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Power
  • The Duplessis government supported provincial autonomy, anti-unionism and social conservatism.
  • Before 1960, the Catholic Church exerted a lot of influence over Québec society.
  • Trade unionists, artists and intellectuals opposed Duplessis’ Union nationale and challenged the influence of the Catholic Church.
  • The Lesage government (1960–1966) adopted many reforms and gave the state a major role to play in modernizing Québec.
  • The Johnson (1966–1970), Bourassa (1970–1976) and Lévesque (1976–1980) governments also adopted reforms that contributed to modernizing Québec.
  • The Trudeau government wanted to patriate the Constitution. However, the constitutional negotiations ended in failure.
  • The Lévesque government’s objective was to achieve Québec sovereignty.
Territory
  • Starting in the 1960s, urban agglomerations developed. The emergence of suburbs created certain problems, including encroachment on agricultural land.
  • In 1978, the Lévesque government adopted the Act Respecting the Preservation of Agricultural Land.
  • Hydroelectric development transformed the territory.
Economy
  • After 1945, the Western world underwent a 30-year period of economic prosperity.
  • After the Second World War, the federal government increasingly intervened in the economy.
  • The Duplessis government advocated economic liberalism and took measures to modernize agriculture.
  • The Lesage government nationalized the vast majority of electric companies and merged them with Hydro-Québec.
  • In the 1960s, Québec’s economic growth was based largely on public investment, housing construction and the modernization of manufacturing.
  • In 1971, Premier Bourassa announced the development of the hydroelectric potential of Baie-James.
  • The end of the 1970s was marked by an economic downturn.
Society
  • After the Second World War, a consumer society emerged in Québec.
  • A baby boom occurred in the post-war years. It was replaced by a falling birth rate in the early 1960s.
  • In 1976, the federal government adopted a new Immigration Act, which broadened the eligibility criteria. In 1978, Québec signed an agreement with Ottawa, which allowed it to determine the number of immigrants it wished to receive and to select them.
  • During the 1960s, Québec underwent a period of reforms and major changes known as the “Quiet Revolution.”
  • In 1970, the Bourassa government had to deal with the October Crisis and a common front of three major labour confederations.
  • The election of the Parti Québécois, in 1976, and the adoption of the Charter of the French Language, in 1977, worried Anglo-Quebecers.
  • Indigenous nations continued to be subjected to a policy of assimilation. New Indian residential schools were opened in Québec following the Second World War.
  • Indigenous peoples sought to address their claims and defend their rights. The Inuit and Cree signed the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement and the Naskapi signed the Northeastern Québec Agreement.
Culture
  • In the post-war years, Québec culture was increasingly influenced by American culture.
  • From 1960 to 1966, the Lesage government adopted policies that promoted cultural affirmation and established cultural venues.
  • In the 1960s, attitudes changed: traditional values were challenged.
  • In the 1960s and 1970s, Québécois culture experienced a period of vitality. Artists took an increasingly strong position on social questions and issues and on Québec’s political future.
  • Starting in 1960, Québec nationalism was transformed and was referred to as neo-nationalism.
  • Various laws were passed with the goal of protecting the French language:
    • in 1969, the Act to Promote the French Language in Québec (Bill 63)
    • in 1974, the Official Language Act (Bill 22)
    • in 1977, the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101)
  • Immigration from increasingly varied countries helped to foster cultural diversity in Québec.
Welfare state
  • With the Quiet Revolution, Québec became a welfare state. It took control over social services, modernized and secularized them and made them accessible to all citizens.
  • To ensure proper functioning of the welfare state, the Québec government underwent reforms and developed its civil service.
Feminism
  • Starting in the 1960s, women had greater access to studies and careers, which allowed them to achieve greater economic independence.
  • In 1964, Marie-Claire Kirkland‑Casgrain, a minister in the Lesage government, passed the Act Respecting the Legal Capacity of Married Women.
  • In 1969, abortion was decriminalized and allowed under certain circumstances and with certain restrictions.
  • In the early 1970s, women were still subjected to many injustices. Many feminist groups called for reforms. Their main demands were pay equity, maternity leave, child care services and unrestricted access to abortion.
  • In 1974, Québec adopted a government policy on child care. Several government agencies were formed, including the Council on the Status of Women (1973) and the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (1976).
  • At the end of the 1970s, women were still under-represented in politics.
  • In 1979, the Act Respecting Labour Standards was adopted. In particular, it provided for maternity leave for female employees.
Secularization
  • In the post-war years, but particularly starting in 1960, traditional values, especially those associated with Catholicism, were increasingly challenged by Quebecers. Religious practice decreased, and the number of priests and members of religious communities fell.
  • Starting in 1960, the Lesage government began the secularization of public institutions.

Explanation

Duplessis and provincial autonomy

Explanation

The influence of the Catholic Church on Québec society

  • Led by Maurice Duplessis, the Union nationale favoured clericalism, an ideology that supported the involvement of the clergy in politics. This meant that it maintained close ties with the Catholic Church.
  • The Duplessis government and the Catholic Church shared the same traditional values based on social conservatism.
  • Duplessis gave the Church responsibility for education and health. Even though, over the years, the Church had difficulty assuming these responsibilities, Duplessis refused to allow the state to take them over.

Explanation

Reforms under the Lesage government

  • The Liberal Party of Québec, led by Jean Lesage, was in power from 1960 to 1966. During this period, known as the “Quiet Revolution,” Québec embarked on a large-scale modernization process.

Explanation

The modernization of Québec continues

  • Despite changes in government, the modernization efforts started by the Lesage government continued in the following years.

Explanation

The patriation of the Constitution

  • The prime minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, wanted the country to gain full legal autonomy and the right to amend the Constitution without having to call on the British Parliament. To achieve this goal, he first had to patriate the Constitution.
  • He also wanted to revise the division of powers between the federal government and the provinces, and to establish an amending formula, or a procedure to be followed in order to amend the Constitution. The provinces wanted to reach an agreement with Ottawa on the new power-sharing arrangement, and constitutional negotiations began.
  • Québec felt that under the proposed agreement it would not enjoy the same autonomy, and the negotiations failed. For the Parti Québécois, sovereignty was the only way for Québec to defend its interests.

Explanation

The rise of the sovereignist movement in Québec

Starting in the 1960s, Québec saw the rise of the sovereignist movement.

  • Québec nationalism took a new direction and distinguished itself from traditional nationalism, which emphasized the place of religion.
  • Several European colonies gained independence. This decolonization movement was inspiring for many Québécois sovereignists.
  • René Lévesque left the Liberal Party in 1967 to found the Mouvement souveraineté-association (MSA). In 1968, the MSA, the RN and the great majority of members of the RIN merged to form the Parti Québécois (PQ).
  • The failure of constitutional negotiations with the federal government, which had aimed to patriate the Constitution, served to justify the Parti Québécois’ claim, in its 1975 platform, that sovereignty was the only way for Québec to defend its interests.
  • The Parti Québécois was elected in 1976. For the first time in the history of Québec, a government whose goal was Québec sovereignty took power.

Explanation

Newfoundland joins the Canadian federation, 1949

  • On April 1, 1949, Newfoundland officially became the tenth Canadian province.
  • Newfoundland’s entry into the Canadian federation increased the population of Canada by approximately 350 000 people.

Explanation

The development of urban agglomerations

  • Starting in the 1960s, more and more Quebecers settled in the suburbs. This living environment became more accessible, in part due to the development of highways. New factories established in the suburbs prompted people to move there.
  • Urban agglomerations, localities comprising a large city and its suburbs, developed, creating a phenomenon of urban sprawl. This expansion of the urban territory caused heavier traffic and threatened the surrounding farmland.

Explanation

Changes to the territory

  • To stimulate the province’s economic growth, the Bourassa government proposed the largest hydroelectric development project in history, which focused on developing the hydroelectric potential of Baie-James.
  • La Grande Rivière was the main waterway redeveloped. The construction of dams had a major impact on the environment, flooding thousands of square kilometres in the territory.
  • The Indigenous people established in these territories felt that the projects threatened the maintenance of their traditional way of life. They launched legal proceedings to defend their rights.

Explanation

Duplessis’ economic liberalism

  • Duplessis’ ideas were based on economic liberalism, which is to say he defended freedom of action for private enterprises and limited state intervention in the economy.
  • To ensure the economic development of the province, he focused on foreign investment. He adopted measures to attract American investors, who were interested in the raw materials available in Québec.
  • Mining resources, in particular, attracted American businesses. From 1945 to 1960, the Côte-Nord and Nouveau-Québec regions developed through the exploitation of a variety of deposits.

Explanation

Lesage’s economic nationalism

  • The Lesage government promoted a form of economic nationalism whereby the state became the driving force of economic development.
  • It created a number of Crown corporations, which are organizations created by the state to manage, sell or exploit certain resources, or provide services.
  • A number of Crown corporations created by the Lesage government enabled it to manage the exploitation of natural resources and keep the profits from these activities within the province.
  • In particular, in 1962, it took over management of the electricity sector after creating the Hydro-Québec Crown corporation.

Explanation

Public investment

  • The Lesage government invested a significant amount of money to build the infrastructure required to modernize the province.
  • This included the construction of schools, hospitals, buildings to house the civil service, roads, bridges, dams, etc.

Housing construction

  • Population growth created a greater demand for housing. Moreover, a growing number of Quebecers could afford to buy a house.
  • The housing construction industry experienced unprecedented growth. Many workers were hired to meet the demand.

Explanation

Explanation

Demographic change

Explanation

Immigration in Québec

Explanation

The impact of the Quiet Revolution

The measures taken by the government during the Quiet Revolution to modernize the province had many effects.

  • The population became more educated.
  • The unionization rate among state employees skyrocketed.
  • Francophones became more involved in the business world.
  • Quebecers became more open to the world. They travelled abroad more often, and Montréal hosted the 1967 World’s Fair, known as Expo 67.
  • Québec nationalism took a new direction: it was referred to as “neo-nationalism.”
  • The Parti Québécois was created.
  • Québec experienced a cultural vitality, in which Québécois identity occupied an increasingly important place.

Explanation

Socio-political tensions

In 1970, the Bourassa government had to manage a political crisis triggered by a radical separatist group as well as a standoff with unions.

The October Crisis

  • The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was a nationalist organization that believed that Québec sovereignty could only be achieved through revolutionary, violent and illegal acts.
  • In October 1970, the FLQ kidnapped British diplomat James Richard Cross and Liberal minister Pierre Laporte.
  • The Bourassa government asked for the Canadian army to intervene. Pierre-Elliott Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, which authorized police to arrest, without a warrant, any individual suspected of having ties to the FLQ.
  • On October 17, Pierre Laporte was found dead. In December, Laporte’s abductors were arrested, and Cross’s kidnappers agreed to release him. The organization fell into obscurity in the following years.

The Common Front

  • In the early 1970s, the labour confederations that represented the majority of unionized workers in Québec (the CEQ, the FTQ and the CSN) demanded changes that would reduce or eliminate the gap between working conditions in the public and private sectors.
  • In 1972, they formed a common front to throw more weight behind their negotiations with the government: 210 000 unionized workers from the public and parapublic sectors declared an unlimited strike.
  • The three labour confederation presidents were imprisoned for having encouraged their members to defy a government injunction forcing them back to work.

Explanation

Indian residential schools in Québec

  • While Indian residential schools were starting to come into question elsewhere in Canada, new residential schools opened in Québec in the 1950s and 1960s.
  • In Québec, the Oblate missionaries advised the authorities that Indian residential schools could still serve to educate the children of the province’s nomadic nations.
  • The teaching program of Indian residential schools had two components:
    • Academic training was carried out by poorly trained teachers recruited by the religious community. Religion played a central role.
    • Practical training was intended to lead to a trade. In reality, this “practical training” served, above all, to provide residential schools with the unpaid labour of their students.
  • In 1969, education in the residential schools became secular.

Explanation

Indigenous peoples’ demands and rights

  • In 1960, the federal government granted the right to vote to First Nations people without restriction. They no longer had to renounce their Indian status to exercise this right.
  • In 1969, the federal government tabled a white paper containing a number of proposals that sought to make Indigenous people citizens on the same basis as other Canadians, without any special rights.
  • Indigenous people opposed these proposals. They believed they would harm their ancestral rights and threaten their land claims. They also saw these proposals as an effort to assimilate them.
  • In the early 1970s, Indigenous people demanded a reform of governing structures in order to achieve greater political autonomy.
  • The 1970s were also marked by the establishment of new organizations that allowed Indigenous people to address their claims and defend their rights. Ottawa set up the Office of Native Claims to more effectively manage their claims.

Explanation

Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic

  • In the Canadian Arctic, a sea passage links the North Pacific Ocean with the North Atlantic. Canada said that ships needed Canadian authorization to use it. Given the sparse population in this region, some countries contested Canada’s claim to sovereignty over the passage.
  • To remedy the situation, between 1953 and 1956, the Canadian government relocated close to 100 Inuit there from a territory farther south.
  • For the Inuit, this was a very painful experience, particularly given the extremely harsh climate. The Canadian government issued an official apology to the Inuit nation in 2010.

Explanation

The James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement

  • In 1975, the Québec government and the Indigenous peoples who lived in Baie-James, the Inuit and the Cree, signed the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement.
  • This agreement put an end to the legal proceedings begun by the Indigenous people, who felt that the construction projects related to hydroelectric development of the region threatened certain aspects of their traditional way of life.

The Northeastern Québec Agreement

  • In the 1970s, the hydroelectric development of Baie-James continued.
  • In 1978, the Québec government signed the Northeastern Québec Agreement with the Naskapi.
  • This agreement granted $9 million in financial compensation to the Naskapi and allowed the Québec government to exploit mining, hydroelectric and forest resources in the region.

Explanation

Changing attitudes in the 1960s

  • Children born during the baby boom became adolescents and young adults in the 1960s. Youth formed a very important social group within Québec society.
  • During this period of openness to change, the baby boomers openly challenged their parents’ values, particularly material success and religion.
  • This situation gave rise to counterculture movements, such as the hippie movement, that opposed the dominant culture.
  • Everywhere in the West, youth were participating in social struggles. In the United States, for example, they fought for the civil rights of African Americans or against the American involvement in certain armed conflicts around the world. In France, youth did not hesitate to take to the streets to demonstrate for greater social justice.

Explanation

The characteristics of neo-nationalism

  • Neo-nationalism distinguished itself from traditional nationalism, which emphasized the place of Catholicism in French Canadian identity.
  • The majority of Québec Francophones shared a stronger sense of belonging to the Québec territory.
  • They began to refer to themselves as “Québécois” rather than as “French Canadians.”
  • The government’s promotion of Québec’s culture and economic nationalism strengthened nationalist sentiment among a growing portion of the population.
  • Some Québécois believed that Québec should separate from Canada, obtain its sovereignty and form its own country.

Explanation

Laws to protect the French language