Chapter 2 the Québec Identity and a Brief Explanation of The

Chapter 2 The Québec Identity and a Brief Explanation of the Québec/Canada Tensions Introduction This present chapter is the first of six in which the influence of the “Quebec Factor” on the Canada-U.S. policy will be assessed. Firstly, in order to comprehend the influence of Quebec on the Canada-U.S. bilateral relation, it is necessary to define the concept of the “Quebec factor”, which will be the center of this study. It is as well important to understand that the province of Quebec remains “only a Canadian province”, and that what will be assessed in this research is the fact that Quebec, which is “only one of ten Canadian provinces”, considerably weights in the Canadian balance and sometimes even influences the decisions of the Canadian government toward the U.S. That as being said, let’s define what really is the Quebec factor. For this study, the Quebec factor represents the influence that this very different eastern province has on the rest of the federation. In this particular research, the “Quebec factor”, which represents its weight, power, or influence on Canada, will be divided in two, Quebec’s actual power and its potential power. The actual power of the province will include its economic strengths (imports and exports with the U.S., GDP, agreements signed with the United States etc) and its political influence (public opinion, seats in the parliament, etc), which both will be assessed in the fourth and fifth chapter. In this first chapter, however, a much more abstract facet of Quebec will be explained, Quebec’s potential power. In the next pages, tensions that occurred in the past and still, from time to time, affect the domestic condition of the federation will be exhibited. Those tensions, which were due to inequality issues between the French and English sides of the country, eventually led to the frustration of the inhabitants of the province and two referendums for Sovereignty. The latter greatly influenced the government and the nine other provinces, slowly creating a Canadian fear of dismantlement, thus for the past decade (especially following 1995) the province of Quebec holds a sort of potential power on Canadian decision-makings especially toward the U.S. Why does Quebec influences more the decisions toward the U.S.? Simply because North American issues are obviously still at the top of Canada’s national interest list, they are more numerous than others, therefore most of the disagreements that occurred between Quebec and the other provinces have been related to the United States (Iraq, BMD, NAFTA, CUFTA). The Canadian fear of loosing a considerably important part of its land, economy, population and more, reasonably affect federal plans, thus give slightly more power to Quebec’s public opinion (as we will eventually see in the fifth chapter with the Iraq and BMD issues). This being explained, let’s take a look at some of the some of the issues that brought the most tensions in Canada’s domestic history. 1.1 Understanding Québec’s Characteristic For many years the subject of Québec’s “special” identity was the center of Québec studies, even prior to the lost of the first referendum, several Québecois academics had for prime objective to prove and promote the existence of the “Québec culture” (culture Québecoise), an identity supposedly distinct from the rest of the country. Was the French province a nation? The answer to their initial question “is Quebec different?” was unanimous, even for those who did not want to admit it, but how is the province different from the rest of Canada, North America, and yet the rest of the World? To answer this question more objectively, it is primordial to understand Québec’s background. The first people to set foot on the Canadian soil in the early 1600 were not British, but French, and originated from different French provinces. Therefore, Québec as a people was not created by Canada; it joined it. The Québec nation has a history of around 400 years, while Canada’s federal history accounts only for 130 years, hence it is only common sense to say that during its 400 years of existence Québec has developed its own specific, very distinct identity. Quebec was also used to be distinguished from the English Canada, as it was during the time of the upper and lower Canada. During those four centuries, however, the province welcomed a considerably high number of immigrants, thus nowadays the Québec identity (Québec culture) has absolutely nothing to do with ethnicity or origin, it is a way of life, a common ideology shared by people of different origin all born within the borders of the province. The inhabitants of Québec are an interesting blend of people who take roots from a plethora of different soils. Peoples from Ireland, Germany, France and many other parts of the world have helped shape the Québec’s society. It is in 1759 that the British conquered what was considered the North American French colony. The royal proclamation of 1763 failed to assimilate the French Quebecers, thus a decade later due to the presence of instability in the thirteen colonies, the British Parliament decided to pass the Québec Act, assuring the parliament that Québec would not be part of any revolution. Giving it a series of special rights, it succeeded to convince Québec to be part of Britain. Passed on the 22 nd of June 1774, and effective on the first of May 1775, the Act would allow the province to keep much of its French tradition and custom 1. The parliament granted Québec with more independence allowing its inhabitants to speak and teach French, continue to use the French civil law and still attend to Catholic churches. The Roman Catholic tradition and the French language were Québec’s main differences from the rest of the North American territory. It is also believed that the Québec Act of 1774 might as well have contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolution, since the south considered the act to be intolerable. According to the 1978 white paper on cultural development, a nation cannot be defined in terms of birth and ethnic origin, it is based on the consciousness it has of forming a distinct entity animated by a common will, and the power it holds to shape its destiny” 2. Not only does the white paper recognizes the province as a people, but it as well gives the province the right to take charge of its own “national culture”, in order to allow the latter to assure its national existence and survival. As George-Emile Lapalme beautifully points out, “One can live without formal education; but one does not exist, he leaves no trace, if he is without a culture ”. And as an anonymous author from the Société Saint-Jean-Baptist du Québec wrote, the fact that Québec is nowadays a distinct and original society with a unique national language, a distinct judicial system, with numerous particular institutions, is well known (1988). Finally, in 2006 the Canadian Parliament formally recognized the province of Quebec and its 1The Québec Act http://www.plpsd.mb.ca/amhs/history/Québec.html 2 Richard Handler, Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Québec, The University of Wisconsin Press , 1988, p.121. inhabitant as a nation, however a nation living within a great unified Canada. As Beth-Duff Brown specified in an article written in the Washington post, it was a symbolic move by the new Canadian Prime Minister Harper who decided to present the motion, which easily passed at the House of Commons since it did not require any change of law. Prime Minister Harper, which also weights the burden of the “two Canadas” on his shoulder as well said his government believes that it is time for a national reconciliation 3. Québec is different from the rest of Canadian provinces in many ways, its multiculturalism has brought different culinary, musical, and sportive habits, yet its major difference and biggest characteristic still remains the simple fact that the Québecois people are native French speaking people, and even if Canada often tries to perceive the rest of the world that it is a bilingual country, the truth is that the proportion of people fluent in both the English and French language within the Canadian border still remains an extreme minority 4. The French language spoken in the province was proclaimed by the 1978 white paper to be the central element of the Québec’s national identity, a cultural aspect that all inhabitants in the province could rally to. Sometimes sounding more like the 16 th Century French (Joual *), the language in Québec remains the cornerstone of its cultural identity. A significant percentage of the population cannot speak the English language, moreover, an interesting amount of those who can prefer to boycott it and speak it only in case of emergency. The overwhelming and increasing presence of English in the province with the augmentation of English owned stores and English services began to threaten the French Quebecois. This increased of importance of the English language, which at a certain point had become “the” business language in the “French” province, strongly contributed to reinforce the already existing fear of cultural extinction 3 Beth Duff-Brown, Canadian Parliament recognizes Quebec, Washington Post ,Tuesday November 29 th 2006. www.washingtonpost.com 4The Missisquoi Institute: How do francophones regard Quebec anglophones and their issues of concern? http://www.chssn.org/en/missisquoi.html *“Joual ” has no proper definition even today, however it is mostly used to describe the accent and “Québecismes ” that characterized the French language spoken in the province of Québec.

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