of power from Ottawa to the provinces and legal recognition of the French language, ideas considered deeply radical. Anglophone leaders launched abusive diatribes at Québec. Some even raved about a conspiracy to make Canada a unilingual French nation.

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