Impact of Question Wording, Constitutional Proposal and Context on Support for Sovereignty, 1976–2008 François Yalea and Claire Durandb

American Review of Canadian Studies Vol. 41, No. 3, September 2011, 242–258

What did Quebeckers Want? Impact of Question Wording, Constitutional Proposal and Context on Support for Sovereignty, 1976–2008 François Yalea and Claire Durandb

aAgence de Santé et des Services Sociaux du Montréal Métropolitain; bUniversité de Montréal

The idea of sovereignty has been part of Québec’s political landscape for more than 45 years, giving rise to two referendums. Throughout this period, pollsters surveyed the population. Using close to 700 polls published since the first election of Parti Québécois in 1976, this article examines how support for sovereignty evolved outside the referendum campaigns and since the last one in the Fall of 1995. Using longitudinal multilevel analysis, it takes into account two levels of explanation: first, the wording of the question, which includes the type of constitutional proposal polled; and second, the passage of time and the events that marked it. This meta-analysis confirms that sovereignty combined with an association with the rest of Canada has always stood apart from more “extreme” constitutional options as having the highest support, and it therefore automatically resurfaced at the start of any referendum campaign. It also confirms that the different events that marked the period only had a temporary effect on support for sovereignty. Keywords: sovereignty; polls; question wording; longitudinal multilevel analysis; Québec

The idea of sovereignty has been part of Québec’s political landscape for over 45 years, giving rise to two referendums over a period of less than two decades—one on May 20, 1980, and another on October 30, 1995. Throughout this period, the issues surrounding sovereignty remained at the forefront of the public arena. In such a landscape where the future of a country was to be decided upon, the presence of opinion pollsters was tangible. Although the pollsters’ mandate was to take the pulse of the population on the sovereignty issue, polls also played a significant role in informing the public of the parties’ strategies. This was no easy task. Over the years and the ensuing discussions, debates, and political strategies, many different expressions were used to name the nationalist project. The most commonly used were “separation,” “independence,” “sovereignty,” “sovereignty- association,” and “sovereignty-partnership.” To varying degrees, all the proposals for what we shall refer to as “sovereignty” now form the symbolic background of the Québec sovereigntist movement. Thus, the challenge of pollsters was to take this reality into account when deciding on their survey questions. However, pollsters also act on their clients’ requests and ask questions on constitutional proposals that are not in the public debate, pertaining, for example, to separation or independence. This article examines how support for sovereignty has changed since the issue first appeared on Québec’s political landscape, based on published, private, and academic polls, taking into account two levels of explanation: first, the wording of the question, including both the wording itself and the

ISSN 0272-2011 print/ISSN 1943-9954 online ©2011ACSUS DOI: 10.1080/02722011.2011.594517 http://www.informaworld.com American Review of Canadian Studies 243 constitutional proposal to which it refers, and second, the passage of time and the events that marked it.

Historical context The idea of Québec sovereignty really began to take root with the Rassemblement pour l’Indépendance Nationale (RIN) in the second half of the 1960s. The term used at the time was “independence.” The Parti Québécois (PQ), which emerged from the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association (MSA) founded by René Lévesque in 1968, added an associative dimension with the rest of Canada that led to the “sovereignty-association” project. When the PQ came to power in November 1976, it had promised that a referendum on sovereignty-association would be held at some point during its five-year mandate. However, aware that its project could hardly gain the support of the majority of the population according to the polls published at that time, it made a “mandate to negotiate” the object of the 1980 referendum. Following the decisive victory by the “no” side in that referendum (59.6 percent of the vote with a participation rate of 85.6 percent), the PQ decided to move on to other issues—what was termed le beau risque or “good risk.” This period ended with the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution by the Federal Government led by Pierre-Elliott Trudeau in 1982, without Québec’s approval. Most of the Québec political elites considered this move as a betrayal. However, the Québec Liberal Party (QLP), led by Robert Bourassa, was elected in December 1985 and, between 1985 and 1988—in view of the dead-end in which federal-provincial politics lay at that time—came a period during which the issue of sovereignty ceased to appear in published opinion polls. In 1988, Jacques Parizeau, the former minister of finance of the Lévesque government and considered to be a PQ hardliner on sovereignty, breathed new life into the movement. His more radical position excluded the associative dimension from the sovereignty project. This triggered a new round of constitutional negotiations initiated by the new Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who had promised during the electoral campaign in 1984 to reintegrate Québec in the Constitution “in honor and enthusiasm.” Mulroney managed to settle a deal with the 10 Canadian provinces that would satisfy the five main demands of Québec, such as the recognition that Québec formed a “distinct society” within Canada. This deal, called the “Meech Lake Accord,” had to be voted in by all 10 provinces within three years in order to be enforced, in accordance with the Constitution Act, 1982 amending formula known as the “unanimity procedure.” However, during these three years, some provincial governments changed and so did minds. Opposition against the agreement built, including among the First Nations. By June 1990, as the deadline for the acceptance of the agreement was finally up, three provinces were missing, either because they had not taken avoteorbecausetheyhadvotedagainsttheagreement.Thiswasgenerallyperceivedin Québec as a lack of flexibility and tolerance on the part of the rest of Canada. The failure of the Meech Lake Accord, however, was followed by another round of constitutional negotiations, which ended with the “Charlottetown Accord” signed in August 1992. This agreement, supported by all Premiers and main political parties, was to be accepted, provided that the majority of Canadians and the majority of residents in each province vote in its favor in a referendum. Three provinces—British Columbia, Alberta and Québec—had already passed legislation requiring that constitutional amendments be submitted to a public referendum. This gave the impetus to hold a referendum throughout Canada though it was not mandatory. The referendum held on October 26, 1992, ended with a 54.3 percent “no” throughout Canada and a 56.7 percent “no” in Québec. 244 F. Ya l e a n d C . D u r a n d

Following these two failures, the Parti Québécois, with Jacques Parizeau as leader, was elected on September 12, 1994, and promised to hold a referendum pertaining to sovereignty itself “as soon as possible in the following mandate” (Parti Québécois 1994, 16) without any mention of an association with the rest of Canada. This approach was abandoned once again, just before the 1995 referendum campaign due to a lack of popular support, at least according to a reading of the opinion polls of the time. Instead, the October 1995 referendum campaign dealt with “sovereignty-partnership,” resulting from an agreement between three parties: the PQ and Action Démocratique du Québec at the provincial level, and the Bloc Québécois, a sovereignist party acting at the federal level that had emerged in the run-up to the failure of the Meech Lake Accord. The referendum, held on October 30, 1995, ended with a very close result (50.6 percent “no” with a participation rate of 93.5 percent). The option proposed then appears to have remained that of the PQ until 2006. Since 2006, however, the PQ’s constitutional position has been the object of many debates, both within and outside the party. The period since the last referendum has seen numerous changes in governments, both at the federal and Québec levels. However, “the” event char- acteristic of that period is the “sponsorship scandal” which came to the public eye when it was revealed that the Canadian Government, headed by the Canadian Liberal Party (CLP) leader Jean Chrétien, had spent money sponsoring events in Québec in order to increase its visibility. A report of the Auditor General of Canada tabled in February 2004 showed that the sponsorship program had been ill-administered, and that much of the money might not have been properly allocated. Finally, a Commission headed by Judge John Gomery revealed that a number of people had beneﬁtted from the program’ssubsidies without doing anything for it, and that part of the money had ended up with the Canadian Liberal Party.

Multiple approaches, diverse results Sociologists and political scientists have studied popular support for the PQ’s sovereignty proposals throughout the history of this issue. What is the proportion of Québeckers that supports Québec sovereignty? What proportion of the electorate will vote for or against sovereignty in a referendum? What are the determinants (sociological, political, economic, psychological, etc.) of opinion, voter intention and, ultimately, the final referendum vote? These are all questions that researchers have, in their own ways, sought to answer. The two most significant theoretical approaches to the issue that can be identified are, the “Montréal school” (also called the “rational choice approach” (Blais, Nadeau, and Martin 1995; Blais, Martin, and Nadeau 1998; Martin and Nadeau 2000; Nadeau and Fleury 1995; and Nadeau, Martin, and Blais 1999) and the “psycho-sociological school,” revolving around the work of Pinard and Hamilton (1986), and Pinard et al. (1997). The proponents of the rational choice approach see voter behavior as determined by an evaluation of the costs and benefits anticipated in a potentially independent Québec as compared to the status quo. It is a prospective approach where respondents are invited to picture themselves in the future. For the Montréal School, for example, the possibility of economic problems in Québec following a victory of the “yes” side appears to be a dissuasive factor in the support for sovereignty. Members of the “psycho-sociological school,” on the other hand, see support for sovereignty as driven by grievances originating from a real or supposed inferiority of French-Quebeckers compared to the Anglo-Canadian majority, or even the Anglo-North American majority. According to the proponents of this theory, support for sovereignty will be higher as the feeling of inferiority, or the impression that the French language is American Review of Canadian Studies 245 threatened, increases (Mendelsohn 2003). This perspective views the context as a relevant and substantial factor in the evolution of support for sovereignty. It states that the movement’s assumed likelihood of success, combined with feelings of resentment toward Canadian federalism, are leading factors motivating Québec nationalism. Other studies focused instead on respondents’ demographic characteristics, notably in showing higher support for sovereignty among young (LeDuc 1977; Hamilton and Pinard 1982; Kornberg and Archer 1982; Gagné and Langlois 2002) and educated people (LeDuc 1977; Hamilton and Pinard 1982). However, recent studies have qualified these results (Durand 2008). It nevertheless remains that most studies approached the explanation of support for sovereignty at the individual level, based on the characteristics of respondents and their situations, their opinions, or their expectations of the future. In this study, we felt that a different approach was required—one that focused on an analysis of determinants external to respondents. How did the question asked affect support? What does this tell us about the evolution of support and the decisions made regarding the proposals that were submitted to the referendums? How did the passing of time and the events that marked this period influence support? Others have previously examined the effects of question wording on change in support (Cloutier, Guay, and Latouche 1992; Pinard et al. 1997). Among other things, these studies show that questions mentioning the terms “separation” or “independence” generally led to weaker support than questions using the term “sovereignty.” Moreover, while they elicit stronger support in surveys, questions that combine sovereignty with an economic agreement with the rest of Canada—“sovereignty-association” or “sovereignty- partnership”—are also those that usually generate the highest rates of non-disclosers (Pinard et al. 1997). However, the methodological framework of these studies is generally weak (comparison of means, cross-tabulations, conclusions based on a small number of polls, little or no reference to the margin of error). Finally, most previous studies have focused on support for Québec sovereignty during referendum campaigns (see, among others, Drouilly 1997; Fox, Andersen, and Dubonnet 1999; Nadeau et al. 1999; Pinard and Hamilton 1984). For both referendums, studies examine only polls taken during the campaigns and sometimes a few weeks prior to the vote (Clarke and Kornberg 1996; LeDuc and Pammet 1995; Pinard and Hamilton 1984). Yet referendums are unusual contexts. Since the referendum question is known during the campaigns, pollsters tend to measure support for the question asked in the referendum, making it impossible to measure the effects of question wording during these periods. For all these reasons, this article seeks to paint a broad portrait of the changes in support for Québec sovereignty outside of referendum campaigns. It focuses on the effects of how poll questions are formulated and on the socio-political context in which the polls are carried out. We do not try to explain support at any given moment in history, but rather trace and explain how it changes over time. This article addresses three questions:

(a) How does question wording affect measured support for sovereignty? (b) How does the context (time and events) inﬂuence measured support? (c) Does the effect of question wording vary over time and according to context?

The data The database contains a total of 970 measures of support for Québec sovereignty, collected between 1962 and 2008.1 Some observations are incomplete and were consequently excluded from the database.2 This leaves us with 857 usable observations. 246 F. Ya l e a n d C . D u r a n d

The entire period was broken down into shorter periods for analysis. The socio-political contexts are not totally comparable between periods and, consequently, question wordings, as well as related constitutional proposals that were polled, differ. We therefore divided the database into seven periods, based on the following considerations:

• The first period includes all data that preceded the first election of the Parti Québecois on November 15, 1976, with 41.4 percent of the vote. This was also a time when opinion polls started to be used somewhat more systematically in Québec. The period includes 12 valid polls, the first of which was conducted by Maurice Pinard with the Social Research Group in 1962. • The second period covers late November 1976, just after the election of the Parti Québécois, to December 1979, when the official May 1980 referendum question was presented in the National Assembly. This relatively short period includes 68 valid polls, half of which were conducted in 1979. It leaves little room for longitudinal analysis. During most of this period—except for a Conservative minority government headed by Joe Clark from June to December 1979—Pierre Elliott Trudeau, chief of the Canadian Liberal Party, was Prime Minister of Canada. • The third period covers the 1980 referendum campaign, from when the referendum question was revealed to May 20, 1980. It includes 43 valid polls. • The fourth period is the first post-referendum period, covering June 1980 to June 1989. This period has only 33 polls, including only one poll in November 1985 and none at all from 1986 to January 1988, a period when the sovereignty issue had all but disappeared from public discourse. Meanwhile, the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party (CPC) had been elected with Brian Mulroney as leader on September 4, 1984, and the Québec Liberal Party (QLP) had returned to power in Québec with Robert Bourassa as leader on Dec 2, 1985, with 56 percent of the vote. • The fifth period extends from July 1989 (before the second election of the Québec Liberal Party on September 25 with 50 percent of the vote), to the eve of the 1995 referendum campaign in June. It includes multiple constitutional negotiations—the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords and failures—and the September 12, 1994, election, when the Parti Québécois took power with Jacques Parizeau as leader with 44.7 percent of the vote (barely more than the Québec Liberal Party at 44.4 percent). At the federal level, the Canadian Liberal Party returned to power on October 25, 1993, with Jean Chrétien as leader. This period includes 301 polls. • The sixth period covers the 1995 referendum campaign. We positioned it between the three-way agreement on sovereignty-partnership on June 12, 1995, and the referendum itself held on October 30. It includes 74 valid polls. • The seventh and last period (the post-1995-referendum period) includes all polls taken between November 1995 (right after the referendum) and January 2008. It includes 326 polls. This period is characterized by the sponsorship scandal. It includes the 1998 Québec election where the Parti Québecois was re-elected with Lucien Bouchard as the leader but with fewer votes than the Québec Liberal Party and the April 14, 2003 Québec election where the Québec Liberal Party returned to power with Jean Charest as leader. At the federal level, Jean Chrétien was re-elected in 1997 and 2000 and replaced by Paul Martin as the leader of the CLP in November 2003. The following governments were minority governments, either Liberal (Paul Martin, 2004–2006) or Conservative (Stephen Harper, 2006–2008).

As stated, we excluded the two referendum campaigns from our analyses, ﬁrst because they constitute special contexts that are difﬁcult to compare to other so-called “normal” American Review of Canadian Studies 247 periods, and secondly because they have been studied extensively. The pre-1976 period and the 1980–1989 period were also excluded because they provide too few observations. The analysis therefore covers the pre-1980-referendum period, the pre-1995-referendum period, and the post-1995-referendum period, periods 2, 5 and 7 above, with a total of 695 observations. In this way we can examine how support for sovereignty changed during the run-ups to the referendums, along with the state of public opinion just before the campaigns kicked-off, as well as how it has changed since the last referendum.

The measures In order to analyze the evolution of support for Québec sovereignty, one initial question to resolve is how to deal with the non-disclosers, sometimes called the “undecided.”3 Depending on the period and the polling firm, the way non-disclosers are dealt with is either proportional allocation, non-proportional allocation with a larger portion attributed to the “no” side, or inferred by the polling firm based on answers to other questions. In order to standardize and compare like with like, we used a proportional allocation of non- disclosers, which amounts to the same thing as analyzing the proportion of “yes” votes over the sum of “yes” and “no” votes. Factors that may explain the evolution of support for sovereignty are related to either question wording or time and events. With respect to question wording, the first measure (voterint) indicates whether the question asked deals with voter intention or whether it is a general attitude question. Voter intention questions ask respondents if they will vote “yes” or “no” (or “for” or “against”) in any future referendum. A reference to voter behavior here is essential. Questions of attitude measure opinions, and choices of response generally use aLikertscale(e.g.,Are you very much in favor, somewhat in favor, etc.). The second measure has to do with the type of constitutional proposal to which the question refers. The categorization takes its inspiration from that used in Pinard et al. (1997). The first category, called “separation,” is the most extreme of the proposals. It includes the word “separation,” the expressions “complete political and economic independence” or “without constitutional ties to Canada,” or refers to a Québec that “is not a province of Canada.” The second category is labeled “independence.” It includes questions with the single word “independence” or the expression “independent country.” The differ- entiating factor between these first two categories is mostly related to the clear absence of a relationship with the rest of Canada for “separation.” This distinction was suggested early on by Pinard and Hamilton (1977), when the terms “independence” and “separation” were often used interchangeably. The term “separation” has a negative connotation and has been widely used by federalist politicians in order to attack the “project.” On the other hand, the term “independence” has a more positive tone and was mainly used in the beginnings of the sovereigntist movement and remained used mostly by more radical elements on the sovereigntist side. The third category, “sovereignty,” refers to the expressions “sovereignty,” or “sovereign state or country.” A fourth category, “sovereignty-partnership” refers to the expressions “sovereignty-association,” “sovereignty-partnership” and other expressions that suggest an association between Québec and the rest of Canada. In addition, after numerous debates about the “best question” in the run-up to the 1980 referendum period, a number of polls measured support for a “mandate to negotiate sovereignty- association”; however, this category exists only for that period. Finally, as we shall see below, for the pre-1980-referendum period, the proposals of “separation” and “independence” were eventually merged under the label “extreme,” given the similarity of the results for these categories and the statistical power required. 248 F. Ya l e a n d C . D u r a n d

Time related variables are of two types. They are either related to the passing of time itself (time variables)ortoeventsthatoccurredduringtheperiod(events variables). The base unit of time variables is the month. Hence, the variable month has a value of 1 for the first month of each period, and its value increases by 1 for each passing month. It allows estimation as to whether there is a linear increase or decrease in support for sovereignty with time. Non-linear change over time, i.e. evolutions that have a U or inverse-U form or a wave form with one trough and one crest, is also possible and was modeled using quadratic and cubic time effects (see Singer and Willett 2003).4 Achangeindirectionofsupportforsovereigntyovertimeis,however,notthe only possibility. After a significant event, support may undergo sudden jumps or drops. Subsequently, support may either maintain the same slope, or its rate of change may vary, indicating a change in trajectory. One can estimate the existence of a jump or drop in support by inserting a variable that takes the value of 0 before an event and a value of 1 after it. It is also possible to combine this instantaneous effect with linear, quadratic and cubic effects of time in the same way as it is done for the general analysis of the evolution. What events are likely to have influenced change in support for sovereignty? Broadly speaking they fall into two categories: elections, especially those in which there is a change in power; and events related to constitutional discussions, that is, the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, along with the sponsorship scandal and the Gomery Commission. During the period between November 1976 and December 1979, no such event was identified. For the period from June 1989 to June 1995, the events identified were the following:

• The failure of the Meech Lake Accord that occurred in June 1990. The question of a “Meech effect” has been studied by, among others, Cloutier et al. (1992) and Pinard et al. (1997). This event may have triggered grievances among French Québeckers. • The rejection of the Charlottetown Accord in the October 1992 referendum. • The election of the Parti Québécois on September 12, 1994. The hypothesis is that the election results, comforting to Quebeckers since a party dedicated to the defense of the French language and French Quebeckers’ interests was in power, could have led to a decrease in support for sovereignty due to a decrease in grievances along with an increase in the feeling of security.

For the period between November 1995 and January 2008, the events identiﬁed are the following:

• The sponsorship scandal, “ofﬁcially” starting in February 2004 when the Auditor General of Canada published her report. • The election of the Québec Liberal Party on April 14, 2003. Much like the election of the Parti Québécois, albeit in the opposite direction, the election of the QLP has been hypothesized as increasing support for sovereignty, due to an increase in grievances and a decrease in the feeling of security. • The publication of the Gomery Commission’s report on November 1, 2005. The report conﬁrmed the existence of a scandal in the way public funds had been spent. It attributed at least part of the responsibility to the Canadian Liberal Party and then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Finally, two methodological characteristics of the polls could have influenced the distribution of answers related to support for sovereignty. The first is sample size, since it could American Review of Canadian Studies 249 theoretically affect how the results vary. The second is the proportion of non-disclosers. The mode of administration (i.e., in-person or telephone interview), could also have had an impact. However, there was too little variation in practice within periods—only face- to-face for the first polls, and almost entirely by telephone starting in the 1980s—for this possible effect to be tested.

Analysis Hierarchical model Two sources of explanation are considered in this paper: survey characteristics and time- related characteristics. Poll results are not completely independent from the context in which they are administered and effects related to measurement can vary over time. The objective was therefore to use a procedure that could estimate effects related to measure and time separately, as well as any possible change in effect related to measure and time together. The hierarchical model, also called the multilevel model„ takes into account the fact that polls (level 1) are nested within units of time (level 2).5 Effects related to polls are analyzed at the poll level while effects related to time are analyzed at the time level.

Procedure Three series of analyses—one for each period—were carried out, each with three steps, related to the three hypotheses. The first step estimated the effects of question wording. The second focused on the longitudinal dimension, i.e., effects related to time and events. The last step integrated both dimensions in a final, parsimonious model. In the first step, a model without any independent variable (Model Ø) was estimated. This model identified the variance attributable to each level. Next, the control variables and then the variables related to question wording (constitutional proposals and type of question) were entered. “Sovereignty-association,” considered the least extreme proposal, was used as the reference proposal, such that all other proposals were compared to it. Similarly, whether the question concerns voter intention was compared to whether it was a question of opinion. The second step focused on change over time. In order to examine the overall evolution in popular support, a level-2 model that ignored question wording was estimated. Variables related to evolution with time along with those representing the possible impact of each event were first tested individually. The parsimonious model retained the significant effects, which led to an integrated average model for change over time. Finally, in the last step, we estimated the evolution of support for the different question wordings and types. Each of the variables related to the constitutional proposals—except sovereignty-association, the reference category—were integrated into the model described above in order to see whether the evolution of support for these proposals differed on average from the evolution of support for the reference proposal.

Results Pre-1980 referendum period The first model (Model Ø) which contains no predictors estimates the average support for sovereignty during the period and the distribution of variance between the two levels of analysis. This model’s estimates show that nearly all the variance (97 percent) occurs at 250 F. Ya l e a n d C . D u r a n d level 1, the level pertaining to measure. Variation thus occurs within months and can only be explained by survey and question characteristics and not by differences between months. This suggests a stability of public opinion over time during this period. Thus, the next steps aim at explaining level 1 variance. The groups of variables were entered step by step, i.e., first, the two control variables (sample size and proportion of non-disclosers), then the variable measuring the fact that avoterintentionquestionwasasked(voterint)andfinally,thevariablesrelatedtothe constitutional proposals. The control variables both appeared not significant and were therefore not included in subsequent models. The final parsimonious model is presented in Table 1. In addition to voterint,itcontainsthevariablesmandate (for mandate to negotiate) and extreme.6 Sovereignty was not part of the political discourse during that period and was not included in the questions asked by pollsters. The voterint variable is not significant. The coefficients for the two proposals are significant, strong and in the direction predicted by theory (mandate:14.01,P<0.001; extreme: -20.27, P<0.001). With respect to support for a proposal on sovereignty-association,questions dealing with the mandate to negotiate collected about 14 percentage points more support, while those dealing with separation or independence collected on average 20 points less support. Compared with Model Ø, this model explained 89 percent of the level-1 variance in the support for sovereignty. On the other hand, the level-2 variance component, which was almost nil in Model Ø, increased and became significant (10.10, P<0.001), which can be explained by a relationship between the type of proposal and time, indicating that testing time-related factors is relevant. However, only 21 time units (months) during this period had at least one measure of opinion. In theory, it is recommended to have at least 40 level-2 units to carry out multi-level analysis. Thus, the results should be interpreted with great caution.

Table 1. Average impact of question wording on support for sovereignty. 1976–1979 1989–1995 1995–2008

Fixed effects Intercept 39.84∗∗∗(1.51) 60.71∗∗∗(1.05) 48.98∗∗∗(1.57) Voterint n.s. 3.18∗∗∗(0.76) 4.04∗∗(1.35) − − Sovereignty — 7.63∗∗∗(1.09) 6.75∗∗∗(0.87) − − Independence — 13.46(0.90) 8.95∗∗∗(1.31) − − Separation — 16.84∗∗∗(1.08) 11.38∗∗∗(1.52) − − Mandate 14.01∗∗∗(0.85) — — Extreme 20.27∗∗∗(1.67) — — Size− n.s. n.s. n.s. Non-disclosers n.s. n.s.0.21∗(0.0941) Variance component Level-1 R 20.04 24.99 19.93 (%) 66 49 61 Level-2 Intercept 10.10∗∗∗ 25.68∗∗∗ 12.53∗∗∗ (%) 34 51 39 Deviation 371.89 1762.09 1700.45 Parameters 5 7 8 DL 21 58 121

Note: ∗P < 0.05; ∗∗P < 0.01; ∗∗∗P < 0.001; n.s. not signiﬁcant. The variable was tested in one previous model and removed from the model. American Review of Canadian Studies 251

The analysis showed no significant effect of time variables. The results suggest that either there was no significant movement in opinion between November 1976 and December 1979, or that the data are not sufficient to identify such movement. We conclude that, on the eve of the 1980 referendum campaign, surveys placed support for sovereignty-association at 39.8 percent after proportionally distributing undecided voters. This support rose to 53.8 percent (39.8 14.0) when the question dealt with a mandate to negotiate such sovereignty and dropped+ to 19.5 percent (39.8–20.3) when the question dealt with separation or independence. It should be pointed out that with experience, both pollsters and researchers subsequently concluded that a proportional distribution of undecided voters overestimated support for sovereignty and that instead, two-thirds or even three-quarters of them should be attributed to the “no” side. During the few months before the 1980 referendum, polls continued to show strong support for the official question pertaining to a mandate to negotiate sovereignty- association (48 percent on average). However, on May 20, 1980 a solid majority of Québeckers, 59.6 percent, voted against that proposal. Pinard and Hamilton (1984) suggested that the discrepancy between measured voting intention and the final vote may have been due to the fact that voters cast their vote according to what they saw as the real issue, i.e., Québec sovereignty, rather than the specific question asked. The following years were quiet with regard to the Québec sovereignty issue. There were also too few polls to conduct any analysis. It is only at the end of the 1980s, with the upcoming failure of the Meech Lake Accord, that focus was brought back to the issue.

The pre-1995 referendum period During the pre-1995 referendum period, from 1989 to 1995, Model Ø suggests that 62 percent of the total variance in support for sovereignty could be explained by factors related to question wording, with the remaining 38 percent related to the level of time. The final model, presented in Table 1, shows that control variables were not significant. Questions pertaining to voter intention collected an average of 3.2 fewer percentage points than questions pertaining to attitude. Compared to questions pertaining to sovereignty-partnership, those on separation collected 16.8 points less support, those on independence, 13.4 points less, and those on sovereignty, 7.6 points less. The average effects of the separation and independence proposals were not significantly different from each other. Compared with Model Ø, this model explained 57 percent of the measurement related variance and 29 percent of the time-related variance. Finally, 51 percent of the total variance was now explainable by time-related factors. This brings us to the second step of the analysis. There were 58 valid time units for this period. Tested individually, each event considered for this period had a significant effect on how public opinion changed. However, since some events are concurrent or correlate with the evolution with time, when the variables were entered jointly in a single model, only three effects remained significant: one linear effect of time, the failure of the Meech Lake Accord and the Referendum on the Charlottetown Accord. The election of the PQ in September 1994 did not appear significant. The final step integrated the measurement-related variables to the model of change over time, i.e., the longitudinal model above was estimated for each constitutional proposal. These models show that all three time-related variables had a significant impact on the evolution of support for sovereignty, but that these effects differ from one constitutional proposal to another. Taking into account the coefficients specific to the reference model, we obtained a longitudinal model for each of the proposals. The resulting models, taking 252 F. Ya l e a n d C . D u r a n d into account the average effect of asking a question on voter intention (-1.74; P 0.01), are presented in Table 2 and reproduced graphically in Figure 1. = The beginning of this period was marked by an increase in support for all proposals— though this increase was rather weak for separation—until the final defeat of the Meech Lake Accord in June 1990. The impact of this failure was not measured until September due a lack of polls over the summer, hence the delay effect observed. There was likely a stabilization of support after Meech Lake, followed by a drop in support for the different proposals. The rejection of the Charlottetown Accord by the population slowed down this decrease in support for the sovereignty-partnership proposal. For the three other proposals, the change in slope was not significant. Eventually, support for these latter proposals con- verged towards the same level of support, below sovereignty-partnership. The final model explains 65 percent of the variance at the measurement level and 88 percent of the variation over time. We may therefore conclude that during the pre-1995-referendum period, support for Québec sovereignty, regardless of question wording, was in a gradual decline starting from

Table 2. Final models: evolution of average support for sovereignty for 1989–1995 and 1995–2008. Sovereignty-partnership Sovereignty Independence Separation

1989–1995 intercept 45.07∗∗∗ 45.07 29.55∗∗∗ 37.74 month 1.79∗∗∗ 1.79 2.18∗ 0.73∗∗∗ meech1 2.30∗∗∗ 2.51∗∗∗ 2.79∗∗ 1.10∗∗∗ − − − − charlot1 0.48∗∗∗ 0.48 0.48 0.48 1995–2008 intercept 55.30∗∗∗ 50.92∗∗∗ 47.10∗∗∗ 55.30 month 0.31∗∗∗ 0.31 0.31 0.87∗∗∗ − − − − month2 0.002∗∗∗ 0.002 0.002 0.007∗∗∗ sponsorship 4.76∗∗ 4.76 4.76 9.46∗∗∗ − gomery1 0.55∗∗∗ 0.55 0.55 0.55 − − − −

∗P < 0.05; ∗∗P < 0.01; ∗∗∗P < 0.001. 90 90 sov-partership sovereignty 80 80 independence 70 70 separation 60 60 % support 50 50 40 40 30 30

Jul 89 Sept 91 Jan 94 Jan 96

June 90 : Meech Sept 94 : PQ elected Oct 92 : Charlottetownmonth/year

Figure 1. Evolution of support for sovereignty—1989–1995. American Review of Canadian Studies 253 the ofﬁcial failure of the Meech Lake Accord. Moreover, as the referendum approached, support for the sovereignty-partnership proposal increasingly stood out from support for the other proposals. By the end of the period, on the eve of the 1995 referendum campaign, intention to vote for sovereignty accompanied by a partnership with the rest of Canada had support of nearly 52 percent7 of the population after proportional distribution of undecided voters, 4 percentage points more than at the start of the period. The other, more “extreme,” proposals—separation, independence and sovereignty without mention of an association— had only slightly more than 40 percent support, about the same as at the start of the period. The 1995 referendum campaign began in June with the three-way agreement between Parti Québécois, Action Démocratique du Québec and Bloc Québécois and the unveiling of the ofﬁcial referendum question. From this moment on, there was quite a lot of movement in support for sovereignty-partnership. First, from the second half of June to early October, polls showed a slight decline in support for the “yes” side (from 51 percent in late June to 48 percent in early October). However, with the arrival of the charismatic sovereignist leader Lucien Bouchard at the forefront of the movement, the “yes” side gained more support in public opinion polls (Durand 2008). On the eve of the referendum, support for both sides was more or less even. Some of the published polls predicted a win for the “yes” side (Createc and SOM polls, on October 25, with 53 percent for the “yes” side). On October 30, 94 percent of eligible voters went to vote. This time, pollsters had it right. The “no” side eventually got the support of 50.6 percent of Quebeckers, barely more than the “yes” side.

Post-1995 referendum period For the 1995–2008 period, the distribution of Model Ø variance indicated that 89 percent of total variance was measure-related, while time-related factors explained just 11 percent, suggesting that variation over time was clearly less than during the previous period. Estimates for question-wording effects are presented in Table 1. Voter intention questions gathered on average 4 percentage points fewer than attitude questions. When compared with the reference proposal—sovereignty-partnership—questions on separation collected 11.4 points less support, those on independence 8.9 points less and those on sovereignty 6.8 points less. The average effects of the independence and sovereignty proposals during this period did not differ significantly. The same went for the effects of the independence and separation proposals. Only sovereignty and separation differed significantly. Compared with Model Ø, this model explained 50 percent of the measurement-related variance. The inclusion of these variables resulted in an increase of the time-related variance, which may mean that the different proposals evolved differently over time. As with the previous period, we first identified an average longitudinal model, and we then estimated a model for each of the proposals (see Table 2). The voter intention question still had a significant mean effect ( 4.12; P 0.001). Figure 2 illustrates the evolution− of voter= intention for the four constitutional proposals. Support for all proposals fell substantially at the start of the period. Support stabilized in late 2001 and the election of QLP in April 2003 did not appear to significantly influence the support for sovereignty. However, the sponsorship scandal, which emerged in the spring of 2004, appears to have caused a sudden increase in support for all proposals. After a plateau that lasted during the entire period that the Gomery Commission was investigating the scandal, a drop in support for two of the proposals can be seen following the publication 254 F. Ya l e a n d C . D u r a n d 70 70 sov-partership sovereignty 60 60 independence separation 50 50 40 40 % support 30 30 20 20

Jan 05 Nov 95 June 97 June 99 June 01 Nov 06

April 03Mar : PLQ 04 :elected sponsorship Nov 05 : Gomery Report month/year

Figure 2. Evolution of support for sovereignty—1995–2008. of Judge Gomery’s report in November 2005. This effect could not be tested for the independence and separation proposals due to a lack of data. As with the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, the publication of Judge Gomery’s report appeared to conclude—instead of start—a period of increase in support for sovereignty. This model explained a total of 52 percent of the measure-related variance and 55 percent of the time-related variance. At the end of the period, sovereignty-partnership—i.e., the subject of the question asked in the 1995 referendum (the last poll using this question in our database is the CROP poll of April 2007)—collected 42 percent of voter intentions after a proportional distribution of undecided voters, and sovereignty without partnership (the last poll being the CROP poll of January 2008) collected 39 percent support. At the beginning of the period, as illustrated in Figure 2, these two proposals collected between 45 percent and 55 percent support. The event that had the most substantial impact—the sponsorship scandal—did not cause support to rise to that level for any length of time during the period.

Discussion In response to the three initial research questions, we can conclude that the type of question (voter intention rather than overall attitude) had an effect on the results obtained in the polls. First, voter intention questions appeared to elicit weaker support than attitude questions. Second, the pre-1995-referendum period showed fairly strong average effects for constitutional proposal, though such effects were less substantial (and not all significant) for the following period. Regarding the second hypothesis, we observed that time and certain events could explain a non-negligible portion of the variation in measured support. The effect of the failure of the Meech Lake Accord is a perfect illustration: this event corresponded to a significant change in how support for sovereignty varied over time. After an increase in support of nearly 20 points in the run-up to the Meech deadline, the confirmation of its failure appears to have led to a growing public apathy that manifested itself in a slowed American Review of Canadian Studies 255 increase and eventually a drop in support. However, this decline was not as significant for sovereignty combined with an association or partnership with the rest of Canada. While this observation may seem counterintuitive, the phenomenon has also been noticed and discussed in previous work (Cloutier et al. 1992; Pinard et al. 1997). The official failure of the Meech Lake Accord in June 1990 was not a surprise, and popular dissatisfaction with the deadlock in constitutional negotiations had already begun to be felt several months before. Support might well have remained high, but it did not. One possible explanation is the concept of “sovereignty threat” introduced by Jean-Herman Guay (2004). If, as Guay suggests, some voters who say they support sovereignty do so only to demonstrate their discontent with the government, as was the case with the Meech Lake Accord, its failure was an end in itself. Therefore, the role played by public opinion in holding politicians in check during these constitutional negotiations was no longer necessary. It is also possible that support for sovereignty had already reached its peak with the upcoming failure of the Meech Lake Accord. Hence, from this point on, support could only go down. According to such an hypothesis, it would not be the actual failure of the agreement, but the simple passing of time that would have caused support for sovereignty to go down. These explanations could be complementary as well. Other events also had an impact, though sometimes a rather weak one. The failure of the Charlottetown Accord in 1992 and the election of the Parti Québécois in 1994 did not seem of great consequence, aside from the fact that the failure of Charlottetown corresponded to a slowdown of the fall in support for sovereignty-partnership. However, this slowdown is not necessarily due to Charlottetown. Support may as well have simply leveled out, meaning that the various proposals all had a partisan basis and therefore a minimum threshold of support. During the post-1995-referendum period, the emergence of the sponsorship scandal in 2004 appears to have influenced support for all proposals, while the election of the QLP showed no effect when tested in conjunction with other events. Finally, the Gomery Commission affected support for the sovereignty and sovereignty-partnership proposals. Though it is not possible to assess an independent effect of the publication of the report since it was concurrent with the beginning of the federal electoral campaign, this event did correspond to a decline in support for sovereignty. This suggests an interpretation similar to that used to explain the effect of the Meech Lake Accord failure. The conclusions for the last hypothesis—how change in support varies according to question wording—differ from one period to the next. It is clear that between 1989 and 1995, support for the different proposals did not change in parallel. There is evidence to suggest a trend towards convergence for all proposals other than sovereignty-partnership. Could this be a specific effect caused by the impending referendum? Indeed, following the referendum, from 1995 to 2008, constitutional proposals appeared to differ less than during the preceding period, suggesting there was less confusion due to question wording. Besides, the evolution of support appears to be parallel for the three main proposals, contrary to what had appeared in the pre-1995-referendum period, i.e., a different evolution for sovereignty-partnership.Thesedifferencesinthemeaneffectofconstitutionalproposals between periods are significant for all proposals but sovereignty.

Conclusion This meta-analysis confirms previously observed results and opens up new avenues of reflection. The study stands out in terms of its methodology. The use of multi-level 256 F. Ya l e a n d C . D u r a n d analysis proved highly fruitful. No other method allowed the third hypothesis to be dealt with so easily. Since the issue of Québec sovereignty was first put forward, support has varied over the years and with the different constitutional options proposed. However, since the founding of the Parti Québécois, whatever the discussions taking place within or outside that party, sovereignty combined with an association with the rest of Canada has always stood apart from more “extreme” constitutional options as having the highest support in the population, and it therefore automatically resurfaced at the start of any referendum. The period prior to the 1995 referendum was fraught with constitutional turbulence marked by the pursuit of an agreement that would satisfy Québec’s demands. Using a proportional distribution of undecided voters, support for sovereignty with an association with the rest of Canada remained steadily above 50 percent in the polls from 1990 to the end of the period. It remained at this level for some time after the 1995 referendum but has declined contin- uously ever since, and the sponsorship scandal only barely and temporarily “rekindled the flame.” This study has shown that public support for this issue is strongly tied to the specific constitutional proposal on the table and that, increasingly, in terms of support, these options boil down to a choice between maintaining a link with the rest of Canada or not. Results show that it is not appropriate to speak of support for sovereignty at large. The words used influence the level of support found in the polls. This influence may be of importance when one remembers that the 1995 referendum ended up with only a few decimal points difference between the two sides. This body of knowledge is also used by political parties in order to refine their discourses and political strategies. In fact, one may ask why, over most of the period, pollsters went on asking questions on constitutional proposals that were not part of the political agenda (separation, independence, sovereignty without partnership). One thing is certain: since 1976, polls played quite a substantial role in informing political parties as well as the general population as to what to expect on “the subject matter” of sovereignty. Their results were constantly scrutinized and criticized. Voters, as well as public debate, were probably the first to benefit from this well-structured information. Finally, these results constitute a useful background for understanding the recent strategies of both sovereigntists and federalists. The sovereigntist leaders tend to look for scandals that could rekindle the flame and ask for new constitutional negotiations dealing with the “traditional demands of Québec,” while federalist governments resist any call for constitutional discussions of any kind while giving in to the most important demands from Québec, namely its recognition as a nation (voted by Parliament in November 2008) and allowing it to act at the international level in its area of competence.

Acknowledgments Authors wish to thank Claude Gauthier at CROP,Grégoire Gollin at Createc and Jean-François Lisée, who gave us access to the data and information that they had collected. We owe special thanks to Maurice Pinard from McGill University, who had compiled polls on support for sovereignty since 1962 and gave us access to his compilation. This helped us greatly at the start of the project. This research was ﬁnanced by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, grant number: 410-2009-1582.

Notes 1. The data come from a search of the archives of newspapers and magazines (La Presse, Le Journal de Montreal, Le Devoir and L’Actualité)alongwiththeCanadianOpinionResearch Archive (CORA) at Queens University. Data from pollsters themselves were also collected, American Review of Canadian Studies 257

either through their Internet site (Léger Marketing) or by contacting them directly. Data were also collected by consulting the work of researchers. Finally, some researchers and pollsters provided access to their own data compilations. We thank Claude Gauthier at CROP, Grégoire Gollin at Createc, Jean-François Lisée, and especially Maurice Pinard from McGill University, who had compiled polls since 1962 and gave us access to his compilation. The database is available (in French) on Claire Durand’s website http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/durandc/ souverainete/recherche_souverainete.html 2. The polls that could not be used were those whose question wording was unknown or whose results for the question on support for sovereignty were incomplete so that it was impossible to estimate the proportion of support after proportional distribution of non-disclosers. Polls whose sample size was unknown were retained. It was usually possible to infer an approximate value when data were missing, based on the usual methodological practices of the pollster. The main cause of missing data stemmed from lack of information in the publication of poll results in the media. Missing data are therefore unrelated to other survey methodology characteristics. Any removal of data did not lead to a systematic bias. 3. The term “non-disclosers” refers to all the respondents who either say that they do not know for whom they will vote or who refuse to reveal their intentions. Most polling ﬁrms do not keep or publish sufﬁciently detailed information to differentiate between the two. Moreover, it is estimated that part of the respondents who say that they do not know for whom they will vote are in fact people who do not want to say. 4. The data did not allow for testing effects beyond the cubic effect; it would have required more data over a longer period. 5. On this topic, see Hox (2002); Snijders and Bosker (1999), Singer and Willett (2003), who use the term “multilevel analysis” and Bryk and Raudenbush (1992) who use the term “hierarchical models.” The software used is HLM 6.0. 6. Since the amount of data for the separation and independence proposals was too small and since the two proposals generated similar support, they were merged into a single variable: extreme. 7. This is the average support for sovereignty-partnership in June 1995.

Notes on contributors François Yale is a researcher at Agence de santé et des services sociaux du Montréal Métropolitain (ASSSMM). His current research pertains to satisfaction regarding provision of health care and social services in Montréal, Québec. Claire Durand is Professor at the Department of Sociology, Université de Montréal. Her current research focuses on the role of polls in society and on the impact of methodology on polls’ estimates.

References Blais, André, R. Nadeau and P. Martin (1995) «Attentes économiques et linguistiques et appui à la souveraineté du Québec: une analyse prospective et comparative» dans Revue canadienne de science politique,Vol.28,No.4,637–57. Blais, André, P. Martin and R. Nadeau (1998) “Can People Explain their Own Vote? Introspective Questions as Indicators of Salience in the 1995 Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty.” Quality and Quantity,Vol.32,355–66. Bryk, Anthony S. and Stephen W.Raudenbush (1992) Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and data analysis methods.NewburyPark:Sage,265pages. Clarke, Harold D. and A. Kornberg (1996) “Choosing Canada? The 1995 Quebec Sovereignty Referendum.” Political Science and Politics,Vol.29,No.4,676–82. Cloutier, É., J.H. Guay and D. Latouche (1992) Le virage: l’évolution de l’opinion publique au Québec depuis 1960 ou Comment le Québec est devenu souverainiste.Éditions Québec/Amérique, Montréal, 181 pages. Drouilly, Pierre (1997) Indépendance et démocratie.Éd.HarmattanInc.Montréal,355pages. Durand, Claire (2008) A qui la faute? Le référendum 10 ans après, In Gagnon, Alain-G. D’un référendum à l’autre: le Québec face à son destin,Québec:PUL,pp.27–50. 258 F. Ya l e a n d C . D u r a n d

Gagné, Gilles et Simon Langlois (2002) Les raisons fortes. Nature et signification de l’appui la souveraineté du Québec. Les presses de l’Université de Montréal, Montréal, 187 pages. Guay, Jean-Herman (2004) “Le Parti Québécois: au-delà du conflit et des ambitions.” Options Politiques,déc.04-jan.05,18–24. Fox, John, R. Andersen and J. Dubonnet (1999) “Polls and the 1995 Quebec Referendum.” Canadian Journal of Sociology,Vol.24,No.3,411–24. Hamilton, R. and M. Pinard (1982) “The Quebec Independence Movement.” In Williams Colin H. National Separatism. Éd. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver. 203–33. Hox, Joop (2002) Multilevel Analysis: Techniques and Applications. LEA Publishers, London, 304 pages. Kornberg, Allan and Keith Archer (1982) “A Note on Quebec Attitudes toward Constitutional Options.” Law and Contemporary Problems.Vol.45,No.4,71–85. LeDuc, Lawrence (1977) “Canadian Attitudes Towards Quebec Independence.” Public Opinion Quaterly,Vol.41,No.3,347–55. LeDuc, Lawrence and J.H. Pammet (1995) “Referendum Voting: Attitudes and Behaviour in the 1992 Constitutional Referendum.” Canadian Journal of Political Science,Vol.28,No.1,3–33. Martin, Pierre and R. Nadeau (2000) “Choosing a Nation: the 1995 Referendum on Sovereignty in Quebec.” Paper presented for presentation at the conference “Making Big Choices: Individual Opinion Formation and Societal Choice,”Weatherhead Center for International Affairs,Harvard University, May 25–26. Mendelsohn, Matthew (2003) “Rational Choice and Socio-Psychological Explanation for Opinion on Quebec Sovereignty.” Canadian Journal of Political Science,Vol.36,No.3,511–37. Nadeau, Richard et Fleury, Christopher J. (1995) «Gains linguistiques anticipés et appui à la souveraineté du Québec» dans Revue canadienne de science politique,Vol.28,No.1,35–50. Nadeau, Richard, P. Martin and A. Blais (1999) “Attitudes towards Risk-Taking and Individual Choice in the Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty.” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 23, No. 9, 523–39. Parti Québécois (1994) Programme électoral, retrieved from http://www.poltext. capp.ulaval.ca/upload/qc1994pq_plt._12112008_203547.pdfJune 1st, 2011. Pinard, Maurice and R. Hamilton (1977) “The Independence Issue and the Polarization of the Electorate: the 1973 Quebec Election.” Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vo l . 1 0 , N o . 2 , 215–59. —(1984)«LesQuébécoisvotentNON:lesensetlaportéeduvote»dansJeanCrête(sousladirection de) Comportement électoral au Québec.Éd.GaëtanMorin,Chicoutimi,335–85. —(1986)«MotivationalDimensionintheQuebecIndependenceMovement:ATestofaNew Model » Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change,Vol.9,225–89. Pinard, Maurice, R. Bernier and V. Lemieux (1997) Un combat inachevé. Presse de l’Université du Québec, Sainte-Foy, 368 pages. Singer, Judith D. and John B Willett (2003) Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis.OxfordUniversity Press, NY, 644 pages. Snijders, Tom A.B. and Roel J. Bosker (1999) Multilevel Analysis. An Introduction to Basic and Advanced multileveled modeling.SagePublications,London,266pages. Attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques et appui a la souverainete du Quebec : une analyse prospective et comparative*

ANDRE BLAIS Universite de Montreal PIERRE MARTIN Universite de Montreal RICHARD NADEAU Universite de Montreal

Pourquoi les Qu6b6cois sont-ils favorables ou oppos6s 'a la souve- rainet6? Les chercheurs qui se sont pench6s sur cette question ont pro- pos6 deux principaux types d'explications. Une premiere approche, tri- butaire de la sociologie, identifie comme d6terminants de l'opinion certains attributs socio-d6mographiques et certaines attitudes reli6es 'a la place du Qu6bec dans le Canada. Dans cette perspective, ces attributs et attitudes conditionnent l'opinion sur la souverainet6 a travers la formation des sentiments d'identit6 ou d'attachement au Qu6bec et au Canada. Une deuxieme approche, li6e a la th6orie 6conomique de la d6cision politique, congoit plutOt le choix des individus comme r6sul- tant d'une 6valuation des coQtts et des b6n6fices des options en cause.'

* Les auteurs tiennent 'a exprimer leur gratitude envers les 6tudiants du cours de m6thodologie d'Andr6 Blais, qui ont r6alis6 le sondage, Miriam Lapp et Agnieszka Dobrzynska, qui ont supervise leur travail, et tous les professeurs qui ont accept6 de nous ouvrir les portes de leurs cours. Nous remercions 6galement Patrick Fournier, qui nous a assist6s dans le traitement des donnees. Cette 6tude a regu l'appui financier du Fonds FCAR du Quebec, du Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada et de l'Universit6 de Montr6al (CAFIR). Ce texte est le r6sultat d'une collaboration 'a parts 6gales des trois signataires. 1 Les 6tudes les plus r6centes incluent ces deux interpr6tations simultan6ment dans l'analyse. Voir en particulier: Maurice Pinard, <

Andr6 Blais, D6partement de science politique, Universit6 de Montreal, C. P. 6128, Succursale Centre-ville, Montr6al, Qu6bec H3C 3J7. Adresse 61ectronique: blaisa@ ere.umontreal.ca Pierre Martin, D6partement de science politique, Universit6 de Montr6al, C. P. 6128, Succursale Centre-ville, Montr6al, Qu6bec H3C 3J7. Adresse 61ectronique: martinp@ ere.umontreal.ca Richard Nadeau, D6partement de science politique, Universit6 de Montr6al, C. P. 6128, Succursale Centre-ville, Montr6al, Qu6bec H3C 3J7. Adresse 61ectroni- que: nadeauri @ere.umontreal.ca

Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, XXVIII:4 (December/ d6cembre 1995). Printed in Canada / Imprim6 au Canada

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 638 ANDRE BLAIS, PIERRE MARTIN et RICHARD NADEAU

La pr6sente 6tude vise a approfondir ce deuxibme type d'explication. Nous ne nions pas que les sentiments d'attachement ou d'iden- tit6-et l'ensemble des facteurs qui les conditionnent-soient des motivations r6elles et pertinentes du choix des citoyens. II s'agit en fait d'une dimension incontournable. Cependant, de tels sentiments ne suf- fisent pas ' expliquer le choix entre la souverainet6 et le maintien du lien f6d6ral. Une fois ces sentiments pris en compte, l'6valuation des coits et des b6n6fices anticip6s influence les choix d'un nombre suf- fisant d'individus pour avoir un effet d6terminant sur le r6sultat final.2 A partir de ce constat, plusieurs questions importantes se posent quant aux types d'attentes susceptibles d'influencer l'appui ' la souve- rainet6, et a la perspective temporelle de ces attentes. Sur le plan 6co- nomique, le choix d6pend-il davantage de consid6rations de court ou de moyen terme? Sur le plan linguistique, les choses peuvent difficile- ment bouger aussi rapidement. Toutefois, dans la mesure oi les Qu6b6cois anticipent que la souverainet6 affecterait la situation du frangais au Qu6bec, leur d6cision d6pend-elle seulement de ce qu'ils entrevoient A moyen terme ou d6pend-elle aussi de ce qui pourrait se produire au-delh de leur propre esp6rance de vie? Ce texte propose quelques r6ponses a ces questions, a la lumibre de la th6orie 6conomique du vote et a l'aide de mesures originales des d6terminants de l'appui ' la souverainet6. Ces mesures mettent l'accent sur la comparaison entre les attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques des individus dans l'hypothese d'un Qu6bec souverain, d'une part, et dans celle oih le Qu6bec demeurerait une province canadienne, d'autre part. Les deux premibres sections pr6sentent les fondements thdoriques de notre d6marche et d6crivent les donn6es utilis6es, qui proviennent d'un sondage men6 auprbs d'6tudiants universitaires. Dans la troisibme section, nous examinons la distribution des variables explicatives et leur

Movement: A Dramatic Reemergence >, Working Papers in Social Behaviour (Montreal: D6partement de sociologie, Universit6 McGill, 1992); Hudson Meadwell, << The Politics of Nationalism in Quebec ?, World Politics 45 (1993), 203-41; Andr6 Blais et Richard Nadeau, << To Be or Not to Be a Sovereignist? Quebeckers' Perennial Dilemma> , Canadian Public Policy 18 (1992), 89-103; Andrd Blais et Elisabeth Gidengil, <, communication pr6sent6e la r6union de l'Association canadienne de science politique, Ottawa, Ontario, le 6-8 juin 1993; Pierre Martin, << G6n6rations politiques, rationalit6 6conomique et appui A la souverainet6 au Qu6bec ?, cette REVUE 27 (1994), 345-59; et Richard Nadeau et Christopher Fleury, << Gains linguistiques anticip6s et appui ' la souverainet6 du Qu6bec >, cette REVUE 28 (1995), 35-50. 2 En d'autres mots, nous soutenons que si l'appui A la souverainet6 ne constitue pas une r6ponse A un calcul des coots et des b6n6fices pour tous les individus, de telles considdrations affectent un nombre suffisamment grand d'6lecteurs pour qu'il importe d'en tenir compte. Pour un expos6 de ce point de vue, voir Meadwell, << The Politics of Nationalism in Quebec >.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Resum6. Pourquoi les Qu6b6cois sont-ils favorables ou oppos6s A la souverainet6? Ce choix repose en partie sur l'6valuation prospective des coots et des b6n6fices de la souverainet6 et du f6d6ralisme. Quelle est la part relative des attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques dans ce choix? Le r61e de ces attentes varie-t-il en fonction de leur horizon temporel? Les auteurs abordent ces questions A la lumiere de la th6orie 6conomi- que du vote et A l'aide de mesures nouvelles des d6terminants de l'appui ' la souverai- net6, qui mettent l'accent sur la comparaison entre les attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques des individus dans l'hypothese d'un Qu6bec souverain et les memes attentes si le Qu6bec demeure une province canadienne. Ces mesures proviennent d'un sondage effectu6 aupres d'6tudiants universitaires. L'analyse de r6gression logistique montre que le calcul implicite des coo1ts et des b6n6fices joue un r61le non n6gligeable dans le choix d'une option, et que les attentes 6conomiques influencent un peu plus la formation des opinions que les attentes linguistiques. De plus, les attentes de moyen terme sont plus d6terminantes que celles qui portent sur l'avenir imm6diat, dans le cas de l'6conomie, ou sur l'avenir 61oign6, dans le cas de la langue. Abstract. Why are Quebeckers favourably disposed or opposed to sovereignty? This choice partly depends upon the prospective evaluation of the costs and benefits of sovereignty and federalism. What are the relative contributions of economic and linguistic expectations in this choice? Does the impact of these expectations vary according to the time horizon in which they are set? The authors approach these questions from the perspective of the economic theory of voting and with the help of original measures of the determinants of support for sovereignty. They compare expectations of what would occur to the economy and to the French language were Quebec to become a sovereign country with expectations of what would occur if Quebec remained a province of Can- ada. These measures are taken from a survey of university students. Our logistic regression analysis shows that the implicit calculation of costs and benefits plays a significant role in the choice between sovereignty and federalism, and that economic expectations influence the formation of opinion to a somewhat greater degree than do linguistic expectations. Moreover, medium-term expectations are more important than short-term economic expectations and more important than long-term expectations about the situation of the French language in Quebec. relation bivari6e avec les intentions de vote. Finalement, l'analyse mul- tivari6e permet de sp6cifier le poids relatif propre a chaque type d'attentes dans l'explication du vote. Notre analyse montre que le sentiment d'identit6 n'explique pas tout et que le calcul implicite des cotits et des b6n6fices joue un r1le non n6gligeable dans la d6cision d'un grand nombre d'individus d'appuyer ou non la souverainet6. A ce titre, nous observons notamment que les attentes 6conomiques occupent une place un peu plus grande dans la formation des opinions que les attentes linguistiques. Enfin, les attentes 6conomiques de moyen terme semblent plus d6ter- minantes que celles qui portent sur l'avenir imm6diat.

Theorie economique du vote et choix constitutionnels La theorie 6conomique du vote permet de formaliser le processus d6cisionnel menant au choix entre la souverainet6 et le f6d6ralisme. Selon cette approche, 1'61ecteur appuie l'option constitutionnelle qui lui apporte le plus de b6n6fices.3 II doit donc, au moment de son choix,

3 Ces b6n6fices, qui peuvent &tre de diverses natures, sont g6n6ralement conqus comme les 616ments d'une fonction d' utilit6 que l'6lecteur cherche a maximiser.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 640 ANDRE BLAIS, PIERRE MARTIN et RICHARD NADEAU comparer les effets attendus des deux sc6narios envisag6s. Cette comparaison lui permet d'6tablir l'existence 6ventuelle d'un 6cart entre les niveaux d'utilit6 attendus des options. Cet 6cart, dont les composantes sont pr6sent6es i l'6quation 1, constitue une donn6e cruciale du choix r6f6rendaire. E(U-+1) - E(Ufr1)= UEf F5 0 (1) oi UEsf-= 6cart entre l'utilit6 esp6r6e a la p6riode t+1 dans un Qu6bec souverain et celle esp6r6e dans le cadre f6d6ral; E(US+l)= utilit6 esp6r6e a la p6riode t+1 si le Qu6bec devient un pays souverain; E(UF+I)= utilit6 esp6r6e a la p6riode t+1 si le Quebec demeure une province canadienne.

En s'appuyant sur l'6quation 1, l'61ecteur qui fait face au choix entre ces deux options dispose, en principe, d'une regle d6cisionnelle simple: il votera Oui si la valeur de UE est sup6rieure a z6ro, Non si cette valeur est n6gative, et sera indiff6rent si elle est 6gale a z6ro. Malgr6 son apparente simplicit6, cette regle cache des difficult6s, tant pratiques que conceptuelles. Elle requiert d'abord que les principales composantes du calcul des coiits et des b6n6fices soient ad6qua- tement r6pertori6es. La plupart des etudes existantes se sont attard6es a mesurer les attentes des Qu6b6cois quant aux cons6quences 6conomi- ques de la souverainet6.4 Une telle approche n6glige toutefois les pr6occupations linguistiques, qui sont pourtant au coeur de la question nationale qu6b6coise. Dans cet esprit, une analyse complete des d6ter- minants de l'appui ' la souverainet6 doit tenir compte des gains et pertes associ6s A cette option sur le plan linguistique.5 I1 importe 6galement que les coots et b6n6fices anticip6s soient mesur6s de faqon A reproduire le point de vue a la fois comparatif et prospectif adopt6 par l'61ecteur.6 Le caractere prospectif des 6valua-

4 Voir en particulier Blais et Nadeau, << To Be or Not to Be a Sovereignist >>. 5 Sur le r61e de la question linguistique en tant que d6terminant de l'appui A la souverainet6 du Qu6bec, voir Maurice Pinard et Richard Hamilton, << Motiva- tional Dimensions in the Quebec Independence Movement: A Test of a New Model >, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 9 (1986), 225- 80; St6phane Dion, <. 6 Sur la dimension comparative des choix politiques, voir Morris P. Fiorina, Retro- spective Voting in American National Elections (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); Arthur H. Miller et Martin P. Wattenberg, <>, American Political Science Review 79 (1985), 359-72; et Richard Nadeau, Richard G. Niemi et Timothy Amato, << Prospective and Comparative or Retrospective and Individual? Party Leaders and Party Support in Great Britain >>

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Attentes economiques et linguistiques et la souverainete' 641 tions individuelles n6cessite, en particulier, que soit pr6cis6 l'horizon temporel en fonction duquel sont 6valu6es les cons6quences des options en cause. Par opposition au contexte 61ectoral, ohi l'horizon de l'61lecteur est limit6, la question constitutionnelle place l'individu devant un choix dont il doit 6valuer les cons6quences a court, moyen et long terme.7 Nous proposons une 6tude fond6e sur des mesures nouvelles, d6coulant directement de la th6orie 6conomique du vote. Ces mesures portent sur deux composantes cl6s du calcul couits-b6n6fices auquel l'61lecteur se livre au moment d'arreter son choix pour ou contre la souverainet6: les consequences 6ventuelles sur le plan 6conomique, mais 6galement sur le plan linguistique. Nous prenons soin de mesurer les attentes dans une perspective 'a la fois comparative et prospective. Pour jauger la dimension comparative, nous comparons les perceptions de ce qui se produirait si le Qu6bec devenait un pays souverain a ce a quoi on s'attend s'il continuait 'a faire partie du Canada. Pour ce qui est de la dimension prospective, nous pr6cisons l'horizon temporel des attentes, c'est-a-dire que nous distinguons ce que l'61lecteur pr6voit A court, moyen et long terme. Parce qu'elle est 'a la fois comparative et prospective, qu'elle precise l'horizon temporel des attentes et qu'elle tient compte des coots et b6n6fices a la fois 6conomiques et linguistiques, cette 6tude permet de tester la th6orie 6conomique du vote de faqon plus precise et plus rigoureuse que les recherches ant6rieures. Ce faisant, elle s'inscrit dans un important courant de recherche en science politique qui ne se con- tente pas de postuler que les attentes affectent les choix politiques mais tente plutOt de sp6cifier l'origine et le poids relatif de diff6rents types d'attentes.8

British Journal of Political Science 25 (1995), 'a paraitre. La dimension prospective, pour sa part, a 6t6 mise en 6vidence par James Kuklinski et Darrell West, <, American Political Science Review 88 (1994), 371-83. 7 L'horizon de long terme peut d6passer l'esp6rance de vie d'un individu si sa fonction d'utilit6 tient compte des effets interg6n6rationnels des choix. 8 Le processus de formation des attentes et l'impact de ces attentes sur les choix politiques se situent au coeur d'un courant de recherches f6cond et influent en science politique. Outre les travaux mentionn6s a la note 6, les textes suivants refletent l'importance accord6e par les politologues A ces questions: Motoshi Suzuki, <

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 642 ANDRE BLAIS, PIERRE MARTIN et RICHARD NADEAU

Methodologie de 1'etude Notre 6tude porte sur les donn6es d'un sondage par questionnaire 6crit aupres d'un 6chantillon al6atoire de 2 114 6tudiants de l'Universit6 de Montr6al, en novembre 1994.9 Le sondage ne porte 6videmment pas sur un 6chantillon de l'ensemble de la population qu6b6coise. Par contre, il a l'avantage de contenir un ensemble de questions in6dites qui permettent de mesurer de fagon pr6cise les attentes quant aux cons6- quences de la souverainet6, compar6es aux attentes li6es au maintien du lien f6d6ratif, sur les plans 6conomique et linguistique. La toute premiere question du sondage demandait a l'6tudiant comment il voterait s'il y avait un r6f6rendum sur la souverainet6 (voir l'annexe).'0 Parmi ceux qui ont exprim6 une intention de vote, le Oui et le Non sont a 6galit6, avec chacun 50 pour cent. L'appui ' la souverai- net6 est nettement plus faible chez les 6tudiants dont la premiere langue apprise n'est pas le franqais." A l'exemple des 6tudes empiriques ci- t6es a la note 1, l'analyse qui suit porte sur les 6tudiants dont la premiere langue est le frangais. Dans ce groupe, 55 pour cent ont indiqu6 qu'ils avaient l'intention de voter Oui.

<, British Journal of Political Science 23 (1993), 175-210; Brandon H. Haller et Helmut Norpoth, <, American Journal of Political Science 38 (1994), 1104-23. 9 Les donn6es du sondage ont 6t6 recueillies par les 6tudiants d'un cours d'introduction aux m6thodes de recherche en science politique, donn6 par Andr6 Blais a la session d'automne 1994. Au d6part, un 6chantillon al6atoire de 60 cours dans toutes les facult6s de l'Universit6 de Montr6al a 6t6 tir6. Les responsables du cours ont obtenu la collaboration de 45 professeurs qui ont accept6 que le questionnaire soit administr6 dans leur classe. Pour une description de ce sondage, voir Andr6 Blais, <

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Nous utilisons quatre questions pour mesurer les attentes sur le plan 6conomique; deux portent sur le court terme et deux sur le moyen terme. Le critbre de performance 6conomique retenu est le taux de ch6- mage. On a demand6 aux 6tudiants ce qu'ils pensaient qu'il adviendrait du taux de ch6mage apres un an et apres 10 ans si le Qu6bec devenait un pays souverain, d'une part, et s'il continuait de faire partie du Canada, d'autre part. Les formulations exactes sont pr6sent6es en annexe. Cette d6marche offre deux avantages par rapport aux 6tudes ant6- rieures. Elle permet d'abord de distinguer l'effet des consid6rations de court et de moyen terme. Elle s'inscrit ensuite clairement dans une perspective comparative. Selon notre module de d6cision, le citoyen doit anticiper ce qui pourrait arriver si l'option politique sur laquelle il doit se prononcer se r6alise, mais 6galement ce a quoi il s'attend si elle ne se concr6tise pas. Dans le cas qui nous int6resse ici, il s'agit donc de comparer les cons6quences des deux sc6narios possibles pour d6ter- miner si la souverainet6 pr6sente un gain net ou une perte. La formulation des questions correspond a ce raisonnement. Dans les 6tudes ant6rieures, on se contentait de mesurer les attentes dans l'hypothese oti le Qu6bec deviendrait un pays souverain, ce qui revient a postuler que rien ne changerait si le Qu6bec demeurait une province canadienne. Nos r6sultats d6montrent que ce postulat n'est pas toujours valable. Nous avons donc retenu comme variables ind6pendantes deux mesures comparatives de l'6volution de la situation de l'emploi si le Qu6bec devient souverain et s'il demeure une province canadienne (voir l' annexe). Nous avons proc6d6 de la meme fagon pour jauger les attentes sur le plan linguistique. Dans ce cas, la perspective de court terme apparait peu pertinente, puisqu'il semble improbable que la situation du frangais puisse se modifier sensiblement dans une seule ann6e. La distinction la plus int6ressante est celle entre le moyen et le tres long terme. Nous avons donc conqu deux paires de questions. La premiere paire porte sur ce qui adviendrait dans la d6cennie suivant le choix r6f6rendaire. Nous avons demand6 aux 6tudiants s'ils pr6voyaient que la situation du frangais s'am61iorerait, se d6t6riorerait, ou resterait inchang6e si le Qu6bec devenait un pays souverain, d'une part, et s'il faisait toujours partie du Canada, d'autre part. La seconde paire porte sur la probabilit6 de voir le frangais disparaitre au Qu6bec dans un horizon allant au-dela de l'esp6rance de vie des 6tudiants, soit 100 ans. A notre avis, cette question permet de mesurer la profondeur du sentiment de menace "a tres long terme qui pese sur la langue frangaise et la culture qu6b6coise dans chacun des sc6narios envisag6s pour son avenir politique. Nous avons retenu deux types d'attentes 6conomiques, qui ont trait A l'am61ioration ou & la d6t6rioration de la situation de l'emploi & court terme (un an) et t moyen terme (10 ans), et deux types d'attentes

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 644 ANDRE BLAIS, PIERRE MARTIN et RICHARD NADEAU linguistiques, qui se rapportent a la situation du frangais au Qu6bec & moyen terme (10 ans) et a tres long terme (100 ans). Sur le plan 6cono- mique, l'6tudiant anticipe un gain relatif s'il croit que le ch6mage aug- menterait moins ou diminuerait davantage si le Qu6bec devenait souverain que s'il demeurait une province canadienne. Inversement, une perte anticip6e correspond t l'opinion que le ch6mage augmentera davantage ou diminuera moins. Il n'y a ni gain ni perte si la meme 6volution est attendue dans les deux sc6narios. La meme logique pr6- vaut pour la situation du frangais dans 10 ans.12 Pour ce qui est du sort du frangais dans 100 ans, la question fait r6f6rence a la perception de la probabilit6 d'une disparition du frangais au Qu6bec: plus cette proba- bilit6 est jug6e 61ev6e, pire est la situation anticip6e du frangais a la fin du siecle prochain.13 Nous tenons 6galement compte de l'ampleur des gains ou pertes anticip6s. A chaque question, l'6tudiant devait pr6ciser s'il s'attendait a une am61lioration ou d6t6rioration forte ou faible, ce qui produit une 6chelle allant de -2 (forte d6t6rioration) a +2 (forte am61ioration). Lorsqu'on compare la r6ponse pour un critere donn6 dans l'hypothese oii le Qu6bec devient souverain ' la meme r6ponse dans l'hypoth'se oti il fait toujours partie du Canada, cela nous donne des gains ou pertes nets s'6chelonnant de -4 (forte d6t6rioration si le Qu6bec est souverain et forte am61ioration s'il fait partie du Canada) A +4 (le sc6nario inverse). Meme si notre 6tude met l'accent sur l'anticipation des gains et des pertes nets de la souverainet6, nous reconnaissons d'embl6e que le choix d'une option constitutionnelle repose sur d'autres consid6ra- tions. Les travaux existants d6ja cit6s et la composition de notre 6chan- tillon nous ont donc amen6s ' inclure deux variables de contr1le dans nos analyses de l'impact de ces attentes sur les choix constitutionnels, soit le sentiment d'identit6 nationale et le sexe des individus.14

12 Pour ces trois variables, les 6tudiants qui disaient ne pas savoir ce que serait l'6volution de la situation dans l'un ou l'autre des deux sc6narios politiques ont 6t6 regroup6s avec ceux qui ne pr6voient pas de changement. Il est A noter que la plupart des 6tudiants qui disaient ne pas savoir quelle serait l'6volution dans un sc6nario donnaient la m8me r6ponse pour l'autre sc6nario. 13 A la diff6rence des autres questions, celle-ci ne comportait pas de cat6gorie mitoyenne. Nous supposons donc que les ind6cis sont ceux qui ne peuvent faire un choix entre les cat6gories << assez probable >> et << assez improbable >. Ici aussi, ceux qui sont ind6cis dans un sc6nario ont tendance A l'8tre 6galement dans 1' autre. 14 Les analyses de l'impact des opinions, des attitudes et des attentes des Qu6b6cois francophones sur l'appui A la souverainet6 retiennent g6n6ralement quatre variables de contr6le: l'identit6 (ou l'attachement au Qu6bec et au Canada), le sexe, l' ge et la scolarit6. Dans la pr6sente 6tude, 6tant donn6 que l'6chantillon est compos6 d'individus d'age et de scolarit6 comparables, nous ne retenons que les deux premieres variables. Sur la pertinence th6orique d'inclure l'identit6 (ou

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Distribution des attentes et vote rif6rendaire Dans la mesure oih les choix individuels entre le f6d6ralisme et la souverainet6 r6sultent, pour une part appr6ciable, de l'6valuation des coots et des b6n6fices de chaque option,'5 il convient d'examiner atten- tivement la distribution des indicateurs des attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques. Trois observations s'imposent a la lecture du tableau 1. D'abord, on constate l'asym6trie entre les attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques associ6es aux options constitutionnelles. Si les 6tudiants sont globale- ment optimistes quant aux cons6quences linguistiques de la souverai- net6, ils le sont moins en ce qui a trait a ses cons6quences 6conomi- ques.16 Deuxiemement, 1'6valuation des cons6quences 6conomiques de la souverainet6 est 6troitement li6e a l'horizon temporel retenu. En effet, le pessimisme quant aux cons6quences imm6diates de la souve- rainet6 contraste avec un certain optimisme quant a ses effets a moyen terme.'7 Finalement, il faut souligner la grande concentration des 6va-

l'attachement) dans un module des choix constitutionnels qu6b6cois, voir Blais et Nadeau, <>; Meadwell, <>; Nadeau et Fleury, <>; et Pinard, << The Quebec Independence Movement >>. 15 Pinard soutient ce point de vue en notant que: <> (Pinard, <>, 13, notre traduction). Il n'est toutefois pas exclu, comme Pinard le rappelle au sujet de l'identit6 (45), que les attentes soient elles-memes conditionnees, jusqu' un certain point, par l'adh6- sion ' une option ou a l'autre. 16 Cette asym6trie a 6galement 6t6 observ6e pour l'ensemble de l'61ectorat qu6b6- cois (voir Pinard et Hamilton, <>, et Nadeau et Fleury, <). N.B.: Toutes les relations bivari6es pr6sen- t6es ici sont bas6es sur l'6chantillon de 1 444 r6pondants pour lesquels nous avons pu obtenir des mesures valides sur toutes les variables du module explicatif pr6sent6 au tableau 2. Les r6sultats bas6s sur l'6chantillon complet sont presque identiques a ceux-ci. 17 Une 6tude men6e par la firme Angus Reid en 1991 sur un 6chantillon de l'ensemble de l'61ectorat qu6b6cois a produit des r6sultats analogues ' propos des effets projet6s dans 10 ans (Angus Reid Group, Portrait of a Troubled Country: Cana- dians and the National Unity Debate [Winnipeg: Angus Reid Group, 1991]; et Pinard <>). Des r6sultats plus r6cents montrent un degr6 d'optimisme assez 61ev6 quant aux cons6quences 6conomi- ques a long terme. Un sondage men6 en janvier 1995 par la maison CROP mon- trait que, pour la plupart des indicateurs 6conomiques retenus, a l'exception de l'endettement, un plus grand nombre de Qu6b6cois s'attendaient a ce que la souverainet6 ait des cons6quences positives que n6gatives (Jean Pare, <>, L'actualitd, 15 mars 1995, 51-58).

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 646 ANDRE' BLAIS, PIERRE MARTIN et RICHARD NADEAU luations autour d'un petit nombre de valeurs. Ainsi, pros de 75 pour cent des 6valuations linguistiques se situent entre 0 et +2. De meme, plus de 80 pour cent des 6valuations 6conomiques de court terme et pres de 70 pour cent des 6valuations de long terme appartiennent a trois cat6gories (respectivement -2, -1 et 0 et -1, 0 et +1).

TABLEAU 1

AITENTES RELATIVES SUR LES PLANS ECONOMIQUE ET LINGUISTIQUE ET APPUI A LA SOUVERAINETE (en pourcentages)

-4 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4

A) Attentes dconomiques a court terme (emploi, I an) Appui a la souverainet6 0 4 15 51 70 86 95 88 100 Proportion de 1'6chantillon ,3 4 17 27 38 11 3 1 ,1 B) Attentes &conomiques a moyen terme (emploi, 10 ans) Appui ' la souverainet6 0 2 5 14 55 84 95 97 100 Proportion de 1'6chantillon 1 4 8 12 40 16 12 5 2

C) Attentes linguistiques a moyen terme (frangais, 10 ans) Appui ' la souverainet6 0 0 8 14 24 56 85 92 97 Proportion de 1'6chantillon ,5 1 3 6 28 24 22 12 5

D) Attentes linguistiques ac long terme (franCais, 100 ans) Appui a la souverainet6 0 4 9 33 36 71 74 89 92 Proportion de 1'6chantillon ,3 2 2 3 44 19 11 14 4 N=1 444

Note: Chaque variable reflete la diff6rence entre l'valuation de la situation si le Qu6bec devient un pays souverain (6chelle de -2 A +2) et s'il continue de faire partie du Canada (6chelle de -2 A +2).

Cette concentration des r6ponses devient trbs int6ressante lorsqu'on examine les variations importantes de l'appui A la souverai- net6 caract6risant ces intervalles. Ainsi, I'appui au Oui augmente de 61 points de pourcentage lorsqu'on passe d'une 6valuation neutre des cons6quences linguistiques de la souverainet6 (au point z6ro, le Oui

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Attentes economiques et linguistiques et la souverainet9 647 obtient 24 %) a une 6valuation optimiste de ces memes cons6quences (a la cat6gorie +2, le Oui recueille 85 %). L'appui ' la souverainet6 varie aussi de fagon consid6rable entre ceux qui entrevoient des cotts 6conomiques imm6diats a la souverai- net6 (cat6gorie -2: Oui = 15 %) et ceux qui croient ' des sc6narios a court terme semblables (cat6gorie 0: Oui = 70 %). L'6cart est encore plus prononc6 lorsqu'il s'agit des cons6quences 6conomiques a moyen terme: un foss6 de 70 points de pourcentage s6pare ceux qui entrevoient un gain, m~me modeste (cat6gorie +1 : Oui = 84 %) de ceux qui anticipent une perte du meme ordre (cat6gorie -1: Oui = 14 %). L'int6ret de ces donn6es vient de ce qu'elles semblent montrer que le choix ne repose pas, pour la plupart des 61ecteurs, sur une 6va- luation radicalement n6gative de l'option qu'ils rejettent. Le corollaire de cette mod6ration pourrait etre l'existence d'une certaine disposition au changement. Le tableau 1 illustre cette ouverture potentielle a 1' autre option. On y constate en effet que la masse des 61ecteurs appar- tient a cette zone critique ohi les choix peuvent basculer dans un camp ou dans l'autre. Cette apparente disposition au changement est cependant limit6e par le sentiment d'appartenance au Qu6bec ou au Canada. Dans notre 6chantillon, parmi les 60 pour cent de r6pondants se disant Qu6b6cois d'abord, 82 pour cent optent pour le Oui; parmi les 28 pour cent qui partagent les deux identit6s ou n'en adoptent aucune, l'appui ' la souverainet6 est de 20 pour cent; parmi les 12 pour cent se disant Cana- diens d'abord, cet appui tombe a 4 pour cent. La distribution des iden- tit6s dans notre 6chantillon et le rapport entre cette variable et l'appui ' la souverainet6 se comparent a ce qu'on retrouve dans un 6chantillon de la population du Qu6bec.18 L'autre variable de contr6le qui retient notre attention est le sexe. En effet, pour des raisons qui, a notre avis, n'ont pas fait I'objet d'6tudes suffisamment approfondies, les femmes semblent significa- tivement plus r6ticentes que les hommes ' appuyer la souverainet6. Dans l'ensemble de l'6chantillon, le Oui se situe a 55 pour cent. On observe cependant une diff6rence de huit points de pourcentage entre l'appui chez les femmes (56 % de l'6chantillon; 52 % de Oui) et chez les hommes (44 % de l'6chantillon; 60 % de Oui). De tels 6carts entre les hommes et les femmes sont fr6quemment observes dans des 6chan-

18 Dans un sondage men6 en juin 1995, les << Qu6b6cois d'abord >> forment 53 pour cent de l'6chantillon des francophones et appuient le Oui ' 76 pour cent; ceux qui partagent les deux identit6s forment 31 pour cent de 1'6chantillon et appuient le Oui ' 24 pour cent; les << Canadiens d'abord >> forment 14 pour cent de l'6chan- tillon et appuient le Oui A 10 pour cent (Le Groupe LUger et L6ger, << Sondage Omnibus >, juin 1995).

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 648 ANDRE' BLAIS, PIERRE MARTIN et RICHARD NADEAU tillons de l'ensemble de la population du Qu6bec.19 Dans notre 6chan- tillon, cet 6cart entre les sexes se maintient dans le cadre de l'analyse multivari6e. De plus, aucun des effets d'interaction possibles entre le sexe et les autres variables ne se r6vele significatif.20 Nous savons donc que toutes les variables du tableau 1 et toutes les variables de contr1le sont li6es a l'intention de vote. La prochaine 6tape consiste a examiner comment ces variables de contr1le et les 616ments du calcul cofits/b6n6fices que nous avons retenus s'articulent dans la d6termination des choix individuels.

L'analyse multivarike Dans cette analyse, nous avons choisi de distinguer les anticipations de gain des anticipations de perte. En effet, selon l'approche psycholo- gique de la d6cision, lorsqu'une decision sur un changement politique peut entrainer des pertes ou des gains, les pertes ont, de fagon g6n6rale, un poids plus grand que les gains dans le calcul implicite qui sous-tend cette d6cision.21 La m6thode retenue est la r6gression logistique. Cette m6thode est celle qui convient le mieux i l'analyse d'une variable d6pendante dichotomique22 et elle permet d'estimer pour chaque cas la probabilit6 d'une r6ponse positive. Les r6sultats pr6sent6s au tableau 2 confirment nos hypotheses, A deux exceptions pres. Les coefficients lies a l'anticipation d'effets 6conomiques positifs a court terme et d'effets linguis-

19 Par exemple, un sondage command6 par le Comit6 du Non en janvier 1995 indi- quait que la question annonc6e dans l'avant-projet de loi sur la souverainet6 recueil- lait 50 pour cent de Oui chez les hommes et 42 pour cent chez les femmes. Si la question mentionnait que le Qu6bec se s6pare du Canada et devienne un pays ind6pendant, le Oui obtenait 45 pour cent chez les hommes et 35 pour cent chez les femmes (Cr6atec +, CROP et SOM, << Sondage sur l'intention de vote au r6f6rendum >). 20 Ces tests d'interaction, que nous ne pr6sentons pas dans ce texte, sont bas6s sur l'6quation du tableau 2. L'absence d'effet d'interaction signifie que l'appui inf6- rieur au Oui chez les femmes n'est pas dO' & une 6valuation diff6rente des cons6quences de la souverainet6 ou ' une propension diff6rente g voter en fonction de l'identit6 canadienne ou qu6b6coise. 21 Pour une analyse de l'opinion qu6b6coise sur la souverainet6 qui se fonde sur cette approche, voir Martin, , G6n6rations politiques, rationalit6 6conomique et appui A la souverainet6 au Qu6bec >. Martin conclut que les plus jeunes sont plus susceptibles que leurs ain6s d'tre influenc6s par leur perception des avantages 6conomiques de la souverainet6. Par cons6quent, nous ne nous attendons pas ' retrouver des distinctions aussi fortes entre les effets respectifs des gains et des pertes dans notre 6chantillon d'6tudiants universitaires que ce que nous devrions observer dans l'ensemble de la population. 22 Voir Alfred DeMaris, Logit Modeling: Practical Applications (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1992). Un problame potentiel li6 l'emploi de toute m6thode mul- tivari6e est celui de la colin6arit6. Dans le pr6sent cas, l'examen de la matrice de corr61lations entre les variables explicatives nous amene ~ conclure que la fiabilit6 de nos estimations n'est pas affect6e par ce probl6me.

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TABLEAU 2

DETERMINANTS DE L'APPUI A LA SOUVERAINETE: ANALYSE DE REGRESSION LOGISTIQUE

Coefficient Variables* de r6gression (erreur) R Constante -,85d (,22) Femme -1,03d (,19) -,12 Queb6cois(e) d'abord 2,06d (,20) ,23 Canadien(ne) d'abord -1,67d (,49) -,07 Emploi (1 an) Amelioration -,32 (,28) ,00 D6t6rioration -,58d (,13) -,09 Emploi (10 ans) Amblioration ,98d (,17) ,12 D6t6rioration -1,26d (,20) -,14 Frangais (10 ans) Amelioration ,66d (,11) ,13 Det6rioration -,58a (,33) -,02 Franqais (100 ans) Amblioration ,31c (,10) ,06 Det6rioration -,30 (,28) ,00 Pseudo-R2 ajust6** ,78 Pr6dictions correctes 89,4 % Khi-carr6 1 193,5 Nombre de cas 1 444 a < ,10 (signification statistique, test bilateral). b < ,05 (signification statistique, test bilateral). c < ,01 (signification statistique, test bilateral). d < ,001 (signification statistique, test bilateral). * Description des variables: Femme = 1 pour les femmes, 0 pour les hommes; Qubeicois d'abord = 1 si le r6pondant s'identifie comme < Qu6b6cois d'abord >, 0 pour les autres cat6gories (voir l'annexe); Canadien d'abord = 1 si le r6pondant s'identifie comme ? Canadien d'abord >, 0 pour les autres cat6gories (voire l'annexe); Variables relatives aux evaluations comparatives: Amelioration : Echelle de 0 ' 4; diff6rence entre l'6valuation de la situation si le Qu6bec devient souverain et s'il fait encore partie du Canada; valeur fix6e a 0 si cette diff6rence est nulle ou si elle est n6gative. Dete~rioration : Echelle de 0 ' 4; diff6rence entre l'6valuation de la situation si le Qu6bec devient souverain et s'il fait encore partie du Canada; valeur fix6e a 0 si cette diff6rence est nulle ou si elle est positive; cette variable a 6t6 ramenee sur une 6chelle positive pour que le signe du coefficient reflbte l'effet d'une de6trioration. ** Le pseudo-R2 est obtenu selon la formule: R2 =X2 / (X2 + N), oui X2 represente la mesure du khi-carr6 pour l'ensemble du module et N la taille de l'&chantillon (voir John H. Aldrich et Forrest D. Nelson, Linear Probability, Logit, and Probit Mod- els [Beverly Hills: Sage, 1984], 57). Nous utilisons ici l'ajustement du pseudo-R2 propos6 par Timothy Hagle et Glenn E. Mitchell II, ? Goodness of Fit Mesures for Probit and Logit >, American Journal of Political Science 36 (1992), 762-84.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 650 ANDREI BLAIS, PIERRE MARTIN et RICHARD NADEAU tiques n6gatifs a tres long terme ne sont pas significatifs. Ceci ne sau- rait 6tonner, car ces deux groupes sont peu nombreux et l'appui au Oui y est du meme ordre que dans le groupe de r6f6rence (cat6gorie 0).23 L'effet le plus important est bien stir celui des variables d'iden- tit6.24 Mais le choix identitaire s'accompagne d'un calcul des coots et des b6n6fices de chaque option, calcul qui affecte le vote de fagon appr6ciable. Sur ce plan, l'analyse multivari6e confirme et complete les r6sultats du tableau 1. La premiere observation concerne l'importance relative des con- sid6rations 6conomiques et linguistiques. Un examen des coefficients standardis6s R permet de constater que les attentes quant a la situation de l'emploi ' moyen terme l'emportent sur les autres dimensions.25 L'anticipation d'une amel1ioration immediate de l'emploi dans un Qu6bec souverain ne semble pas influencer le vote du tout, alors que l'anticipation d'une d6t6rioration 4 court terme n'a qu'une faible influence.26 Pour ce qui est des cons6quences 6conomiques a moyen terme, nous constatons que l'anticipation de gains influence le choix dans une mesure presque aussi grande que les pertes.27 Du point de vue du statut du franqais au Quebec, l'opinion sur la souverainet6 est nettement plus influenc6e par les attentes a moyen terme que par les attentes A tres long terme. De plus, les anticipations d'am61ioration dans un Qu6bec souverain l'emportent nettement sur les perspectives de perte. Cette observation est conforme A la perception courante selon laquelle la souverainet6 serait un projet rassurant sur le plan linguistique et culturel, mais qui comporterait toutefois une

23 Le pourcentage total des r6pondants qui entrevoient des effets 6conomiques positifs A court terme est de moins de 8 pour cent, alors que 14 pour cent pr6voient des effets linguistiques n6gatifs A tres long terme. Une lecture rapide du tableau 1 indique que la proportion de Oui dans ces groupes n'est pas trbs diff6rente de celle des groupes beaucoup plus nombreux qui n'entrevoient aucun changement. 24 Comme le groupe de base est compos6 des 6tudiants qui disent partager les deux identit6s ou ne se considbrent ni Qu6b6cois, ni Canadien (Oui = 20 %), il est normal que le coefficient le plus 61ev6 soit celui de la variable d'identit6 qu6b6coise (Oui = 82 %) plut6t que celui de la variable d'identit6 canadienne (Oui =4 %). 25 Le coefficient R de la r6gression logistique se compare au coefficient de corr61lation partiel standardis6 de l'analyse de r6gression lin6aire. Il se distribue entre -1 et +1 et rend compte de l'importance relative des diff6rentes variables dans l'explication (voir Marija J. Norugis, SPSS for Windows Advanced Statis- tics, Release 6.0 [Chicago: SPSS Inc., 1993], 5). 26 Il serait utile de v6rifier si cette tendance s'applique A l'ensemble de la population. Il est possible que les 6tudiants, a cause de leur jeune Age, accordent une plus faible importance au court terme dans leur d6cision. 27 Ceci s'explique en partie par la nature de l'6chantillon. Dans la population dans son ensemble, l'anticipation de gains 6conomiques associ6s i la souverainet6 tend A 8tre plus fortement associ6e l'opinion chez les jeunes que parmi les autres groupes (voir Martin << G6n6rations politiques, rationalit6 6conomique et appui ' la souverainet6 au Qu6bec >>).

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Attentes economiques et linguistiques et la souverainetd 651 part de risque sur le plan 6conomique. L'effet des attentes ' trbs long terme est limit6, mais suggere que le risque d'assimilation ou de mar- ginalisation culturelle dans le cadre canadien peut jouer un r81e dans la formation de l'opinion.28 Les graphiques 1 et 2 illustrent l'effet des variations dans les attentes sur la propension 'a appuyer la souverainet6. Le graphique 1 montre la propension a appuyer la souverainet6 selon le sentiment d'identit6 et le niveau des attentes relatives a l'emploi apres 10 ans. Nous avons d6j~ soulign6 que ceux qui s'identifient en tant que Qu6b6cois d'abord optent pour le Oui A plus de 80 pour cent. La plupart d'entre eux sont mod6r6ment optimistes quant aux cons6quences 6conomiques a moyen terme et c'est en partie pour cela qu'ils appuient la souverainet6 si fortement. Il faut cependant noter que le Oui baisserait de plus de 20 points de pourcentage parmi les <> si l'ensemble de ceux-ci pr6voyait une 16gere d6t6rioration (-1) de l'emploi. Chez ceux qui se disent Canadiens d'abord, par contre, l'appui au Oui n'atteint pas les 5 pour cent, en partie parce que ces derniers esti- ment que la souverainet6 aurait des effets 6conomiques n6fastes. Le graphique montre qu'il est extremement difficile pour les souverainistes de faire des gains dans ce groupe. La probabilit6 de voter Oui n'atteindrait les 10 pour cent parmi les << Canadiens d'abord >> que dans l'hypothese peu r6aliste oji tous s'attendraient ' une am61ioration modeste (+1) a moyen terme sur le plan 6conomique. Le choix des r6pondants qui ne se disent ni Canadiens ni Qu6b6cois ou qui partagent les deux identit6s, par contre, parait plus susceptible d'etre affect6 par la variation des attentes 6conomiques. Le passage d'une 6valuation neutre a une 6valuation mod6r6ment optimiste (de 0 ' +1) entralnerait une augmentation d'environ 15 points de pourcentage de l'appui ' la souverainet6 dans ce groupe. Finalement, cette illustration permet de constater l'effet plus important des anticipations de pertes compar6es aux anticipations de gains. Un changement des anticipations de 0 ' -1 fait baisser l'appui global de 15 points de pourcentage (de 54 % 'a 39 %), alors qu'une augmentation de 0 ' +1 ne fait augmenter l'appui que de 10 points (de 54% - 64%). Le graphique 2 permet de visualiser l'impact des attentes sur le plan linguistique. Ceux qui s'identifient comme Qu6b6cois sont relativement optimistes quant aux effets linguistiques de la souverainet6, mais si l'ensemble de ce groupe n'anticipait aucun gain linguistique a moyen

28 Il est a souligner qu'une seule interaction entre la variable d'identit6 qu6b6coise et les huit variables mesurant les attentes est significative. Le Non des <> semble davantage influenc6 par la perspective de pertes 6conomi- ques, alors que le Oui des autres serait plus influenc6 par les perspectives de gains 6conomiques.

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GRAPHIQUE 1 APPUI A LA SOUVERAINETE SELON DIFFERENTES HYPOTHESES SUR LES ATTENTES AU SUJET DE LA SITUATION DE L'EMPLOI APRES 10 ANS

100%

90% - - - - I ---......

80% ------

7 0 % ------?------

60% ------

30% ------

2 0 % ------~ ------? ------

1 0 % ------

-4 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4

-4/-1 = Detbrioration 0 = Pas de diff6rence +1/+4 = Am6lioration

Groupes dMfinis par I'identification en tant que Qu6b6cois ou Canadien Ensemble X Qu6b6cois d'abord, 60% Les deux/Aucun, 28% X Canadiens d'abord, 12%

GRAPHIQUE 2 APPUI A LA SOUVERAINETE SELON DIFFERENTES HYPOTHESES SUR LES ATTENTES AU SUJET DE LA SITUATION DU FRANCAIS APRES 10 ANS

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40% -- - -

30% -----

20%

10%-

0% -4 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4

-4/-1 = D6t6rioration 0 = Pas de diff6rence +1/+4 = Am6lioration

Groupes d6finis par I'identification en tant que Qu6b6cois ou Canadien - Ensemble X Qu6b6cois d'abord, 60% Les deux/Aucun, 28% X Canadiens d'abord, 12%

Note: Dans les graphiques I et 2, 1'estimation du pourcentage de Oui selon diverses hypotheses est obtenue en reprenant 1'equation du tableau 2 pour chaque r6pondant aprbs avoir fix6 la valeur de la variable-cible A chacun des neuf points de l'6chelle. L'&quation de r6gression logistique attribue une probabilit6 A chaque r6pondant d'opter pour le Oui en fonction de chacune de ces neuf valeurs. Chaque point report6 sur le graphique repr6sente la moyenne de ces probabilit6s exprimde en pourcentage. Les flches indiquent la valeur moyenne de la variable-cible pour chacun des groupes et pour 1'ensemble de 1'6chantillon des francophones.

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terme, son niveau d'appui au Oui baisserait d'une dizaine de points de pourcentage. Ceux qui partagent les deux identit6s ou n'en adoptent aucune, pour leur part, ont tendance 'a anticiper peu de changement sur le plan linguistique. Nos estimations suggerent toutefois que, si l'ensemble de ce groupe pr6voyait une am61lioration substantielle (+2), l'appui au Oui dans ce groupe atteindrait 30 pour cent. Quant 'a ceux qui s'identifient comme Canadiens, ils sont trbs fortement opposes 'a la souverainet6 et seraient tres peu enclins 'a appuyer cette option, m~me s'ils y asso- ciaient des gains linguistiques consid6rables. Ces illustrations de l'effet des variables montrent que l'appui 'a la sou- verainet6 est un peu plus sensible aux variations du niveau des attentes 6conomiques qu'aux variations dans les attentes linguistiques. Elles rap- pellent que 1' appui 'a la souverainet6 est trbs fortement li6 au sentiment d'identit6, mais que le calcul des coits et des b6n6fices peut repr6senter la diff6rence entre une victoire du Oui ou une victoire du Non.

Conclusion

Dans ce texte, nous avons abord6 directement un certain nombre de questions auxquelles les etudes existantes n'avaient pas su apporter de r6ponse satisfaisante. Dans un premier temps, notre r6flexion theori- que, fond6e sur la th6orie 6conomique du vote, nous a amen6s 'a repenser la mesure des cofts et b6n6fices anticip6s de la souverainet6 du Quebec tels que pergus par l'1lecteur qui fait face 'a son propre choix d'orientation. Notre sondage sort donc des sentiers battus en proposant une approche r6solument prospective et comparative. Cette approche nouvelle nous permet d'approfondir les connaissances sur la formation de l'opinion qu6b6coise au sujet de la souverainet6, tout en ouvrant la voie 'a d'autres avenues de recherche. II convient de souligner ici quelques observations sur l'apport relatif des attentes 6co- nomiques et linguistiques, d'une part, et sur l'horizon temporel de ces attentes, d'autre part. L'utilisation d'indicateurs permettant de mesurer de fagon 6quili- br6e les attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques nous r6vele que, si l'effet des premieres est plus important, les secondes y occupent une place non n6gligeable. Pour ce qui est des attentes 6conomiques, nos donn6es indiquent que les 6tudiants font la part des choses entre l'impact "a court terme de la secession et les consequences 'a plus long terme de la souverainet6. Les participants 'a notre sondage sont plut6t pessimistes quant 'a l'impact de la secession sur l'emploi & court terme, mais ce pessimisme ne se reflete que de fagon marginale sur les intentions de vote. Leur choix d6pend plus de l'image qu'ils se font de l'6tat de l'6conomie A moyen terme. Du point de vue de la th6orie 6conomique du vote, qui tient compte du taux d'actualisation des attentes, une telle

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 654 ANDRE BLAIS, PIERRE MARTIN et RICHARD NADEAU attitude semble bien adapt6e a une decision qui, a l'inverse de la plupart des 61ections normales, a de fortes chances d'&tre irr6versible.29 I1 convient de garder t l'esprit que l'analyse qui pr6cede porte sur un 6chantillon d'6tudiants et qu'on ne peut pas n6cessairement g6n6raliser tous ses r6sultats t l'ensemble de la population qu6b6coise. I1 est probable, en particulier, que les attentes de court terme influencent davantage le choix des 61ecteurs plus ag6s. Nous avons cependant pu observer certains paralleles entre certaines relations observ6es dans notre 6chantillon d'6tudiants et des relations observ6es dans d'autres enquetes portant sur l'ensemble de la population. Nous ne pr6tendons nullement que l'appui ou l'opposition a la souverainet6 depend uniquement ou meme principalement d'un calcul prospectif et comparatif des cons6quences 6ventuelles 6conomiques et linguistiques des options souverainiste et f6d6raliste. En effet, une large part de cette d6cision relkve de l'int6riorisation d'une identit6 collective, ph6nomene dont la compr6hension relive plus de l'6tude de la socialisation politique sur une longue p6riode que de la mesure de l'opinion d'un instant. Ceci dit, nous croyons que les 61ecteurs tentent d'6valuer de leur mieux ce qui risque de se produire si le Qu6bec devient un pays souverain et s'il reste dans le Canada avant de d6cider comment ils vont voter au r6f6rendum, et que la th6orie 6conomique de la decision politique offre une explication valable, quoique partielle, de cette d6cision. De ce point de vue, il est souhaitable que la mesure des attentes soit prospective et comparative, conform6ment A la logique de la th6orie. Pour terminer, il importe de souligner que le cadre th6orique que nous avons adopt6 pourrait encore etre approfondi, notamment en y int6grant la dimension de l'incertitude. On peut supposer que de nombreux 61ecteurs trouvent difficile, voire impossible, de pr6dire les consequences des diff6rentes options constitutionnelles et qu'il fau- drait donc tenir compte de la plus ou moins grande incertitude que 1'61ecteur attache A ses previsions et a l'importance relative qu'il donne a cette incertitude.30

29 Cette attitude pourrait 8tre plus marqu6e chez les jeunes 61ecteurs. Chez les 61ec- teurs plus ag6s, il est possible que les consid6rations de court terme prennent plus d'importance. 30 Sur l'importance de l'incertitude dans les choix politiques individuels, voir R. Michael Alvarez et Charles H. Franklin, <, Journal of Politics 56 (1994), 671-88. Pour une premiere exploration du r61e de l'incertitude et du risque dans le choix r6f6rendaire, voir Pierre Martin, Andr6 Blais et Richard Nadeau,

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Annexe: libelle des questions retenues pour cette etude

Sondage sur l'avenir politique du Quebec Priere de r6pondre a chaque question en cochant la case appropri6e ou en inscrivant la r6ponse. 1. S'il y avait un r6f6rendum aujourd'hui sur la souverainet6 du Quebec, comment voteriez-vous? 1. OUI, pour la souverainet6 2. NON, contre la souverainet6 3. Je ne voterais pas 4. J'annulerais mon vote 5. Je n'ai pas le droit de vote 6. Je ne sais pas 7. Refus la. S'il y avait un r6f6rendum aujourd'hui sur la souverainet6 du Qu6bec, proposant que le Quebec se s6pare du Canada pour former un pays ind6pendant, comment voteriez-vous? 1. OUI, pour la souverainet6 2. NON, contre la souverainet6 3. Je ne voterais pas 4. J'annulerais mon vote 5. Je n'ai pas le droit de vote 6. Je ne sais pas 7. Refus 2. Si le Quebec devient un pays souverain, pensez-vous que la situation du frangais au Quebec dans les 10 prochaines ann6es: 1. S'am61iorera fortement 2. S'am61iorera 16gerement 3. Ne changera pas 4. Se d6t6riorera 16gerement 5. Se d6t6riorera fortement 6. Je ne sais pas 7. Refus 3. Si le Quebec reste une province du Canada, pensez-vous que la situation du frangais au Qu6bec dans les 10 prochaines ann6es: 1. S'am61iorera fortement 2. S'am61iorera 16gerement 3. Ne changera pas 4. Se d6t6riorera 16gerement 5. Se d6t6riorera fortement 6. Je ne sais pas 7. Refus

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4. Si le Quebec devient un pays souverain, quelle est la probabilit6, selon vous, que le frangais disparaisse au Quebec d'ici 100 ans? 1. Tres probable que le frangais disparaisse 2. Assez probable que le frangais disparaisse 3. Assez improbable que le frangais disparaisse 4. Tres improbable que le frangais disparaisse 5. Je ne sais pas 6. Refus 5. Si le Quebec reste une province du Canada, quelle est la probabili- t6, selon vous, que le frangais disparaisse au Quebec d'ici 100 ans? 1. Tres probable que le frangais disparaisse 2. Assez probable que le frangais disparaisse 3. Assez improbable que le frangais disparaisse 4. Tres improbable que le frangais disparaisse 5. Je ne sais pas 6. Refus 7. Vous consid6rez-vous: 1. D'abord Canadien(ne) 2. D'abord Qu6b6cois(e) 3. Egalement Canadien(ne) et Qu6b6cois(e) 4. Rien de tout cela 5. Je ne sais pas 6. Refus 8. Si le Quebec devient un pays souverain en 1995, pensez-vous que le taux de chomage, apres un an, sera: 1. Beaucoup plus 61ev6 2. Un peu plus 61ev6 3. Le meme 4. Un peu moins 61ev6 5. Beaucoup moins 61ev6 6. Je ne sais pas 7. Refus 9. Et apres dix ans, pensez-vous que le taux de ch6mage sera: 1. Beaucoup plus 61ev6 2. Un peu plus 61ev6 3. Le meme 4. Un peu moins 61ev6 5. Beaucoup moins 61ev6 6. Je ne sais pas 7. Refus

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10. Si le Quebec d6cide de continuer de faire partie du Canada en 1995, pensez-vous que le taux de ch6mage, apres un an, sera: 1. Beaucoup plus 61ev6 2. Un peu plus 61ev6 3. Le meme 4. Un peu moins 61ev6 5. Beaucoup moins 61ev6 6. Je ne sais pas 7. Refus 11. Et apres dix ans, pensez-vous que le taux de ch6mage sera: 1. Beaucoup plus 61ev6 2. Un peu plus 61ev6 3. Le meme 4. Un peu moins 61ev6 5. Beaucoup moins 61ev6 6. Je ne sais pas 7. Refus 19. Quel est votre sexe? 1. F6minin 2. Masculin 20. Quelle est la premiere langue que vous avez apprise? 1. Frangais 2. Anglais 3. Autre

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 14:29:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rationality and Sovereignty Support in Quebec*

PAUL HOWE University of British Columbia

In the past 10 years, political events have sparked renewed interest in the motivations that underpin support for Quebec sovereignty. Much of this work focuses on three factors that appear to be significant determinants of sovereignty support: national identity, the perceived economic costs and benefits of sovereignty and the perceived impact of sovereignty on the condition of the French language in Quebec.' Scholarly attention has primarily focused on the latter two factors. The thinking seems to be that identity, though a more powerful predictor of sovereignty support than economic or linguistic considerations, is less susceptible to modification. Whereas people's views about the concrete consequences of sovereignty might be changed through rational argument and persuasion, the strength of their national identity is unlikely to be materially altered. Thus, changes in sovereignty support-short-

* The author thanks Richard Johnston for his comments on an earlier draft of this article. 1 Survey-based analysis along these lines can be found in Andre Blais and Richard Nadeau, "To Be or Not to Be Sovereigntist: Quebeckers' Perennial Dilemma," Canadian Public Policy 28 (1992), 89-103; Pierre Martin, "G6n6rations politiques, rationalit6 6conomique et appui ' la souverainet6 au Qu6bec," this JOURNAL 27 (1994), 345-59; Richard Nadeau and Christopher J. Fleury, "Gains linguistiques anticip6s et appui ' la souverainet6 du Qu6bec," this JOURNAL 28 (1995), 35-50; Andre Blais, Pierre Martin and Richard Nadeau, "Attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques et appui ' la souverainet6 du Qu6bec: une analyse prospective et comparative," this JOURNAL 28 (1995), 637-57; and Richard Johnston, Andr6 Blais, Elisa- beth Gidengil and Neil Nevitte, The Challenge of Direct Democracy: The 1992 Canadian Referendum (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996), 195-201. Other works, which do not draw on survey evidence, but which employ a similar analytical framework, include Hudson Meadwell, "The Politics of Nationalism in Quebec," World Politics 45 (1993), 203-41; St6phane Dion, "Explaining Quebec Nationalism," in R. Kent Weaver, ed., The Collapse of Canada? (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1992); and St6phane Dion, "Why Is Secession Difficult in Well-Established Democracies? Lessons from Quebec," British Journal of Political Science 26 (1996), 269-83.

Paul Howe, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, C472-1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1. E-mail: [email protected]

Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, XXXI:1 (March/mars 1998). 0 1998 Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Socitk qubbcoise de science politique.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 32 PAUL HOWE term changes, anyway-are most likely to be achieved by persuading people to rethink their assumptions about the likely impact of sovereignty on the Quebec economy and French language.2 This article offers two new contributions to this body of literature. First, it examines the tractability of people's judgments concerning the economic and linguistic impacts of sovereignty. To determine whether these opinions are susceptible to modification, attention is directed to how they are derived. Are they, as typically would be assumed, rational assessments, formed through unbiased evaluation of relevant objective factors? Not entirely, or even primarily, the analysis below suggests. Focusing on economic perceptions in particular, it is argued that embedded beliefs and convictions are important determinants of Que- beckers' opinions about the likely effects of sovereignty. National identity, for one, has a significant influence on such perceptions. So too, it is suggested, does sovereignty support itself: rather than sunny assessments of the economic effects of sovereignty generating sovereignty support, it is enthusiasm for sovereignty that causes people to be optimistic about its economic consequences. In short, there is considerable rationalization at work, as those who feel strongly Qu6b6cois and/or support Quebec sovereignty find themselves persuaded that sovereignty will bring economic benefits in its wake. This suggests that efforts to alter overall levels of support for sovereignty by changing people's views about its tangible consequences are unlikely to succeed. The second finding reported here concerns the salience of economic and language considerations within different subgroups of the Quebec population. Specifically, it is argued that the impact of these factors is differentially distributed across the spectrum of national identity. For those with weak and intermediate Qu6b6cois identities, they are relatively important. For those with very strong Qu6b6cois identities, they are largely immaterial. This second observation points to a different conclusion from the first. It suggests that it might be possible to alter overall levels of support for sovereignty, since those with weaker identities are more likely to be borderline sovereigntists, who need only a small push to go over to the sovereigntist camp (or move back to the federalist side). In sum, certain sections of the Quebec population are more likely than others to be affected by arguments aimed at altering perceptions of the economic and linguistic consequences of sovereignty, but this only to the extent that their perceptions are rationally derived, rather than mere rationalizations of other, deeply embedded opinions. The final conclusions concerning these matters are somewhat tentative, since the data used in this analysis do not allow for anything

2 This implication is spelled out in Nadeau and Fleury, "Gains linguistiques," 50, and in Martin, "Gen6rations politiques, rationalit6 6conomique et appui " la souverainet6 au Quebec," 358.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Abstract. Recent research has identified three factors as significant determinants of sovereignty support in Quebec: national identity, assessments of the likely impact of sovereignty on Quebec's economy and perceptions of the impact of sovereignty on the French language in Quebec. Drawing on data from the 1992-1993 Canadian Referen- dum and Election Survey, the article suggests that the latter two factors may not be genuine causes of sovereignty support, but rather rationalizations of other, deeply embedded sentiments. National identity and sovereignty support itself, it is argued, are important determinants of people's expectations concerning the economic and linguistic impacts of sovereignty. However, this may not be equally true across the board. Instead, the influence of economic and language considerations seems to be differentially distributed across the spectrum of national identity. Thus, the rational evaluation of economic and linguistic considerations probably has less leverage over sovereignty support than is usually assumed, and its influence, such as it is, is concentrated in certain sections of the population only. Resum". Les travaux r6cents ont identifi6 trois facteurs contribuant fortement a l'appui ' la souverainet6 au Qu6bec: l'identit6 nationale, les jugements sur l'impact probable de la souverainet6 sur l'6conomie du Qu6bec et l'impact perqu de la souverainet6 sur la langue frangaise au Qu6bec. Cet article, qui utilise les donn6es du << 1992-1993 Canadian Referendum and Election Survey >>, suggere que les deux derniers facteurs ne sont pas de v6ritable facteurs pouvant expliquer l'appui ' la souverai- net6, mais constituent plut6t la rationalisation d'autres sentiments bien implant6s. L'identit6 nationale et l'appui a la souverainet6 elle-meme, affirme-t-on, sont des d6terminants importants en ce qui a trait aux attentes de l'impact 6conomique et linguistique de la souverainet6. Cependant, ce n'est pas le cas 6galement pour tous. L'influence des consid6rations 6conomiques et linguistiques est plut6t in6galement distribu6e a travers la gamme de l'identit6 nationale. II est done probable que l'6valua- tion rationnelle des consid6rations 6conomiques et linguistiques ait moins d'impact sur l'appui ' la souverainet6 qu'on ne le suppose habituellement, et cette influence, pour ce qu'elle vaut, est concentr6e dans quelques parties de la population seulement. more. Suggestions are made, at various points, of possible directions for future research, including the types of survey questions that might permit more definitive quantitative analysis of the issues raised here.

Determinants of Support for Quebec Sovereignty: Preliminary Results This section sets the stage for the following two by presenting preliminary estimates of the impact of national identity, economic perceptions and evaluations of the French-language situation on sovereignty support. The data used in the analysis are from the 1992-1993 Canadian Referendum and Election Survey (CRES).3 This study consists of five different surveys administered before and after the October 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown Accord and the October 1993 Canadian election. For the first part of this analysis, comparable data from the

3 Data from the 1992-1993 Canadian Referendum and Election Survey were provided by the Institute for Social Research, York University. The survey was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), grant numbers 411-92-0019 and 421-92-0026, and was completed for Richard Johnston, Andr6 Blais, Henry Brady, Elisabeth Gidengil and Neil Nevitte. The current author alone is responsible for the analyses and interpretations presented here.

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1992 "pre-referendum" and 1993 "campaign-period" surveys have been pooled in order to maximize the sample size. Some people participated in both these surveys; for these people the pre-referendum data have been used.4 The dependent variable used in the analysis is based on the question: "What is your opinion on Quebec sovereignty, that is, Quebec is no longer a part of Canada?" Possible responses, and the values assigned to them, were: very opposed (0), somewhat opposed (0.333), somewhat favourable (0.667), very favourable (1), neither favourable nor opposed (0.5) and don't know (0.5). This coding protocol deviates from the practice followed by other researchers, who have tended to use a binary dependent variable (sovereigntists versus non-sovereigntists). Dichotomization admittedly has the merit of simplicity and does allow for analysis that speaks to the issue of greatest practical relevance-will there be majority support for sovereignty in the next referendum? But it also represents a loss of information. It is well established that supporters of sovereignty, on a simple yes/no question, differ considerably in the intensity of their sovereigntist yearnings. Some apparent sovereigntists would actually prefer that Quebec remain part of Canada with some sort of enhanced status and powers.5 By not collapsing sovereignty

4 The 1,091 francophone respondents from Quebec used in the analysis include 784 from the pre-referendum survey and 307 from the campaign-period survey. The two groups were combined in order to maximize the sample size. A large sample size is particularly important when measuring interaction effects, as discussed below in this article. For the campaign-period respondents, data for the national identity variable are taken from the "post-election survey," a follow-up that took place very shortly after the election; this is because the relevant questions were not asked in the campaign-period survey. It is for this reason that pre-referendum data have been used in preference to campaign-period data, where both are available for a particular respondent. For full details of the CRES design, see David A. Northrup and Anne E. Owram, The 1993 Canadian Election Study, Incorporating the 1992 Referendum Survey on the Charlottetown Accord: Techni- cal Documentation (Toronto: Institute for Social Research, York University, 1994). 5 For an analysis of differences of opinion among Yes voters in the 1980 Quebec referendum, see Richard Hamilton and Maurice Pinard, "Les Qu6b6cois votent NON: le sens et la port6e du vote," in Jean Crete, ed., Comportement electoral au Quibec (Chicoutimi: Gaetan Morin, 1984). Hamilton and Pinard estimate that two fifths of Yes voters were hoping, first and foremost, to set in motion negotiations for a renewed federalism. Large numbers of Yes voters were also, they suggest, ill-informed, believing that Quebec would remain a province of Canada under sovereignty-association (361). Such misperceptions are still wide- spread today. For example, according to a 1994 poll, many Quebeckers think that in a "sovereign" Quebec they will continue to pay Canadian taxes (26%), send MPs to Ottawa (27%) and "be part of Canada" (42%) (see The Globe and Mail [Toronto], July 15, 1994, A4). These figures indicate that some sovereignty supporters actually want greater powers and an enhanced status for Quebec, rather than independence proper.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rationality and Sovereignty Support in Quebec 35 responses, this information-variation in sovereigntist sentiment-is retained for present purposes. Embedded in the specific numeric values assigned to the sovereignty response categories is an important assumption: namely, that there is a constant change in the intensity of sovereignty support in moving from "very opposed" to "somewhat opposed," from "somewhat opposed" to "somewhat favourable" and from "somewhat favourable" to "very favourable"; the distance between each pair of response categories is 0.333. The validity of this assumption might be questioned, in particular the supposition that the gap between "somewhat opposed" and "somewhat favourable" is equivalent to the other two. Crossing the sovereignty threshold, some might contend, implies a larger shift in intensity of sovereignty support. For this reason, the quantitative analysis was subjected to further testing, using alternative values for the sovereignty response categories-for example, 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0 (thereby increasing the distance between the "somewhat opposed" and "somewhat favourable" categories). Though such variations do affect the precise magnitude of regression coefficients, they do not affect the general thrust of any of the results reported here. Table 1 shows support for sovereignty among the 1,091 Quebec francophone respondents included in the analysis. The mean value of this dependent variable is 0.50.6 The bivariate relationship between sovereignty support and the three independent variables of interest is shown in the first three columns of Table 2.7 All seem to have a sizeable effect on sovereignty support. For example, the perception that the French language is threatened in Quebec increases support for sovereignty by 0.17 points.8

6 As part of a question wording experiment by the designers of the 1992-1993 CRES, half of the respondents in the pre-referendum survey, selected at random, were asked a soft version of the sovereignty question, which omitted the phrase "that is, Quebec is no longer a part of Canada." Among this group, mean support for sovereignty was markedly higher (0.56 versus 0.46 for those asked the question with the phrase included). In order to see if this variation in question wording was important, the analysis conducted for this study was carried out separately for three different subgroups: the two groups of pre-referendum respondents and the campaign-period respondents (who were also asked the hard version of the sovereignty question). No differences relevant to the results reported here were observed. 7 The data in this and all subsequent tables are based on ordinary least-square regression. Weights have been applied in all analyses to compensate for differences in the probability of being selected as a respondent in households of varying size. Though such household weights are provided in the CRES data file, new ones were required for the present analysis because of the particular mix of respondents used. These were calculated in the manner described in Northrup and Owram, The 1993 Canadian Election Study, 9-11. 8 The precise question wording: "In your opinion, is the French language threatened in Quebec?"

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Among those who believe that their standard of living would be "a little worse" in an independent Quebec, support for sovereignty is 0.19 points higher than among those who feel it would be a "lot worse" ;9 while the level of support among those who think their standard of living will "get better" or "stay the same" is 0.37 points greater than in the comparison group.'0 National identity, a variable based on the difference between respondents' strength of attachment to Quebec and their strength of attachment to Canada, shows stronger effects still." Among those with a very strong Qu6b6cois identity, support for sovereignty is 0.58 points greater than in the base category (those whose attachment to Canada is equal to, or greater than, their attachment to Quebec). Lesser effects are seen for those with weaker Qu6b6cois identities. Thus, national identity is the most important determinant of sovereignty support, but it does not seem to act alone, for language concerns and economic considerations appear to have significant impacts too.

TABLE 1

SUPPORT FOR QUEBEC SOVEREIGNTY, 1992-1993 (as percentages)

Opinion on Sovereignty (n = 1,091) Very opposed (0) 22 Somewhat opposed (0.333) 20 Neither favourable nor opposed/ Don't know (0.50) 10 Somewhat favourable (0.667) 30 Very favourable (1) 18 Mean value 0.50

9 The precise question wording: "If Quebec separates from Canada, do you think your standard of living will get better, get worse, or stay about the same as now?" Respondents answering "get better" were then asked, "A lot better or only a little better?" Respondents answering "get worse" were asked, "A lot worse or only a little worse?" Those who answered "don't know" to these follow-up questions were coded as "a little better" and "a little worse." 10 The "get better" and "stay the same" categories are collapsed into one because there is relatively little difference in sovereignty support between the two. As others have argued and demonstrated, it is fear of economic loss more than anticipation of economic gain that seems to affect support for sovereignty in Quebec. See Martin, "G6n6rations politiques, rationalit6 6conomique et appui ' la souve- rainet6 au Quebec," 354-55. 11 The precise wording for the two questions is, "How do you feel about Quebec [Canada]?" with a feeling thermometer, running from 0 to 100, used to measure responses.

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The same result seems to hold true when these variables are con- jointly analyzed using multivariate regression techniques. Results are shown in the fourth column of Table 2. All three variables, identity, language concerns and economic considerations continue to have statistically significant impacts on support for sovereignty. The coefficient for the language variable is fairly small (0.05), but this is partly because it is based on a question that asks about the current condition of the French language. Other researchers have found similar effects for such variables, and have also shown that larger impacts are apparent when survey questions tap into prospective and comparative evaluations of the language situation.12 The question used for the economics variable is structured in this way, asking people to compare their future standard of living in an independent Quebec to their current standard of living, and its coefficients are somewhat larger (0.11 for those who think their standard of living would be a little worse and 0.23 for those who feel there would be no change or an enhancement). One possible drawback with this question, however, is that it measures personal economic expectations. This might be considered problematic since much of the voting literature suggests that sociotropic economic considerations (those pertaining to the nation's economic condition) are more important determinants of voter behaviour than personal economic concerns.13 But there is reason to think this observation may not apply equally to the sovereignty support decision. Sociotropic considerations influence voting, it is said, because people perceive that government action affects the national economy; conversely, personal considerations do not influence voting because people believe government action has little impact on their personal economic fortunes, which are seen more as a function of individual circumstance.14 Whether to opt for sovereignty, however, is almost certainly looked upon as a decision of greater economic consequence than choosing a government. Thus, people have reason to believe its economic ramifications, which would affect the nation as a whole, would also reverberate down to the personal level.

12 For example, a CROP survey from September 1993 asked "Si le Quebec se s6- pare du Canada, pensez-vous que la situation du frangais au Quebec s'am6- liorera, restera la meme ou se d6t6riorera?" Multivariate analysis, incorporating identity and economic expectations, found a difference of 0.21 (where the dependent variable was coded 0 and 1) between those who thought the situation of the French language would deteriorate in a separate Quebec and those who thought it would improve. With the same controls in place, it also found a coefficient of 0.08 for a variable based on the same question as that used in the current analysis. See Nadeau and Fleury, "Gains linguistiques," 42-43. 13 See, for example, Donald R. Kinder and D. Roderick Kiewet, "Sociotropic Politics: The American Case," British Journal of Political Science 11 (1981), 129-61. 14 Ibid., 157.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms TABLE 2 o

DETERMINANTS OF SUPPORT FOR QUEBEC SOVEREIGNTY, BIVARIATE AND MULTIVARIATE COMPARISON Variablesa Model 1lb Model 2b Model 3b Model 4b Quebec-Canada attachment 1

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The potential ramifications that are likely of particular import are those that voting research has revealed to be important determinants of personal economic expectations (interest rates and taxation levels).'5 Critics claim that a declaration of Quebec independence would create grave economic uncertainty, forcing Quebec to increase interest rates to placate wary foreign investors. Independence would also, so it is argued, leave Quebec encumbered with a high debt that would make it necessary to raise taxes to onerous levels. These are worst-case scenarios, of course, but they nevertheless form part of the backdrop against which Quebeckers must evaluate sovereignty. With such dire predictions in the air, it seems fair to say that people have reason to believe their personal economic fortunes may be at stake in the matter. There- fore, personal economic expectations are likely to have an effect on sovereignty support comparable to sociotropic assessments. And indeed, the empirical evidence corroborates this theoretical reasoning. Whereas personal economic expectations have a negligible impact on voting decisions in many places,'6 the data in Table 2 suggest they have a significant effect on sovereignty support. Similar effects have been reported elsewhere.17 Moreover, these effects are comparable to those seen for sociotropic expectations about the general standard of living in a sovereign Quebec.' Thus, the initial evidence suggests that there is considerable rational evaluation of substantive costs and benefits underlying support for Quebec sovereignty. Though national identity is the most significant variable, both language and personal economic considerations also appear to contribute to sovereignty support.

The Causal Influence of Language and Economic Perceptions These preliminary results and conclusions do not differ greatly from those previously reported elsewhere. However, further investigation of the relationship between these variables suggests that the influence on sovereignty support of the tangible considerations of language and economics may be overstated. First, it is significant that the coefficients

15 See David Sanders, David Marsh and Hugh Ward, "The Electoral Impact of Press Coverage of the British Economy, 1979-87," British Journal of Political Sci- ence 23 (1993), 191; and Harold D. Clarke and Marianne C. Stewart, "Economic Evaluations, Prime Ministerial Approval and Governing Party Support: Rival Mod- els Reconsidered," British Journal of Political Science 25 (1995), 147. 16 See, for example, Michael S. Lewis-Beck, "Comparative Economic Voting: Britain, France, Germany, Italy," American Journal of Political Science 30 (1986), 315-46. 17 Nadeau and Fleury, "Gains linguistiques," Table 2, 43. 18 Martin, "G6nerations politiques, rationalit6 economique et appui ' la souverai- net6 au Quebec," Table 1, 354.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 40 PAUL HOWE associated with the language and economic variables change dramati- cally from the bivariate to the multivariate case. The effect of these substantive considerations on sovereignty support is markedly reduced when they are run together with national identity, while the impact of identity is diminished but slightly (a result that appears consistently in multivariate analyses with these particular variables).19 In this case, the coefficient for language is reduced to about 30 per cent of its former level (0.05 versus 0.17), while both the economics coefficients are nearly halved (0.11 versus 0.19; and 0.23 versus 0.37). Meanwhile, the identity coefficients remain at about 70 to 80 per cent of their previous level (compare columns 1 and 4 in Table 2). These changes from the bivariate to multivariate case indicate something important: the explanatory variables are highly correlated, and part of the apparent effect of linguistic and economic considerations in the bivariate case is simply a reflection of identity effects. A reasonable interpretation of this result is that national identity partly shapes people's perceptions of the substantive costs and benefits associated with separation. That is to say, the stronger someone's Qu6b6cois identity is, the more likely they are to think that the French language is threatened in Quebec and that their standard of living would improve, or at least not deteriorate, in an independent Quebec. These perceptions, in turn, make people more supportive of Quebec sovereignty; but the root cause of this increased support is a strong Qu6b6cois identity. There is, then, a certain amount of projection or rationalization at work, as those with a strong national identity tend to hold different views about the likely consequences of sovereignty from those with weaker identities.20

19 Compare, for example, the bivariate and multivariate results presented in Blais and Nadeau, "To Be or Not to Be Sovereigntist"; Nadeau and Fleury, "Gains linguistiques"; and Blais et al., "Attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques et appui i la souverainet6 du Qu6bec." 20 It is also possible that the causation runs the other way. A sense that one's standard of living would improve in an independent Quebec might tend to make people feel more Queb6cois (if this were so, the significant decrease in the coefficient associated with the economics variable would indicate that economic perceptions, in part, influence sovereignty support only to the extent they alter national identity). The assumption here is that the formation of national identity is likely to be causally prior to assessments of the tangible consequences of sovereignty. This interpretation seems consistent with common sense. National identity is something that people feel from a relatively early age (childhood or adolescence), whereas evaluation of technical questions like the economic impact of sovereignty is something people would typically start to reflect on at a later stage of life (early adulthood and on, say). This is, however, an area that merits further investigation. Survey research might play its part by asking respondents retrospective questions about these matters. For example: When did you first become aware of your Qu6becois identity? Did you support sovereignty at that point? Did economic factors play a role in your decision to support sovereignty?

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But if perceptions of the substantive consequences of sovereignty are partly shaped by identity, it does not necessarily mean that their independent impact on sovereignty support has been overestimated. If identity is controlled for in estimating language and economic effects, then so, too, is the rationalization phenomenon-or so it would seem. But a closer examination of the reasoning that underlies people's evaluations of the tangible impacts of sovereignty suggests that the rationalization phenomenon may run deeper than this. Consequently, controlling for identity in the standard fashion may not suffice. Consider, for example, the considerations that feed into people's opinions about the economic consequences of sovereignty. It has already been suggested that identity is one important factor affecting these evaluations, and Table 3 confirms this. The table shows the results of bivariate regression analysis, where the dependent variable is now respondents' assessments of the impact of sovereignty on their standard of living. For the purposes of this analysis, the variable has not been collapsed as it was before (and therefore takes on five values ranging from "a lot worse" to "a lot better," which have been transformed to a 0 to 1 scale). National identity is the sole independent variable. For reasons indicated below, the analysis is now based on data from the campaign-period survey only.21 The coefficients in Table 3 suggest that people's evaluations of the economic consequences of sovereignty are heavily influenced by their national identity. Those with the strongest attachment to Quebec differ in their assessment of the economic impact of sovereignty by 0.21 (that is, nearly one full category) over the comparison group. This is no great surprise, of course, since the large change in coefficients in the multivariate analysis of sovereignty support in Table 2 indicated that these two variables were significantly correlated. But identity does not tell us all there is to know about people's economic assessments, and it is in searching for other inputs to this reasoning that a more striking result emerges. The implicit assumption to this point-and the assumption in most quantitative analyses of sovereignty support in Quebec-is that these other inputs, whatever they may be, are external to the sovereignty support model. Something or other, unaffected by variables in the model, influences people's evaluations of the impact of sovereignty on their standard of living, and these evaluations, in turn, affect support for sovereignty. The economics variable, in other words, is assumed to be exogenous, its values determined exclusively by factors external to the model (or included as

21 The number of campaign-period respondents in Table 3 is larger than reported above. This is because those who participated in both the pre-referendum and campaign-period surveys, previously classified as pre-referendum respondents, are now classified as campaign-period respondents.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 42 PAUL HOWE independent variables in the model). It is possible, however, that the minedeconomics by the variable dependent is endogenous-that variable in the model. its values The causation,are partly in deter-other words, may run the other way, with support for Quebec sovereignty leading people to anticipate an unchanged or improved standard of living in an independent Quebec.

TABLE 3

DETERMINANTS OF STANDARD OF LIVING PERCEPTIONS, BIVARIATE ANALYSIS

Variablesa B (SE)

Quebec-Canada attachment 1 < Quebec-Canada ? 19 (less Queb6cois) 0.11 (0.03) 20 5 Quebec-Canada ? 29 0.16 (0.03)

5130 ? Quebec-Canada ? Quebec-Canada ? 100 (more Qu6b6cois) 0.21 (0.04) ? 50 , 0.18 (0.02) Constant 0.30 (0.01) Adjusted R2 0.11 N 684 a Variable definition: Standard of living perceptions: a lot worse (0), a little worse (0.25), stay the same/don't know (0.50), a little better (0.75), a lot better (1). Que- bec-Canada attachment: all categories are dummy variables, with a value of 1. Com- parison group (value 0) is Quebec-Canada < 0.

This seems a distinct possibility because of the difficulty encoun- tered in trying to find external factors that affect evaluations of the economic impact of sovereignty. It is reasonable to assume that these factors, for the specific question at hand, will be of two sorts: those affecting people's expectations of their standard of living in an independent Quebec and those influencing people's perceptions of their current standard of living.22 In the campaign-period survey only, there were numerous questions asked that would seem to be relevant to these perceptions (hence the exclusive reliance on this survey for this particular piece of analysis). People were asked, for example, whether they were

22 Others also emphasize the comparative element in the reasoning that underwrites support for sovereignty. Stephane Dion, for example, points to the confidence and fear components of such reasoning, by which he means "the fear of being weakened within the union, and the confidence of increasing the group's well being outside the union" ("Why Is Secession Difficult in Well-Established Democracies?" 273). People, in other words, compare the independence scenario to their current (and future) situation as part of the larger union.

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"better off or worse off financially" than they were a year ago, and whether they expected to be "better off financially, worse off, or just about the same as now" a year in the future. Such assessments would presumably be closely related to people's feelings about their current standard of living (and expectations for the future, should Quebec remain part of Canada). There were fewer questions relevant to people's expectations of their standard of living in an independent Quebec. However, respondents were asked whether the policies of the federal government had made them "better off [financially], worse off, or [had not] made much of a difference." If the federal government were deemed to have had a baneful influence on someone's financial well- being, then presumably the removal of its influence, through separation, would be expected to improve one's lot. Several other seemingly pertinent questions were also asked in the campaign-period survey. Those used in the analysis that follows are listed in Boxes A and B in the model of sovereignty support shown in Figure 1. This modelling of personal economic expectations is, admittedly, contentious. It draws, in part, on sociotropic assessments pertaining to the Quebec and Canadian economies. It might be questioned whether such assessments are of any relevance to people's assessment of their personal economic situation, since some previous research has found virtually no correlation between personal and sociotropic evaluations.23 However, in this case, the two types of evaluation are related. The Pearson correlation coefficients between the three personal- sociotropic pairs of variables in Box A that pertain to the same time frame are significant (personal financial position compared to one year ago/economic conditions in Quebec in past year, 0.25; personal financial position compared to one year ago/economy of Canada in past year, 0.23; expected financial position one year from now/economy of Canada in next 12 months, 0.28). Thus, in this case, sociotropic evaluations are relevant to people's assessments of their personal economic situation (though whether they are relevant to people's expectations about their personal standard of living in a sovereign Quebec is another question, to be addressed below). The model, however, is still imperfect in other ways. It might be improved by including assessments of more specific considerations: for example, do you think the unemployment rate will rise in the near future? It would also benefit from the inclusion of further considerations relevant to the sovereignty scenario. How would the Canadian debt be apportioned following a declaration of Quebec sovereignty?

23 Kinder and Kiewet, "Sociotropic Politics: The American Case," 139. Others, however, report significant correlations between the two types of evaluation; see Clarke and Stewart, "Economic Evaluations, Prime Ministerial Approval and Governing Party Support," 148.

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FIGURE 1

MODEL OF SOVEREIGNTY SUPPORT IN QUEBEC

Box A

Personal financial position compared with one year ago Current standard Expected financial position one year from now Economic expecta- Sovereignty Economic conditions in Quebec in past year of living (in a tions: If Quebec support Economy of Canada in past year non-sovereign separates will your Economy of Canada in next 12 months Quebec) standard of living 4 get better, get Box B worse or stay the Standard of living same as now? Effect of federal government policies on respondent in a sovereign Effect of federal government policies on Quebec economy Quebec Effect of federal government policies on Canadian economy

National identity

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Would an independent Quebec be able to attract the same levels of foreign investment as it currently does? Would its continued membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement be guaranteed? Clearly a survey expressly designed to model people's economic expectations for an independent Quebec would be ideal. The modeling in Figure 1, however, represents the best that can be done with the variables in the current dataset. Implicit in Figure 1 are some assumptions about the direction of causation between the different variables. The placement of Boxes A and B indicates that the variables contained therein are presumed to be factors, external to the model, influencing expectations of the personal economic consequences of sovereignty, and thereby exerting an influence over sovereignty support. National identity, as Figure 1 indicates, is also presumed to exert causal influence over economic expectations. Another important feature of the model is that it is not assumed that economic expectations cause support for sovereignty; instead it is speculated that the causation might run in either direction (hence the double arrow between the two boxes). This model, then, embodies competing explanations for people's assessments of the impact of sovereignty on their standard of living: either these are a function of the external factors grouped together in Boxes A and B, or they are the product of national identity and sovereignty support (or, of course, some combination of these factors).24 Further analysis sheds light on the relative importance of these different variables. Table 4 shows multivariate regression results, with standard of living expectations in a sovereign Quebec as the dependent variable, and the external factors in Boxes A and B, along with national identity, included as explanatory variables. For each of the external factors, the bivariate relationship with the dependent variable has been examined, and response categories collapsed to capture any salient effects. In addition, all have been coded so that the anticipated sign of the regression coefficient is positive. This analysis yields a result significant for its non-significance: the factors deemed external to the sovereignty support model have very little effect on standard of living expectations. In most cases, the sign of the coefficient is negative, contrary to expectations. So, for example, the perception that one will be "worse off" financially, rather than "much better off" a year from now (in a Quebec that will, presumably, still be part of Canada) is associated with relatively pessimistic assessments of the economic impact of separation. Only one of the external factors (the effect of federal government policies on the Quebec economy) has a positive and statistically significant coefficient, but this still

24 For simplicity's sake, perceptions concerning the situation of the French language are excluded from the model.

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TABLE 4

DETERMINANTS OF STANDARD OF LIVING PERCEPTIONS,

MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS

Variablesa B (SE)

Quebec-Canada attachment 1 ? Quebec-Canada ? 19 (less Qu6b6cois) 0.12c (0.03)

3020 ?< Quebec-CanadaQuebec-Canada ? 50 ? 0.18c29 0.17c (0.02) (0.03) 51 ? Quebec-Canada ? 100 (more Qu6b6cois) 0.20c (0.04) Personal financial position compared with one year ago -0.02 (0.02) Expected financial position one year from now -0.14c (0.04) Economic conditions in Quebec in past year 0.04 (0.05) Economy of Canada in past year -0.02 (0.02) Economy of Canada in next 12 months 0.02 (0.02) Effect of federal government policies on respondent 0.00 (0.02) Effect of federal government policies on Quebec economy 0.05b (0.02) Effect of federal government policies on Canadian economy -0.03 (0.02) Constant 0.37 (0.05) Adjusted R2 0.13 N 684 a Variable definitions: Standard of living in a separate Quebec: a lot worse (0), a little worse (.25), stay the same/don't know (.50), a little better (.75), a lot better (1). Quebec-Canada attachment: all categories are dummy variables, with a value of 1. Comparison group (value 0) is Quebec-Canada ?0. Personal financial position compared with one year ago: better off or the same (0), worse off (1). Expected financial position one year from now: much better off (0), somewhat better off (0.333), the same (0.667), worse off (1). Economic conditions in Quebec in past year: gotten better (0), stayed the same or gotten worse (1). Economy of Can- ada in past year: gotten better or stayed the same (0), gotten worse (1). Economy of Canada in next 12 months: get better or stay the same (0), get worse (1). Effect of federal government policies on respondent: made R better off or no difference (0), made R worse off (1). Effect of federal government policies on Quebec economy: made better or no difference or made somewhat worse (0), made much worse (1). Effect of federal government policies on Canadian economy: made better or no difference (0), made worse (1). Note: all somewhat worse/better categories include those who answered "don't know" when asked "Is that much worse/better or somewhat worse/better?" b p < .05. c p < .01.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rationality and Sovereignty Support in Quebec 47 has much less causal influence than national identity. Further analysis examining interaction effects for some of these variables (for example, being financially worse off than a year ago and blaming the federal government for that state of affairs) also yields insignificant coefficients (results not shown here). This finding-the absence of a con- nection between external (and seemingly relevant) considerations and expectations of change in one's standard of living in an independent Quebec-indicates that said expectations are primarily determined by something else. It must be said that the exogenous factors included in this analysis relate primarily to current and future standard of living expectations for a Quebec remaining part of Canada. Most, as Figure 1 suggested, are not relevant to people's expectations for an independent Quebec. It is possible, then, that the latter assessment is the source of variation in people's perceptions of the economic impact of sovereignty. It is possible, too, that it is external factors unmeasured in this analysis that cause people to be optimistic about their standard of living prospects in an independent Quebec. As noted already, the model is imperfect and might benefit from the addition of other potentially relevant economic considerations. Failure to measure relevant external factors is one possible reason for the results seen here. But there is another explanation that is perhaps more compelling. Whereas Quebeckers have a reasonably good idea of what their standard of living will be if Quebec remains part of Canada, their standard of living in an independent Quebec is a largely unknown quantity. This does not mean there is any shortage of opinion on the matter. Those in the sovereigntist camp, backed by studies and expert opinion, contend that an independent Quebec would be better off economically. Opponents of Quebec independence, supported by their own studies and policy mavens, counter that sovereignty would have calamitous economic consequences. In such circumstances, opinion in the general public is likely to be shaped primarily by political conviction rather than independent rational assessment. In other words, those who support sovereignty will tend to be optimistic about their standard of living prospects in an independent Quebec, while those opposed will be inclined to anticipate harmful economic consequences. In short, as the revised model of sovereignty support shown in Figure 2 suggests, there may well be a feedback effect of sovereignty on economic assessments, channelled through that part of people's reasoning that is subject to the greatest uncertainty, speculation and partisan analysis.25

25 This, of course, is a gross simplification of a complex process on which further research might shed light. It seems likely that public opinion on the economic impact of Quebec sovereignty is elite-led, given the complexity of the issue. It also seems clear that elite opinion on the matter is divided on partisan lines. The question then becomes: are these partisan viewpoints re-produced in public opin-

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Similar accounts of the formation of economic expectations have been presented elsewhere in the political behaviour literature, especially the literature on voting and party preferences.26 This research draws on social-psychology insights that point to the ways in which pre-existing beliefs and dispositions can condition the processing of new information. In extreme cases, new information has no impact on people's opinions and is instead simply assimilated to fit with pre- existing beliefs. That such processes of rationalization form part of the sovereignty support story seems plausible for several reasons. First, it is generally agreed that rationalization is more likely to occur when there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding an issue,27 and the economic impact of Quebec sovereignty is, as noted above, a question fraught with uncertainty. This is partly because it is an assessment about the future, and such assessments are always more uncertain than evaluations of the past. The uncertainty, however, is compounded by the absence of any history on which to base judgments about the future. Whereas voters speculating about the likely impact of two different parties on their country's future economic performance (or their personal economic fortunes) can at least find some guidance in the past performance of those parties when in power,28 in the case of Quebec sover-

ion, and if so, how? The answer to such questions might be found by examining potential biases in the reporting and analysis of different media outlets on the sovereignty issue (through content analysis, for example) and investigating patterns of exposure to those media outlets (through survey analysis). Do supporters of Quebec sovereignty, for example, primarily read newspapers that largely report positive prognostications concerning the economic impact of sovereignty? An example of this type of analysis, which addresses the influence of media coverage on the formation of personal economic expectations in the British public, can be found in Sanders et al., "The Electoral Impact of Press Coverage of the British Economy," 175-210. 26 Mark Peffley, Stanley Feldman and Lee Sigelman, "Economic Conditions and Party Competence: Processes of Belief Revision," The Journal of Politics 49 (1987), 100-21; Pamela Johnston Conover, Stanley Feldman and Kathleen Knight, "The Personal and Political Underpinnings of Economic Forecasts," American Journal of Political Science 31 (1987), 559-83; and Shaun Bowler, "Comparative Economic Assessments and the Endogeneity of Left/Right Self- Placement: A Research Note," European Journal of Political Research 17 (1989), 35-49. On methods of measuring respondent uncertainty in survey research, see R. Michael Alvarez and Charles H. Franklin, "Uncertainty and Political Perceptions," The Journal of Politics 56 (1994), 671-88. 27 Conover et al., "The Personal and Political Underpinnings of Economic Fore- casts," 565; Peffley et al., "Economic Conditions and Party Competence," 106. 28 This assumes, of course, that voting choices depend, at least partly, on retrospective evaluations. Some would contend that prospective assessments are dominant. See, for example, Richard Nadeau, Richard G. Niemi and Timothy Amato, "Pro- spective and Comparative or Retrospective and Individual? Party Leaders and Party Support in Great Britain," British Journal of Political Science 26 (1996), 245-58.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ~f; O FIGURE 2

REVISED MODEL OF SOVEREIGNTY SUPPORT IN QUEBEC ~r 3 EL, Box A O Personal financial position compared with one year ago Current standard Expected financial position one year from now N. Economic expecta- op of living (in a Economic conditions in Quebec in past year tions: If Quebec Sovereignty non-sovereign `Sf Economy of Canada in past year separates will your support Quebec) X Economy of Canada in next 12 months standard of living

Box B get better, get O Standard of living worse or stay the same as now? Effect of federal government policies on respondent in a sovereign X Effect of federal government policies on Quebec economy Quebec ch

Effect of federal government policies on Canadian economy ch c,

National identity

P Vt)

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 50 PAUL HOWE eignty there is no track record to consult because there has never been a sovereign Quebec. Judgments about how Quebec would fare economically as an independent state are based almost entirely on theoretical speculation and are therefore extremely uncertain. If uncertainty is one factor that affects the likelihood of rationalization, another is the degree to which pre-existing opinions are entrenched.29 Commonly, the dependent variable in political behaviour research is voting preference, which is generally considered a relatively tractable opinion; it therefore seems reasonable to believe it might be changed by other opinions.30 However, the dependent variable examined here-support for sovereignty-is probably more deeply embedded. To borrow David Easton's terminology, it speaks to people's support for their political community rather than a particular governing authority.31 For this reason, sovereignty support is likely to be more stable than voting preferences.32 There is some empirical evidence for this in the finding that sovereignty support involves a considerable generational component. It has been found that levels of support for Quebec sovereignty have remained fairly stable within different birth cohorts over time, suggesting that many people's opinions on this issue crystallize early in the life cycle and are not easily altered at later points.33 This makes it more likely that sovereignty support shapes

29 Bowler, for example, looks at what is presumably a relatively intractable opinion, people's self-placement on a left-right ideological scale ("Comparative Eco- nomic Assessments and the Endogeneity of Left/Right Self-Placement"). 30 In some cases, researchers have examined partisanship (that is, party identification), a more deeply entrenched attitude, to see whether it causes, or is caused by, issue evaluations. Views on the matter vary: see, for example, Morris P. Fiorina, Retrospective Voting in American National Elections (New Haven: Yale Univer- sity Press, 1981), 65-83; and Paul F. Whiteley, "The Causal Relationships between Issues, Candidate Evaluations, Party Identification, and Vote Choice- The View from 'Rolling Thunder,' " The Journal of Politics 50 (1988), 961-84. 31 David Easton, A System Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965); and David Easton, "A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support," British Journal of Political Science 5 (1975), 435-57. For an application of Easton's model to the Quebec political system, see Jon H. Pammett, Jane Jenson, Harold D. Clarke and Lawrence Leduc, "Soutien politique et comportement 61lectoral lors du r6f6rendum qu6b6cois," in Crete, ed., Comportement electoral au Quedbec, 387-419. 32 Just as Easton suggests that diffuse support for the political community is generally more stable than specific support for a governing authority ("A Re-Assess- ment of the Concept of Political Support," 444). 33 Richard Nadeau, "Le virage souverainiste des quebecois, 1980-1990," Re- cherches sociographiques 33 (1992), 15-16. An analysis tracing support for Quebec "separation" within different birth cohorts, from 1962 to 1994, can be found in Paul Howe, "Radicals, Moderates and the Rise of Quebec National- ism," paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Montreal, 1995, Table 1, 24; see also 11-14. The latter results suggest that birth cohort effects have been very pronounced. There was a jump in

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other opinions (such as economic assessments) rather than vice versa. This theoretical reasoning aside, the empirical evidence presented here also points to the potential influence of rationalization processes. The impact of national identity on economic evaluations, apparent in the coefficients for the identity variable in Table 4, is much larger than the effect of any of the economic factors. This indicates the sizeable influence of at least one partisan sentiment on economic expectations. It is entirely plausible that a closely related sentiment, sovereignty support, could also play a role in shaping economic perceptions. This interpretation can, then, be summarized as follows. Factors thought to be external to the model of sovereignty support have essentially no bearing on people's sense of whether their standard of living would improve or deteriorate in an independent Quebec. However, the particular factors examined here do speak more to people's perceptions of their standard of living in a Quebec remaining part of Canada than to their economic expectations for an independent Quebec. Thus, it may be unmeasured external factors that determine the latter expectations. But it is also possible-in view of both the uncertainty around the economics issue and the embeddedness of sovereigntist sentiment-that people's opinions on sovereignty are an important causal influence. This seems especially plausible in view of the strong impact of national identity on economic perceptions: if one sentiment influences economic perceptions, so might the other. Hence, there is reason to suspect that a key determinant of the perceived impact of sovereignty on people's standard of living may be sovereignty support itself. This reasoning is admittedly rather speculative, and there is a statistical method available - two- stage least-square regression-to test more formally the proposition that causation runs partly from dependent to independent variable. The initial step in this procedure is to identify exogenous factors (usually called instrumental variables) that have a strong causal influence over the independent variable which is thought to be endogenous (in this case, standard of living expectations). This is precisely what Table 4 above seeks to do. It looks for significant relationships between economic expectations for a sovereign Quebec and a series of seemingly relevant exogenous variables. Unfor- tunately, the relationships are very weak, which renders the two-stage least-square procedure untenable.34

support for separation across all cohorts around the time of the Meech Lake Accord, but this proved to be ephemeral, as birth cohort effects were readily apparent again by 1994. 34 If the procedure were feasible, the next step would be to use the regression results of Table 4 to generate predicted values of people' s standard of living expectations. These predicted values would represent the exogenously determined com-

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But, of course, the very fact that the two-stage least-square procedure cannot be carried out, owing to the weakness of the relationship between the exogenous factors and standard of living expectations, suggests something is awry: if people's economic expectations are derived independently of their views on sovereignty, there must be some exogenous factors that help determine those expectations. The challenge, it would seem, for researchers who believe that causation runs from economic expectations to support for sovereignty is: (1) to identify exogenous factors that do significantly affect people's perceptions of the economic impact of sovereignty, and (2) to demonstrate, using two-stage least-square regression analysis, that there is a significant relationship between the exogenously determined component of economic expectations and sovereignty support. One way to begin identifying relevant exogenous considerations might be to ask survey respondents to provide a rationale for their evaluation of the economic consequences of sovereignty (for example, "Why do you think your standard of living would be worse [better] in a sovereign Quebec?"). Although this analysis focuses on economic perceptions, it seems plausible that national identity and sovereignty support would also condition people's expectations concerning the impact of sovereignty on the French language. There is some initial evidence for this in the results reported above, where it was observed that the impact of language concerns on sovereignty support greatly decreases when identity is controlled for (see Table 2). This indicates that identity and language perceptions are strongly correlated. If it is again assumed that identity is causally prior, then part of the story behind sovereignty support involves identity shaping perceptions of the language situation in Que- bec. It is entirely conceivable that a search for exogenous factors responsible for the remaining variation in language perceptions would yield results similar to those just seen for economic expectations- negligible effects, suggesting the presence of reverse causation, from sovereignty back to language perceptions. These findings, tentative though they are, cast some doubt on conclusions previously reached

ponent of that variable. These predicted values would then be regressed on sovereignty support, to estimate the impact of the exogenously determined component of people's standard of living expectations on the dependent variable. Any potential reverse causation would thereby be removed, and a better estimate would be generated of the extent to which economic expectations are a cause rather than an effect of sovereignty support. For more technical discussions of the two-stage least- squares regression technique, see Christopher H. Achen, The Statistical Analysis of Quasi-Experiments (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), chap. 3; and Marija J. Norusis, SPSS Professional Statistics, 6.1 (Chicago: SPSS, 1994), chap. 9. An example of the technique can be found in Henry E. Brady, Sidney Verba and Kay Lehman Schlozman, "Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Mobili- zation," American Political Science Review 89 (1995), 271-94.

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about the importance of the rational evaluation of substantive considerations to sovereignty support. Such considerations may be considerably less influential than meets the eye, because of the conditioning impact of national identity and sovereignty support on the relevant assessments and perceptions.

Interaction Effects with National Identity If perceptions of the economic and language consequences of sovereignty have less influence than is commonly supposed over the formation of sovereigntist sentiment, they also make their impact felt in certain sections of the population only. Quebeckers with the strongest Qu6b6cois identities put less weight on these substantive considerations than those with weaker identities. This proposition is borne out by further evidence from the 1992- 1993 CRES dataset. Specifically, it is the interaction effects between identity on the one hand, and language and economic concerns on the other, that reveal the differential impact of substantive considerations on the thinking of different nationalists. Table 5 shows results of a regression model where the language and economics variables have been replaced by interaction variables, so that the effects of these two factors are now estimated separately for each of the five identity categories. The economics variable has also been recoded so that it takes on two values rather than three. The respondents used for this analysis are the same group used in Table 2 (the combined pre-referendum and campaign-period respondents). It would appear that the influence of economic and language concerns varies considerably across the spectrum of national identity. For those with the weakest Qu6b6cois identities-those whose attachment to Canada is greater than or equal to their attachment to Quebec, and who account for 40 per cent of the sample-the belief that one's standard of living will stay the same or improve in an independent Quebec increases sovereignty support by 0.19 (or slightly more than half a category, given the way the sovereignty variable is defined). In the next category of identity, comprising 16 per cent of the sample, the estimated effect of this economic consideration is also 0.19, and in the third category, again some 16 per cent of the sample, it is 0.22. All these effects are fairly strong. In the last two identity categories, however, the impact of the economics variable tails off considerably. In the next-to-last group (19 per cent of the sample), the estimated effect is 0.11, and in the final group (9 per cent of the sample), it is 0.03.35

35 The caveat should be added that these coefficients may be overestimates, if there is reverse causation at work. This caveat applies to all that follows in this analysis of interaction effects.

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DETERMINANTS OF SUPPORT FOR QUEBEC SOVEREIGNTY, INTERACTION EFFECTS

Variablesa B (SE)

Quebec-Canada attachment 1 < Quebec-Canada < 19 (less Queb6cois) 0.18 (0.05) 20 < Quebec-Canada ? 29 0.20 (0.03) 30 < Quebec-Canada ? 50 0.34 (0.05) 51 < Quebec-Canada < 100 (more Qu b6cois) 0.65 (0.08) Identity/Standard of living interactions Quebec-Canada <0, no difference/better (less Que-bcois) 0.19 (0.03)

20 1

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The interaction effects for language do not trace so smooth a trajectory as the coefficients for the economics variable. A sense that the French language is threatened in Quebec has a modest impact on sovereignty support in the first identity category (0.06), and negligible effects in the next two (0.02 and 0.01). Its impact then jumps to 0.13 in identity category 4, and falls back to 0.01 in the fifth and final identity category. These are only estimates, of course, and it might be speculated that the true distribution of language effects across the spectrum of national identity would be smoother than this, rising slowly to a peak, and then tailing off among the most radical nationalists, much like the distribution of economics effects. It seems likely, too, that its apogee would be further along on the spectrum of national identity than is the case for the economics variable; in the current data, the impact of economic considerations peaks in the third identity category, while language concerns are most influential in the fourth category.36 Regardless of the precise configuration, these estimates suggest that the effect of substantive considerations on sovereignty support is greatest among those with national identities of intermediate strength. They indicate, too, that the impact of these factors is quite small for those with the strongest national identities. There are, then, quite different rationales underpinning the political preferences of different sovereigntists. The average person falling into the third identity category, for instance, who believes sovereignty would have a positive or neutral impact on their standard of living and who feels that the French language is not threatened in Quebec, would, according to the model in Table 5, have a value of 0.61 on the sovereignty variable-in other words, would come close to being "somewhat favourable" to sovereignty. This preference would issue partly from a relatively weak national identity (0.20), but equally (0.22) from a positive assessment of the economic impact of sovereignty (the remaining 0.19 would, of course, simply be the constant term in the regression equation). The rationale behind this weak sovereignty support differs very much from the thinking underlying the sovereigntist sentiment of someone in the fifth identity category. The average person in this group, also of the view that the economic impact of sovereignty would be neutral or positive and that the French language is not threatened in Quebec, would, according to the model, have a value of 0.87 on the sovereignty scale. Identity would be the principal factor

36 It would be interesting to know what these identity interaction effects might be for variables that tap into prospective and comparative evaluations of the condition of the French language. As noted above, other analyses have shown that the effects for such variables are considerably larger than those typically found for the type of language variable used in this analysis. Though I suspect that the shape of the distribution for other language variables would be similar (a mound shape across the identity spectrum), its peak might well lie elsewhere.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 56 PAUL HOWE underlying this stronger sovereigntist position, contributing 0.65 of the total; the economic consideration would only add 0.03 (the remaining 0.19 again coming from the constant term in the regression model). The rationale behind this individual's much stronger support for sovereignty is dominated by national identity, while the economic consideration is largely immaterial. It appears, then, that there is considerably less rational deliberation among strong supporters of sovereignty than there is among more moderate sovereigntists.37 This conclusion may, at first blush, seem to offer nothing more than confirmation of the rather obvious point that hard-core sovereigntists are less likely than moderate sovereigntists to withdraw their support for sovereignty in view of economic or language considerations. But, in fact, it suggests something more: such considerations are not only less likely to induce hard-core sovereigntists to become non- sovereigntists, they are also less likely to move hard-core sovereigntists at all along the spectrum of sovereignty support. When identity, economics and language are modelled additively, it is assumed that economic and language considerations cause uniform shifts in sovereignty support across the identity spectrum;38 thus, hard-core sovereigntists

37 It should be reiterated that the interaction coefficients will vary if different numeric values are assigned to the sovereignty response categories. The interaction coefficients for the uppermost identity category, for example, hinge almost exclusively on the percentage of respondents falling into the "somewhat favourable" and "very favourable" categories; if the gap between these two response categories were made larger, the interaction coefficients would increase. How- ever, in order for these coefficients to approach those for the other identity categories, it would be necessary to increase the somewhat favourable/very favourable gap by a large amount. It also would be necessary to provide some justification for believing that there is a greater shift in the intensity of sovereignty support in moving from "somewhat favourable" to "very favourable" than there is in moving between the other sovereignty response categories. My sense is that, if anything, it is the somewhat opposed/somewhat favourable gap that should be increased. But this is a matter of opinion. The ideal solution to this problem might be to conduct a similar analysis based on more neutral sovereignty response categories (for example, asking people to indicate their level of support for sovereignty on a 0 to 100 scale). 38 This is the case, for example, in the graphics presented by Blais, Martin and Nadeau, showing the impact of economic and language variables in different identity categories ("Attentes 6conomiques et linguistiques et appui ' la souve- rainet6 du Quebec," 652). Although the effect of these variables appears to vary by identity category, this is simply a by-product of the use of logistic regression to model the data (the effect on probability scores of a given change in logit value always varies across the spectrum of probability values). This is why the constant effect, in logit terms, of the economics and language variables in the model, translates into differing probability effects across the various identity categories. Such modeling should not be seen as capturing interaction effects (though, of course, there are other reasons for choosing to use the logistic regression model).

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who fear economic hardship in a sovereign Quebec are presumed to be, for that reason, less hard-core, even if still supportive of sovereignty. The additive model presented in column 4 of Table 2, for example, suggests that individuals in the uppermost identity category, who believe that sovereignty would make their standard of living no different or better, would stand at 0.85 on the sovereignty support scale (0.13 + 0.49 + 0.23), but would fall to 0.62 (0.13 +0.49) if persuaded that sovereignty would in fact make their standard of living much worse. When interaction terms are introduced in Table 5, however, the data suggest that movement, regardless of whether it pushes people over the 0.5 threshold, is concentrated in the intermediate categories, and that those at the far Qu6b6cois end are essentially anchored in place (fear of economic hardship would, according to the data in Table 5, only induce a leftward shift of 0.03 among the most radical nationalists). This distinction may be irrelevant to strategists who hope to alter the aggregate level of support for sovereignty in a future referendum and naturally focus on the ambivalents hovering around the 0.5 threshold. But for those investigating the reasoning that underwrites sovereignty support, it is a meaningful distinction. In effect, it offers quantitative verification of a phenomenon that many observers sense intuitively: namely, that some people support Quebec sovereignty unconditionally and are wholely unmoved by any rational evaluation of economic or language considerations. But before drawing the firm conclusion that the impact of substantive considerations is differentially distributed across the spectrum of national identity, there is a potential flaw in this analysis to be addressed. It may be that such considerations have a stronger impact within the fifth identity category than estimated here, but this is not detected by the regression analysis, partly because of the method used to measure sovereignty support, and partly because of the powerful impact of identity on this variable. The maximum value for the sovereignty variable is 1.0 (for someone who is very favourable to sovereignty). The average person in the fifth identity category, who believes sovereignty would have a negative economic impact and that there is no threat to the French language in Quebec, would, according to the model in Table 5, have a value on the sovereignty variable of 0.84 (0.19 + 0.65). This makes it impossible for the language and economic coefficients for this category to be greater than 0.16 (if, for example, everyone who thought the French language threatened was "very favourable" to sovereignty, the relevant coefficient, ceteris paribus, would be precisely 0.16). In other words, there is a ceiling in place because the maximum value of the sovereignty variable is 1.0 and a strong Qu6b6cois identity takes someone nearly all the way there.39

39 If sovereignty support were measured on a 0 to 100 scale, stronger effects might be seen for the substantive considerations within the final identity category. A

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 58 PAUL HOWE

Is this ceiling effect responsible for the seemingly weak impact of economic and language concerns in the final identity category? It seems unlikely that this is the sole reason for the small coefficients. In the first place, the effect of the economics variable is considerably smaller for the fourth identity category than for the first three categories, even though the ceiling effect is not nearly such a problem for this group. Identity by itself puts someone in identity category 4 at only 0.53 (0.19 + 0.34) on the 0 to 1 sovereignty scale. There would still seem to be plenty of room for upward movement due to economic considerations (if these were as important to those in category 4 as they are to those with weaker Qu6b6cois identities). The impact of economic considerations is already tailing off considerably before ceiling effects enter into play. In the case of the language variable, the coefficient estimated for the last identity category is 0.01. While there may be less room for upward movement in this category than the others, a coefficient of 0.01 does suggest that the variable has a negligible impact among the most radical nationalists (though, of course, there is a sizeable standard error around this estimate). Clearly, further research needs to be done, and it would be premature to put too fine a point on any conclusions. However, it seems safe to say, on the current evidence, that the impact of substantive considerations is greatest in intermediate identity categories and smaller amongst those with the strongest national identities. This finding, of course, points to a different conclusion from that reached in the previous section. If perceptions of the economic and language benefits attendant upon Quebec sovereignty represent rationalizations of other beliefs, then attempts to alter those perceptions, and thus support for sovereignty, are not likely to succeed. But if the impact of these perceptions is relatively strong in the intermediate categories of national identity, then success is more likely, since those with weaker identities are more apt to be equivocal sovereigntists who re- quire only small incentives to switch political camps.

Discussion

Although there are certain shortcomings in this analysis, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that some previous assumptions need to be reconsidered. In particular, it is uncertain whether Quebeckers' perceptions of the economic and linguistic impacts of sovereignty are the product of rational, unbiased assessments. In the analysis above, focusing on people's perceptions of the likely economic consequences of

sovereignty thermometer of this sort might reveal significant variation within the group who "strongly favour" sovereignty, and this variation might be partly explained by economic and linguistic considerations.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rationality and Sovereignty Support in Quebec 59

sovereignty, seemingly relevant external considerations barely regis- tered, while national identity (and more speculatively, support for sovereignty) had a sizeable influence. This finding casts doubt on the supposition that support for sovereignty might be altered by persuading people to rethink their assumptions about the effect of sovereignty on the Quebec economy and French language. To the extent any movement is possible, furthermore, it is only a section of the Quebec population that is likely to be affected. Those with strong Qu6b6cois identities are apt to prove implacable. This, however, does suggest that it might be possible to alter overall levels of support for sovereignty, since those with weaker identities are more likely to be borderline sovereigntists. There are ways in which firmer conclusions might be reached concerning these matters; at various points above, alternative and supplementary survey questions have been suggested that might help move this research agenda forward. There is much to be learned from ascertaining the degree to which rational evaluation of tangible costs and benefits underwrites sovereignty support, both in general, and in different sections of the Quebec population. Investigation of this matter is of relevance not only to political strategists looking to influence future developments, but also to those seeking to understand patterns of the past. Those familiar with the history of Quebec's sovereigntist movement will recognize that dispas- sionate deliberation has generally been in greater evidence in some quarters than in others. Conflicts between moderate nationalists, anx- ious to weigh their options and bide their time, and radical nationalists, determined to liberate Quebec forthwith, have been a recurrent theme since the 1960s. Moderate sovereigntist leaders have, for example, consistently worked to ensure that an economic association with Can- ada will accompany any move towards sovereignty, while the more radical elements -confident it would seem that an independent Que- bec can stand on its own feet economically, and less exercised, in any event, about any negative consequences sovereignty might entail- have been happy to press ahead without any guarantees. Similar differences in nationalist thinking may well be at work in the general population; the analysis here certainly points in that direction. This heterogeneity within the sovereigntist section of the Quebec population has, however, not informed much quantitative analysis to date. While previous survey research has provided valuable insights into the thinking that underlies support for Quebec sovereignty, there remain some basic questions to be addressed and nuances to be explored.

This content downloaded from 132.204.9.239 on Sat, 05 Jan 2019 15:28:26 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms FACTEURS D’APPUI À LA SOUVERAINETÉ DU QUÉBEC CHEZ LES JEUNES

UNE COMPARAISON ENTRE FRANCOPHONES, ANGLOPHONES ET ALLOPHONES1

Éric Bélanger Département de science politique, Université McGill [email protected]

Andrea M.L. Perrella Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University [email protected]

- nies parmi les démocraties occidentales n’est pas sans créer des remous au sein des pays hôtes. La hausse de l’immigration transforme petit mouvements nationalistes traditionnels2. La présence accrue d’immi- et politiques entre la majorité et les minorités3.

1. Les auteurs remercient Maurice Pinard, Leslie Seidle, Marc Desjardins et les deux évaluateurs anonymes de leurs commentaires et suggestions sur une version préliminaire de ce texte. Ils sont également reconnaissants envers Lori Young et Françoise Montambeault de leur aide à la recherche. 2. Rachel Kay Gibson, 2002, The Growth of Anti-Immigrant Parties in Western Europe, Lewiston, Edwin Mellen Press; Pippa Norris, 2005, Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market, New York, Cambridge University Press. 3. Rainer Bauböck, 2001, «Cultural Citizenship, Minority Rights, and Self-Govern- ment», dans Citizenship Today: Global Perspectives and Practices, sous la dir. de T. Alexander Aleinikoff et Douglas Klusmeyer, Washington, DC, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, p. 319-348; Stephen Castles et Mark J. Miller, 2003 [3e éd.], The Age of Migration, New York, Guilford Press ; Ruud Koop- mans, Paul Statham, Marco Giugni et Florence Passy, 2005, Contested Citizen- ship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press; Will Kymlicka, 2003, «Immigration, Citizenship, Multicultur- alism: Exploring the Links», The Political Quarterly, vol. 74, no S1, p. 195-208; Will Kymlicka et Wayne Norman (dir.), 2000, Citizenship in Diverse Societies, New York, Oxford University Press.

Politique et Sociétés, vol. 27, no 3, 2008 13-40 14 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

Le Québec n’a pas échappé à cette mouvance, qui a notamment pris la forme d’une croissance graduelle de la population dite «allophone», c’est-à-dire dont la langue maternelle n’est ni le français ni l’anglais. Cette situation s’est traduite par une tension grandissante entre cette minorité culturelle et le mouvement indépendantiste québécois, porté principalement par la majorité francophone de descendance canadienne-française4. Cette tension culmina le soir du 30 octobre 1995, quand Jacques Parizeau, chef du mouvement souverainiste de l’époque, attribua en partie la défaite référendaire de l’option souverainiste au vote présumé massif des minorités ethniques contre ce projet. De ce point de vue, on croyait que les allophones du Québec votaient, et continueraient de voter, en bloc contre l’indépendance politique de la province. Depuis 1995, des études ont toutefois fait état d’une progression notable de l’option souverainiste chez les citoyens issus de l’immigra- tion5 et particulièrement parmi les jeunes issus de cette immigration, ou la «génération 1016 ». Ces résultats ont amené certains à conclure que l’intégration linguistique des immigrants faisait en sorte de les sensibiliser davantage à l’option souverainiste et que leur comportement électoral était maintenant devenu pratiquement indifférencié de celui de la majorité francophone7. Pourtant, les études existantes n’ont que très peu examiné les facteurs derrière cet appui croissant à la souveraineté chez les allophones et n’ont pu, jusqu’à maintenant, établir de comparaison directe entre ces motivations à appuyer la souveraineté et celles observa- bles chez les francophones et les anglophones. Nous proposons de combler en grande partie ces lacunes en comparant les déterminants de l’appui à la souveraineté chez les jeunes francophones, anglophones et allophones, à partir des données d’un sondage effectué en 2006.

4. Michael D. Behiels, 1991, Le Québec et la question de l’immigration: de l’eth- nocentrisme au pluralisme ethnique, 1900-1985, Ottawa, Société historique du Canada; Gary Caldwell, 1988, «Immigration et la nécessité d’une culture publique commune », L’Action nationale, vol. 78, octobre; Micheline Labelle, François Rocher et Guy Rocher, 1995, « Pluriethnicité, citoyenneté et intégration: de la souveraineté pour lever les obstacles et les ambiguïtés», Cahiers de recherche sociologique, vol. 25, p. 213-246. 5. Gilles Gagné et Simon Langlois, 2002, de l’appui à la souveraineté du Québec, Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal; Nathalie Lavoie et Pierre Serré, 2002, «Du vote bloc au vote social: le cas des citoyens issus de l’immigration de Montréal, 1995-1996», Revue canadienne de science politique, vol. 35, no 1, p. 49-74. 6. Isabelle Beaulieu, 2003, «Le premier portrait des enfants de la Loi 101», dans L’annuaire du Québec 2004,sous la dir. de Michel Venne, Montréal, Fides, p. 260-265. La Presse, 19 mars, p. A5. Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 15

Résumé - ment parmi les jeunes («génération 101»). Ces résultats ont amené certains à - - conséquences économiques de la souveraineté. En ce sens, leur comportement Abstract - dren (“Generation 101”). These observations have led some to conclude that, - -

Ce sondage a été mené auprès de Québécois âgés de 18 à 34 ans, avec un suréchantillonage des anglophones et des allophones, permettant linguistiques. La principale conclusion de notre étude est que le poids supposée «normalisation» du comportement électoral des jeunes allo- thématique, notre propre recherche permet ainsi de mettre en lumière, jeunes Québécois, à savoir leur appui au projet souverainiste. ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

LE COMPORTEMENT POLITIQUE DE LA «GÉNÉRATION 101»

8 - 9. Ces deux études suggèrent que la socialisation des immigrants par la - 10- et à son option constitutionnelle, dans des proportions très proches de - phone est développé plus avant par Isabelle Beaulieu, qui examine cette ou la «génération 10111 - au moins deux ans. Elle constate que les répondants ont des opinions généralement positives en ce qui concerne les conditions politiques, - rents» des Canadiens qui vivent dans les autres provinces. I. Beaulieu pourparlers constitutionnels qui viseraient à accorder des pouvoirs

8. Gagné et Langlois, Les raisons fortes…, p. 101-109. op. cit. Ces auteurs concluent - 10. Appartenir au Québec: citoyenneté, nation et société civile (enquête à Montréal, 1995) 11. op. cit. Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 17 accrus au Québec. La protection de la langue française semble être étroitement associée à un appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez ces jeunes, qui semblent aussi partager avec le reste des jeunes Québécois de nombreuses valeurs telles la lutte contre la pauvreté et le racisme, ou encore la promotion de la paix et la protection de l’environnement. La principale conclusion tirée de ces résultats est que l’intégra- tion sociale et politique des jeunes Québécois issus de l’immigration est largement achevée et que ce phénomène est surtout attribuable à la fréquentation de l’école française qu’impose aux immigrants la législation linguistique québécoise. La Charte de la langue fran- çaise du Québec (communément appelée Loi 101) est ainsi considérée comme un instrument clé de la socialisation des jeunes allophones, permettant de les intégrer à la culture majoritaire même si leur langue première n’est pas nécessairement le français. Par l’apprentissage de cette langue publique commune assez tôt durant leur éducation, les jeunes allophones deviendraient ainsi sensibilisés au «fait français» et à la question nationale et ils seraient plus sympathiques que leurs parents au projet souverainiste. Cette intégration culturelle réussie ferait en sorte que les allophones adopteraient un comportement politique pratiquement indifférencié de celui des francophones. Selon I. Beaulieu, «la génération 101 a, sur plusieurs points, des valeurs et des attentes semblables à celles de la population québécoise dans son ensemble […] [Ces jeunes] voteraient Oui à 40% à un référendum qui proposerait la souveraineté du Québec, soit dans la même proportion que l’ensemble de la population du Québec, selon les sondages12.» L’étude d’I. Beaulieu est pionnière du fait qu’elle offre un examen à la fois inédit et éclairant des attitudes politiques des jeunes Québé- cois issus de l’immigration. Une lacune importante de cette étude tient cependant au fait qu’elle s’appuie sur des données limitées à la population allophone (ou immigrante) seulement, empêchant toute comparaison directe avec les attitudes et le comportement des autres groupes linguistiques québécois. Cette limite est d’ailleurs partagée par certaines des études qui s’attardent à la population immigrante de 13. Une autre faiblesse de cette étude est qu’elle n’offre pas d’analyse multivariée, l’auteure ne faisant que rapporter les fréquences de réponses aux questions de son sondage. Une telle approche permet certes de brosser un portrait d’ensemble assez complet de l’opinion chez les jeunes issus de l’immigration, mais ne permet pas de dire si

12. Id., p. 261. 13. Micheline Labelle et Daniel Salée, 2001, «Immigrant and Minority Representa- tions of Citizenship in Quebec», dans Citizenship Today: Global Perspectives and Practices, sous la dir. de T. Alexander Aleinikoff et Douglas Klusmeyer, Washington, DC, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, p. 278-315 ; Lavoie et Serré, «Du vote bloc au vote social…», op. cit. 18 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

souveraineté, ni de conclure quoi que ce soit quant au poids relatif de ces déterminants dans l’intention de vote référendaire de ces jeunes. Or certaines raisons permettent de penser que le poids relatif de tels facteurs dans le choix constitutionnel des jeunes Québécois puisse être différent d’un groupe linguistique à l’autre. D’abord, dans l’étude même d’I. Beaulieu14 plus comme «Canadiens» ou «Montréalais» que comme «Québécois» et cette identité semble fortement liée à leur appui ou non à la souve- raineté15. Il est raisonnable d’anticiper que, dans la jeune communauté, tant francophone qu’anglophone, cette ventilation des identités ne soit pas la même et qu’elle affecte sans doute différemment l’intention de vote référendaire. Par ailleurs, une série d’entrevues menées par Micheline Labelle et Daniel Salée indique que, quand vient le temps d’exprimer leur opinion à l’endroit du projet souverainiste, les immigrants québécois semblent accorder beaucoup d’importance à leur attachement au Canada, qui est vu comme leur véritable société hôte, ainsi qu’aux conséquences écono- miques de la souveraineté16. Encore une fois, aucune comparaison n’est possible avec la population non immigrante, mais il est fort probable que la situation ne soit pas tout à fait la même au sein de cette dernière, que l’on parle de francophones ou d’anglophones. à la société québécoise, et donc la normalisation de leurs attitudes et opinions, ne tient pas seulement à la langue d’usage, mais repose tout autant (sinon plus) sur des facteurs économiques, sociaux et politiques divers17. Cela suggère que le seul fait, pour les immigrants (ou allo- pour les intégrer culturellement à la majorité francophone non immigrante et les faire adhérer, à un degré similaire, aux volontés d’éman- cipation politique de celle-ci. Des facteurs autres que l’apprentissage (et l’usage) de la langue publique commune, tels que l’intégration

14. Beaulieu, «Le premier portrait des enfants de la Loi 101», p. 263. 15. Voir aussi: Deirdre Meintel, 1993, «Transnationalité et transethnicité chez les jeunes issus de milieux immigrés à Montréal », Revue européenne des migra- tions internationales, vol. 9, no 3, p. 63-79; et Deirdre Meintel, 2000, «Identity Issues Among Young Adults of Immigrant Background in Montreal», Horizontes Antropológicos, vol. 6, no 14, p. 13-38. 16. Labelle et Salée, «Immigrant and Minority Representations of Citizenship in Quebec», op. cit. 17. Voir, par exemple, Danielle Juteau et Marie McAndrew, 1992, «Projet national, immigration et intégration dans un Québec souverain», Sociologie et sociétés, vol. 24, no 2, p. 161-180; Victor Piché, 2004, «Immigration et intégration linguistique: vers un indicateur de réceptivité sociale», Diversité urbaine, vol. 4, no 1, p. 7-22. Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 19

économique des immigrants, le degré d’ouverture perçu de la société d’accueil – tant québécoise que canadienne – et les efforts de persuasion politique, font sans doute en sorte de structurer leur appui, ou leur absence d’appui, au projet souverainiste. Pour éclairer ces questions, nous proposons une étude empirique en profondeur des facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté chez les jeunes francophones, anglophones et allophones du Québec. La prochaine section présente en détail les données de sondage utilisées, de même déterminants de l’appui à la souveraineté chez les jeunes Québécois.

L’ÉTUDE

Les données

montréalaise CROP pour le Centre de recherche et d’information sur le Canada (CRIC). Les résultats du sondage reposent sur 1212 entrevues téléphoniques effectuées au Québec du 13 février au 6 mars 2006. Les 18 à 34 ans résidant dans les ménages faisant partie de l’échantillon et aptes à compléter une entrevue en français ou en anglais. L’objectif du sondage était d’obtenir des données permettant de brosser un portrait de trois groupes linguistiques, soit des jeunes de langue maternelle française, anglaise et autre. Pour y arriver, CROP 400 répondants dans chacun des trois groupes linguistiques18. La collecte des données a permis d’obtenir la collaboration de 456 jeunes francophones, 378 anglophones et 378 allophones. D’un point de vue statistique, chaque échantillon d’environ 400 répondants est précis à 5 points près, 19 fois sur 20. Les résultats basés sur l’ensemble des 1212 répondants comportent une marge d’erreur estimée à 3%. Lors de leur compilation, les résultats de chaque échantillon ont été pondérés sur la base des statistiques du recensement de 2001. La pondé- ration de chaque groupe linguistique tient compte, en plus de la langue provenance (Montréal RMR [région métropolitaine de recensement];

18. Étant donné que plus de 80% des non-francophones vivent dans la région métro- politaine de Montréal, dont plus de 75% sur l’île de Montréal, la sélection de la majorité des anglophones et des allophones a été effectuée dans les circonscriptions électorales fédérales de la région de Montréal où l’incidence des non-francophones est égale ou supérieure à 35%. L’échantillon des jeunes francophones a été tiré aléatoirement parmi les abonnés aux services téléphoniques de l’ensemble du Québec. 20 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA reste du Québec) des répondants. Il est donc à noter que toutes les analyses exposées dans la présente étude utilisent nécessairement les données pondérées.

La méthode

Nous proposons un examen des facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes. Notre variable dépendante est mesurée de deux manières différentes. Une première mesure est l’appui à la «souveraineté-partenariat», telle qu’elle fut proposée à la population du Québec lors du référendum d’octobre 1995. Dans ce cas, l’appui à la souveraineté est opérationnalisé à l’aide de la question suivante: «Si un référendum avait lieu aujourd’hui sur la même question que celle qui a été posée lors du dernier référendum de 1995, c’est-à-dire sur la souveraineté accompagnée d’une offre de partenariat au reste du Canada, voteriez-vous OUI ou voteriez-vous NON?» Une question de relance («Même si vous n’avez peut-être pas encore fait votre choix, s’il y avait un référendum aujourd’hui sur cette question, seriez-vous tenté(e) de voter pour le OUI ou pour le NON?») permet de cerner l’in- clination de la plupart des répondants discrets. Une fois les réponses à la question de relance codées avec celles de la question initiale, un appui de 54,4% à la souveraineté-partenariat est mesuré pour l’ensemble des répondants au sondage. Notre deuxième opérationnalisation de l’appui à la souveraineté repose sur une question qui fait référence aux termes plus « durs » employés par le Parti québécois dans la plus récente mouture de son programme19 et qui se lit comme suit: «Si un référendum avait lieu aujourd’hui sur la question suivante : “Voulez-vous que le Québec accède au statut de pays?”, voteriez-vous OUI ou voteriez-vous NON?» Dans son programme de 2005, le PQ proposait en effet l’abandon de l’idée d’un partenariat politique et économique avec le reste du Canada pour un objectif plus près de l’indépendance pure, à savoir «l’accession du Québec au statut de pays20 ». La deuxième question posée par CROP permet donc de mesurer l’appui à une version plus radicale de l’option péquiste. L’appui à cette question plus «dure», y compris les réponses à la question de relance, est de 51,4% pour l’ensemble des jeunes sondés, soit légèrement inférieur à l’appui de ces mêmes jeunes à la souveraineté-partenariat. Puisque les deux versions de notre variable dépendante sont codées de manière dichotomique (OUI ou NON), la méthode d’analyse de régression multivariée des données qui est utilisée dans cette étude est

19. Parti québécois, 2005, Un projet de pays, Programme adopté lors du 15e congrès national du Parti québécois, 3-5 juin 2005, Québec. 20. Id., p. 16. Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 21 donc la régression logistique21. Cette méthode permet de mesurer l’effet des variables indépendantes sur la probabilité d’observer un phéno- mène (ou pas), en l’occurrence la probabilité d’observer un appui (ou non) à la souveraineté du Québec chez un répondant au sondage. En clair, si l’on observe qu’un facteur donné affecte positivement le vote, augmente l’appui à la souveraineté et que, par le fait même, un changement négatif dans la valeur de cette même variable augmente le refus d’appuyer la souveraineté (la logique est exactement la même pour un facteur qui affecterait négativement le vote). Si un facteur explique l’appui, il explique donc en même temps le refus d’appuyer. Les coef- du programme Clarify22 - tions derrière l’appui à la souveraineté dans trois groupes linguistiques: francophones, anglophones et allophones. La variable utilisée pour distinguer ces trois groupes est la langue maternelle. Par conséquent, Québécois dont la première langue apprise et encore comprise n’est ni le français ni l’anglais. Cette approche est différente de celle utilisée par I. Beaulieu, qui a plutôt échantillonné la jeune population immigrante de la région de Montréal, peu importe sa langue maternelle23. Comme nous l’avons mentionné plus haut, une telle approche offre des avantages importants, mais a comme principaux inconvénients d’être coûteuse et, surtout, d’empêcher toute comparaison directe avec d’autres groupes de la société québécoise, notamment la population francophone (dite «de souche») et la communauté anglophone. Un moyen moins coûteux, et qui permet tout de même des comparaisons entre les groupes, est l’utilisation de la langue maternelle comme critère discriminant au moment de la collecte des données. Procédant de la même manière que nous, G. Gagné et S. Langlois concluent d’ailleurs que « La langue maternelle peut […] être considérée comme un indicateur valable, bien qu’imparfait, du statut d’immigrant24 ». Malgré cette limite inhérente à la cueillette de nos données, il nous est tout de même possible de tenir compte en partie du statut d’immigrant des répondants à notre sondage. Nous avons demandé à ces derniers de dire s’ils étaient nés au Canada, puis si leurs parents étaient nés au Canada ou à l’extérieur du Canada. Nous considérons un répondant qui est né au Canada et dont les parents sont tous les deux nés

21. Scott W. Menard, 2002, Applied Logistic Regression Analysis, Thousand Oaks, Sage. 22. Michael Tomz, Jason Wittenberg et Gary King, 2003, Clarify: Software for Inter- preting and Presenting Statistical Results (version 2.1), [http://gking.harvard.edu]. 23. Beaulieu, «Le premier portrait des enfants de la Loi 101», op. cit. 24. Gagné et Langlois, Les raisons fortes…, p. 104. 22 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA aussi au Canada comme étant un non-immigrant (75% de l’échantillon total pondéré). Tous les autres répondants (25 %) sont considérés comme faisant partie de la population immigrante du Québec. Selon cet indicateur, lui aussi imparfait car il ne permet pas de dire si ces jeunes immigrants ont fréquenté l’école française ou pas, la presque totalité des répondants allophones seraient immigrants (à l’exception de cinq seulement), environ 60% des répondants anglophones le seraient, tout comme 16% des francophones. Cette variable est ajoutée à nos une différence dans le niveau d’appui à la souveraineté à l’intérieur de chaque groupe linguistique. Une comparaison préliminaire entre les groupes est déjà possible, à l’analyse des résultats présentés au tableau 1. On constate d’abord que les jeunes de 18 à 34 ans sont plus fortement en faveur de la souve- raineté que l’ensemble de la population québécoise, et ce, par environ 10 points de pourcentage, peu importe la question utilisée (souverai- neté-partenariat ou statut de pays). On observe ensuite que cet appui majoritaire des jeunes est surtout concentré chez les francophones. Les jeunes anglophones sont très peu favorables aux deux options (9 à 14 points seulement). Quant aux jeunes allophones, ils se trouvent à mi-chemin entre anglophones et francophones (29-30 points). On utilise la question plus dure de l’accession au statut de pays, à la limite les facteurs de motivation jouent de manière identique dans l’appui aux deux options, ni dans chacun des trois groupes linguistiques. C’est ce que notre analyse s’efforce d’examiner plus en profondeur dans les pages qui suivent.

Tableau 1. Niveau d’appui à la souveraineté chez les jeunes, par groupe linguistique (en pourcentage) Appui à la Appui au statut de souveraineté-partenariat pays pour le Québec Québec* 44 39 Jeunes 54 51 Jeunes francophones 62 59 Jeunes anglophones 14 9 Jeunes allophones 29 30 * Source: CROP-Express, février 2006. Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 23

Les facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté

Les variables indépendantes examinées dans cette étude visent toutes à mesurer des facteurs potentiels d’appui à la souveraineté du précédemment. Nous avons dû sélectionner les variables sur la base des questions qui étaient disponibles dans le questionnaire du sondage CROP. Malgré cette limite évidente, nous avons pris soin de choisir des comme étant les trois principaux modèles théoriques d’explication de l’appui à la souveraineté: le modèle sociodémographique, le modèle Le premier modèle propose une explication centrée sur les carac- téristiques sociodémographiques des individus25. Selon ce modèle, certaines franges de la population québécoise sont plus susceptibles que d’autres d’appuyer le projet souverainiste. Les travaux de G. Gagné et S. Langlois26 les moins de 55 ans, les francophones, les travailleurs et les étudiants, et les individus à revenu élevé27. La situation socioéconomique de ces personnes ferait en sorte qu’elles seraient davantage capables de face aux risques potentiels associés au projet souverainiste. En d’autres termes, il s’agirait des classes qui, en raison de leur condition sociale, peuvent se permettre d’envisager favorablement un changement politique important comme la souveraineté. Selon G. Gagné et S. Langlois, le « groupe porteur » de la souveraineté est celui constitué des individus qui appartiennent simultanément à ces quatre catégories socio- démographiques. Dans notre étude, tous les répondants francophones à notre sondage font théoriquement partie de ce groupe porteur, de sorte que la typologie (ou interaction) proposée par ces auteurs ne peut pas vraiment être appliquée, compte tenu de l’univers restreint de la

25. Ibid.; Hubert Guindon, 1988, Quebec Society: Tradition, Modernity, and Nation- hood, Toronto, University of Toronto Press; Maurice Pinard et Richard Hamilton, 1984, «The Class Bases of the Quebec Independence Movement: Conjectures and Evidence», Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 7, no 1, p. 19-54. 26. Gagné et Langlois, Les raisons fortes…, op. cit. 27. Soulignons que les conclusions de Gagné et Langlois concernant l’effet de la variable de revenu vont à contre-courant des résultats de la plupart des autres études sur les déterminants de l’appui à la souveraineté du Québec. En effet, ces dernières démontrent habituellement que cet appui est plus fort chez les individus à plus faible revenu. (Voir, par exemple, Richard Nadeau, Pierre Martin et André Blais, 1999, «Attitude Towards Risk-Taking and Individual Choice in the Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty», British Journal of Political Science, vol. 29, no 3, p. 523-539.) 24 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA population à l’étude (les jeunes de 18 à 34 ans). Pour cette raison, nous nous contentons ici d’examiner l’effet individuel de chaque catégorie sur l’appui à la souveraineté, nous avons inclus à l’analyse les variables - sionnelle28. Ces cinq déterminants s’ajoutent à ceux de la langue et du statut d’immigré discutés à la sous-section précédente. Le modèle sociopsychologique met plutôt l’accent sur les facteurs associés à l’identité politique et aux valeurs des individus. Selon cette école, le passage d’une identité nationale canadienne-française à une identité québécoise est un facteur crucial pour expliquer la montée du sentiment souverainiste au Québec au cours des dernières décennies29. De même, un attachement plus grand au Québec et une érosion de l’attachement au Canada constituent des variables importantes d’explication de l’appui de masse au projet souverainiste30. L’étude de Scott Piroth

28. les 25-34 ans et les femmes. La variable d’éducation est une échelle en 8 points allant de 0 (éducation primaire ou moins) à 1 (éducation universitaire de cycles supérieurs). La variable de revenu est une échelle en 6 points allant de 0 (moins de 20000$ annuellement) à 1 (100000$ et plus). La variable d’occupation profession- nelle comprend 5 catégories qui ont été dichotomisées pour l’analyse (la catégorie de référence utilisée dans les régressions est «travail à temps partiel»). 29. Paul Howe, 1998, «Rationality and Sovereignty Support in Quebec», Revue canadienne de science politique, vol. 31, no 1, p. 31-59; Matthew Mendelsohn, 2003, «Rational Choice and Socio-Psychological Explanation for Opinion on Quebec Sovereignty», Revue canadienne de science politique, vol. 36, no 3, p. 511-537; 1980», dans Un combat inachevé, sous la dir. de Maurice Pinard, Robert Bernier et Vincent Lemieux, Québec, Presses de l’Université du Québec, p. 69-99. 30. Matthew Mendelsohn, 2002, «Measuring National Identity and Patterns of Attach- ment: Quebec and Nationalist Mobilization», Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, vol. 8, no 3, p. 72-94; Maurice Pinard, 1980, «Self-Determination in Quebec: Loyal- ties, Incentives and Constitutional Options Among French-Speaking Quebeckers », dans , sous la dir. de W. Phillips Davison et Leon Gordenker, New York, Praeger, p. 140-176. Bien que l’on puisse avancer que l’identité et l’attachement constituent des variables qui sont endogènes au vote et que, de ce point de vue, le modèle sociopsychologique propose une logique plutôt circulaire, l’exogénéité de ces variables a été bien établie par le passé. (En plus des travaux de Pinard et de ceux de Mendelsohn, voir aussi André Blais et Richard Nadeau, 1992, «To Be or Not To Be Sovereignist: Quebeckers’ Perennial Dilemma», Canadian Public Policy, vol. 18, p. 89-103.) La plupart des études sur le vote souverainiste au Québec considèrent l’identité et l’attachement comme des variables explicatives clés de celui-ci, mais qui ne conditionnent pas entièrement le comportement électoral. Par exemple, dans notre sondage, parmi les jeunes qui se déclarent «très attachés» au Canada, 11% voteraient tout de même OUI à la souveraineté-partenariat et 10% appuieraient l’accession du Québec au statut de Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 25 souligne quant à elle l’importance des valeurs dans l’explication de l’appui à la souveraineté, particulièrement celles dites postmatérialistes, chez les jeunes générations du Québec31. Ces déterminants, qui touchent aux motivations plus émotives (ou symboliques) derrière l’appui au projet souverainiste, ont le mérite de mettre en lumière le rôle de la socialisation politique et de la mobilisation du soutien par les élites nationalistes québécoises32. Notre étude teste l’impact de ces facteurs par le biais de six variables indépendantes: la force de l’identité québé- coise, le degré d’attachement au Québec puis au Canada, la valorisation 33. Un dernier modèle met l’accent sur les coûts et les bénéfices associés à la souveraineté du Québec comme facteurs explicatifs de l’appui à cette dernière34. Selon cette approche, les individus pèsent

à la première question et 9% diraient OUI à la deuxième. Il apparaît donc assez clair que l’identité n’est pas entièrement prédéterminée par le vote; il est tout à autre. 31. Scott Piroth, 2004, «Generational Replacement, Value Shifts, and Support for a Sovereign Quebec», Québec Studies, vol. 37, printemps/été, p. 23-43. 32. Harold D. Clarke, Allan Kornberg et Marianne C. Stewart, 2004, «Referendum Voting as Political Choice: The Case of Quebec», British Journal of Political Science, vol. 34, no 2, p. 345-355 ; Guy Lachapelle, 1998, « Le comportement politique des Québécoises lors de la campagne référendaire de 1995: une application de la théorie du dépistage», Politique et sociétés, vol. 17, no 1-2, p. 91-120. 33. La variable d’identité est une échelle en 5 points allant de –1 à +1 (se considère uniquement comme Canadien=–1; d’abord comme Canadien puis comme Québé- cois=–0,5; également comme Canadien et comme Québécois=0; d’abord comme Québécois puis comme Canadien=+0,5; uniquement comme Québécois=+1). Les variables d’attachement au Québec et au Canada sont des échelles en 4 points allant de 0 à 1 (pas du tout attaché=0; peu attaché=0,33; assez attaché=0,67; très attaché=1). Les variables de valorisation de l’environnement et de la liberté sont des échelles en 3 points mesurant l’importance (peu=0; moyennement=0,5; beaucoup = 1) accordée respectivement à « la protection de l’environnement » et à «donner aux citoyens la liberté de façonner leur propre vie ». La variable des gens (= 1) ou diriez-vous qu’on n’est jamais trop prudent dans nos relations avec les gens (= 0)?» 34. André Blais, Pierre Martin et Richard Nadeau, 1995, «Attentes économiques et linguistiques et appui à la souveraineté du Québec : une analyse prospective et comparative», Revue canadienne de science politique, vol. 28, no 4, p. 637-657; Pierre Martin et Richard Nadeau, 2002, «Understanding Opinion Formation on Quebec Sovereignty», dans Citizen Politics: Research and Theory in Canadian Political Behaviour, sous la dir. de Joanna Everitt et Brenda O’Neill, Don Mills, Oxford University Press, p. 142-158; Richard Nadeau et Christopher J. Fleury, 1995, «Gains linguistiques anticipés et appui à la souveraineté du Québec», Revue canadienne de science politique, vol. 28, no 1, p. 35-50; Nadeau et al., «Attitude 26 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

potentiels qu’apporterait la souveraineté aux coûts engendrés par un tel changement de statut politique. C’est donc l’aspect plus rationnel de l’appui à la souveraineté qui est mis en évidence par cette école35. D’après certains de ces auteurs, les calculs sont essentiellement pros- bien-être collectif du Québec, tant sur le plan économique que culturel, par opposition au bien-être personnel des individus. Quatre variables telles motivations : l’opinion quant à la situation économique et à la protection de la langue française dans un Québec souverain, l’opinion selon laquelle le fédéralisme canadien est avantageux pour le Québec et l’opinion selon laquelle le fédéralisme permet de protéger les intérêts du Québec36. Les trois modèles d’explication résumés ci-dessus sont testés conjointement à l’intérieur de nos analyses d’opinion. La section suivante présente les principaux résultats de ces analyses. Rappelons l’objectif de la présente étude: il ne s’agit pas de voir si les trois groupes linguistiques ont des opinions différentes, mais bien des effets différents d’un groupe à l’autre sur le vote souverainiste. Par exemple, un jeune francophone et un jeune allophone pourraient avoir un degré d’attachement au Québec qui est similaire, mais pourraient très bien ne pas accorder la même importance à ce facteur lorsque

Towards Risk-Taking and Individual Choice…», op. cit. ; Maurice Pinard et Richard Hamilton, 1986, «Motivational Dimensions in the Quebec Independence Movement: A Test of a New Model», and Change, vol. 9, p. 225-280. 35. Cette approche considère cependant aussi que les variables d’identité et d’attachement sont importantes dans le choix référendaire. (Voir, par exemple, Blais, Martin et Nadeau, «Attentes économiques et linguistiques… », op. cit; et Martin et Nadeau, «Understanding Opinion Formation on Quebec Sovereignty», op. cit.) 36. La variable d’économie est une échelle en 3 points allant de –1 à +1, mesurée par la question suivante: «Si le Québec devenait un pays indépendant, croyez-vous que la situation économique du Québec serait meilleure (= 1), pire (= –1) ou à peu près la même (= 0) que si le Québec demeurait au sein du Canada?» Les variables de langue française et de fédéralisme avantageux sont des échelles en 4 points allant de 0 à 1, mesurant si un individu est tout à fait en désaccord (= 0), en désaccord (= 0,33), d’accord (= 0,67) ou tout à fait d’accord (= 1) avec les énoncés respectifs suivant: «Un Québec souverain serait mieux en mesure de protéger la langue française qu’il ne l’est actuellement» et «Le fédéralisme canadien comporte plus d’avantages que de désavantages pour le Québec.» La variable de protection des intérêts du Québec par le fédéralisme est une échelle en 4 points allant de 0 à 1, mesurée par la question suivante: «Selon vous, est-ce que les intérêts du Québec sont très bien (= 1), plutôt bien (= 0,67), plutôt mal (= 0,33) ou très mal (= 0) protégés au sein de la fédération canadienne dans sa forme actuelle?» Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 27 vient le temps de décider s’ils appuient ou non la souveraineté. C’est précisément à cette dernière question, largement ignorée dans les études précédentes, que nous cherchons à répondre dans l’analyse qui suit.

RÉSULTATS

Le tableau 2 présente les résultats de régressions logistiques liés aux déterminants de l’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat chez les jeunes Québécois. Une analyse de régression a été effectuée séparément pour chacun des trois groupes linguistiques (colonnes 2, 3 et 4) et les résultats d’une analyse effectuée pour l’ensemble des répondants au sondage comparaison37.

Tableau 2. Effet combiné des facteurs sociodémographiques, à la «souveraineté-partenariat» Répondants Tous Francophones Anglophones Allophones Modèle sociodémographique Âge (25-34 ans) –0,044 0,104 0,307 –,087* (0,405) (0,482) (0,913) (0,613) Femme –0,476 –0,399 –0,273 –0,481 (0,333) (0,415) (0,650) (0,471) Éducation –0,353 –0,555 –1,849 0,226 (0,829) (0,994) (2,439) (0,997) Revenu –0,719 –0,894 –1,405 –0,298 (0,570) (0,683) (0,990) (1,038) Occupation Travail à temps plein 0,143 0,087 –2,206* 1,296 (0,542) (0,628) (1,294) (1,074) Au chômage 0,481 0,411 –4,065* 2,260 (0,823) (0,946) (2,435) (1,475) Étudiant 0,616 0,894 –3,312* 0,869 (0,689) (0,894) (1,784) (1,045) À la maison 0,749 0,378 3,793** (0,826) (0,909) (1,565)

37. Une méthode alternative serait de ne pas faire d’analyses séparées pour chaque groupe et de procéder plutôt à l’analyse sur l’échantillon complet tout en introduisant dans le modèle de régression des variables d’interaction entre chaque variable indépendante et les variables dichotomiques de langue maternelle (anglophone et allophone). Les résul- tats obtenus par cette méthode alternative ne sont pas substantiellement différents de ceux présentés dans l’article. Pour cette raison, et parce que la méthode retenue permet plus facilement de comparer les groupes tout en limitant la multicolinéarité dans le modèle, nous avons décidé de maintenir la séparation des groupes linguistiques. 28 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

Langue maternelle Anglophone –0,259 (0,485) Allophone 0,459 (0,623) Immigrant –0,469 –0,479 –2,134** –2,270 (0,525) (0,630) (0,985) (1,663) Modèle sociopsychologique Identité 1,326*** 1,428*** 4,219** 0,381 (0,373) (0,481) (1,696) (0,482) Attachement au Québec 2,005** 2,372 –0,251 1,109 (0,866) (1,137) (1,545) (0,979) Attachement au Canada –2,984*** –3,003 –2,790* –3,003** (0,782) (1,017) (1,503) (1,411) Valeurs Environnement 0,053 –0,337 3,794 1,716 (0,561) (0,681) (2,508) (1,054) Liberté –0,129 –0,122 –1,586 –0,878 (0,569) (0,686) (1,894) (0,940) –0,340 –0,343 –1,550** 0,417 (0,387) (0,479) (0,732) (0,510) Économie 1,452*** 1,553*** 3,208*** 1,402*** (0,308) (0,386) (0,941) (0,367) Langue française 2,043*** 1,980** 0,526 2,582* (0,761) (0,897) (1,144) (1,395) Fédéralisme avantageux –1,773** –2,400** 3,488 –0,063 (0,868) (1,091) (2,724) (1,021) Féd. protège les intérêts –1,113* –0,968 –1,300 –3,043*** (0,583) (0,699) (2,202) (0,969)

Constante 0,892 1,319 1,856 –0,333 (1,572) (2,062) (3,215) (2,007) Pseudo R-carré 0,58 0,57 0,65 0,42 Réduction d’erreur 69,59% 69,29% 36,00% 40,74% Log-vraisemblance –231,62 –96,15 –35,78 –77,69 N 804 344 232 220 *p < 0,10; **p < 0,05; ***p <0,01 erreurs-types entre parenthèses.

Ces premiers résultats indiquent d’abord que le modèle socio- démographique est d’une utilité limitée pour expliquer l’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat chez les jeunes. Ces variables n’exercent référendaire des jeunes en général. On constate tout de même que, Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 29

niveau p < 0,10 seulement): comparativement aux travailleurs à temps partiel (notre catégorie d’occupation de référence), les travailleurs à temps plein, les sans emploi et les étudiants appuient moins fortement la souveraineté-partenariat. Parmi les jeunes allophones, ceux qui restent à la maison appuient plus fortement l’option péquiste que les autres. Toujours chez les allophones, il semble qu’il y ait une différence signi- et les 25-34 ans: ces derniers seraient moins enclins à voter OUI dans un référendum. Ce résultat est peut-être dû à un effet de génération, récemment observé que «les jeunes allophones donnent un appui plus 38 ». Hormis ce résultat il faut conclure que, sur le plan des déterminants sociodémographiques de l’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat, les allophones apparaissent très peu différents de la majorité francophone. L’effet significatif de la variable d’immigrant chez les jeunes anglophones démontre que, parmi eux, ceux qui sont nés au Canada et dont les parents sont eux aussi nés au Canada apparaissent nettement plus favorables à l’option souverainiste que ceux qui sont issus de l’immigration. En outre, l’absence d’effet de cette variable d’immigrant chez le groupe des francophones suggère qu’il n’y a pas de distinction notable du niveau d’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat entre les jeunes francophones non immigrants et les jeunes immigrants dont la langue maternelle est le français. Ces derniers sont légèrement moins variable d’immigrant), mais cette différence n’est pas statistiquement deux groupes partagent au départ la même langue maternelle ou est-elle attribuable à la fréquentation de l’école française en sol québécois? Il - tude si les immigrants de notre échantillon ont tous fréquenté l’école française, peu importe leur langue maternelle.

38. Gilles Gagné et Simon Langlois, 2005, «Les jeunes appuient la souveraineté et les souverainistes le demeurent en vieillissant», dans L’annuaire du Québec 2006, sous la dir. de Michel Venne et Antoine Robitaille, Montréal, Fides, p. 450. Puisque nos données proviennent d’un sondage unique, il nous est impossible d’explorer plus à fond les effets de génération suggérés par ces auteurs qui, eux, examinent l’évolution des appuis à la souveraineté sur une période de dix ans. Notons toutefois que certaines des conclusions de leur étude ont été remises en question par Maurice Pinard, 2006, «Divergences relatives à l’évolution des appuis à la souveraineté-partenariat depuis dix ans», Options politiques, juin, p. 62-65. 30 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

Les variables associées au modèle sociopsychologique semblent avoir un poids plus important dans la décision des jeunes Québécois d’appuyer ou non l’option souverainiste. La variable d’attachement au Canada apparaît d’une importance équivalente dans chacun des trois - phones et, surtout, les allophones. La variable d’attachement au Québec, pour sa part, semble surtout jouer chez les francophones, alors que la variable d’identité a un effet particulier, tel que l’illustre le graphique 1. L’identité joue un rôle très faible chez les allophones (augmentation non OUI) et très fort chez les francophones (augmentation de 54 points). L’identité a un impact plus accentué encore chez les anglophones, mais seulement à une extrême de l’échelle : un jeune anglophone et Québécois, voit sa probabilité d’appuyer la souveraineté-partenariat demeurer presque nulle (une augmentation de 4 points seulement). C’est seulement, comme Québécois que sa probabilité de voter OUI augmente fortement (de 60 points).

Graphique 1. Effets comparés de la variable d’identité sur l’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat

0,8

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0,2 Probabilité de voter OUI

CAN uniquement CAN d'abord Les deux également QC d'abord QC uniquement

Francophones Anglophones Allophones

C’est donc dire que, sur le plan des déterminants sociopsychologiques, des différences marquées apparaissent entre les groupes linguistiques. Contrairement aux francophones, il semble que, pour les jeunes allophones, l’identité et l’attachement au Québec ne constituent Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 31 pas des motivations particulièrement importantes pour appuyer le projet souverainiste et que ce soit plutôt l’attachement au Canada qui joue un rôle prépondérant dans leur opinion, comme c’est le cas (mais à variables de valeurs incluses dans nos régressions ne constituent pas des anglophones. Ce résultat peut paraître surprenant, mais tient peut-être au fait que le capital social est généralement associé positivement au soutien à l’endroit du régime politique en place39, régime que le projet Les déterminants de type « coûts-bénéfices » inclus dans nos très important dans l’intention de vote référendaire des jeunes. Estimer que, dans un Québec souverain, l’économie serait meilleure et la langue française mieux protégée affecte à la hausse l’appui à la souveraineté. À l’inverse, être d’avis que le fédéralisme canadien protège bien les intérêts du Québec et que ce régime comporte plus d’avantages que de désavantages pour le Québec diminue considérablement cet appui. Ces facteurs ont cependant des effets différents dépendamment du - tions similaires à appuyer la souveraineté, le poids des considérations économiques et linguistiques étant à peu près semblable dans les deux groupes. Le graphique 2a montre cependant que l’effet de la variable de protection de la langue française est légèrement différent dans le cas des allophones. Il semble que, pour que cette variable ait un véritable effet sur l’appui à la souveraineté chez les allophones, il faille que ces derniers soient tout à fait d’accord avec ce point de vue; alors que le graphique indique que, chez les francophones, l’effet de cette même variable est plutôt linéaire. Quoi qu’il en soit, les deux groupes se distin- guent nettement des anglophones, pour qui la variable de protection de la langue française n’a aucun effet. Et c’est la situation inverse que l’on constate à propos de la variable de perception économique: son poids apparaît plus lourd chez les anglophones comparativement aux deux autres groupes linguistiques. Cela dit, il faut noter que l’opinion des allophones concernant la situation économique dans un Québec souverain s’approche davantage de celle des anglophones: une majorité d’allophones (53%) et d’anglophones (72%) croient que la situation économique serait pire qu’elle ne l’est actuellement, alors que seulement 29% des jeunes francophones partagent cette opinion.

39. Voir, par exemple, Susan J. Pharr et Robert D. Putnam (dir.), 2000, Disaffected Democracies: What’s Troubling the Trilateral Countries?, Princeton, Princeton University Press. 32 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

Graphique 2a. Effets comparés de la variable de protection de la langue française sur l’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat

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Très en désaccord Désaccord D'accord Très d'accord

Un Québec souverain serait mieux en mesure de protéger la langue française...

Francophones Anglophones Allophones

Graphique 2b. Effets comparés de la variable de protection des intérêts du Québec sur l’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat

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Très mal Plutôt mal Plutôt bien Très bien

Le fédéralisme canadien protège les intérêts du Québec...

Francophones Anglophones Allophones Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 33

Le graphique 2b illustre l’effet de la variable de protection des intérêts du Québec par le gouvernement fédéral canadien sur la proba- bilité de voter OUI. On peut y observer que cet effet est nettement plus accentué chez les jeunes allophones (diminution de 52 points de l’appui) que chez les francophones (pour ces derniers, l’effet de –16 points n’est groupes diffère sur cette question: la moitié des jeunes francophones sont d’avis que les intérêts du Québec sont mal ou très mal protégés au sein du Canada, alors que moins du quart des allophones (23%) et des anglophones (18 %) sont de cet avis. Une autre différence entre allophones et francophones tient à la question des avantages du fédé- ralisme pour le Québec: celle-ci semble jouer un rôle important dans l’intention de vote référendaire des francophones, mais pas dans celle des deux autres groupes linguistiques. Au total, les facteurs associés au différences dans les motivations des francophones et des allophones à appuyer le projet de souveraineté-partenariat. Comme les francophones, les allophones semblent répondre aux considérations économiques et linguistiques, mais semblent accorder plus d’importance qu’eux à la protection des intérêts du Québec par le fédéralisme canadien. Qu’en est-il de l’appui des jeunes à l’accession du Québec au statut de pays? Le tableau 3 présente les résultats de nos analyses multiva- riées menées avec cette deuxième variable dépendante. En général, on constate que l’effet des différentes variables est plus fort dans ces analyses, ce qui n’est pas entièrement surprenant, dans la mesure où la variable dépendante utilisée réfère à une option constitutionnelle plus radicale que la souveraineté-partenariat. On devrait donc s’attendre à ce que la formation d’une opinion à son endroit soit plus complexe et à ce que les diverses considérations – notamment celles plus émotives associées au modèle sociopsychologique – y pèsent plus lourd. 34 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA Répondants Tous Francophones Anglophones Allophones 1,255 1,773** 2,482** 2,770 1,498 1,733 –12,075** 2,220 0,569 0,581 –5,847* 3,070 (0,763) (0,714) (0,804) (1,781) (2,335) (0,543) (0,829) (1,047) (2,591) (0,726) (0,817) (4,117) (1,931) (1,048) (1,432) (4,836) (1,903) (0,647) (0,719) (3,184) (1,974) (0,411)(0,385)(0,874) (0,454)(0,691) (0,451) (0,985) (4,047) (0,791) (1,410) (11,193) (0,727) (2,986) (0,610) (1,829) (1,286) –0,601 –0,930 –0,948 –9,989** 2,189 Tableau 3. Effet Tableau combiné des facteurs sociodémographiques, sociopsychologiques Allophone Anglophone À la maison Étudiant Au chômage Travail à temps plein ImmigrantModèle sociopsychologique Identité –0,424 2,050*** –0,430 2,178*** –4,312** 5,289** –6,860*** 1,827*** Langue maternelle Modèle sociodémographique Âge (25-34 ans)FemmeÉducationRevenuOccupation –0,315 –0,903** –0,228 0,977 –1,260* –0,947** 1,081 0,966 –1,244 –2,396* –0,971 –6,567 –4,947* –0,344 2,327 –3,397*** Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 35 0,383 0,434 0,828 0,710 1,047 1,170 7,800* 2,860* (0,424)(0,302)(0,809) (0,472)(0,894) (0,344)(0,670) (0,942) (1,508)(1,760) (1,068) (3,273) (0,779) (1,840) (0,706) (2,353) (3,430) (0,496) (7,580) (1,899) (10,756) (1,438) (1,826) (3,289) (0,638) (0,710) (2,951) (1,420) (0,869) (1,000) (4,567) (1,523) (0,421)(0,841)(0,814) (0,510) (1,052) (0,947) (2,150) (10,856) (3,097) (0,693) (1,558) (1,916) –0,258 –0,213 –1,935 0,148 Liberté Environnement ÉconomieLangue françaiseFédéralisme avantageuxFéd. protège les intérêtsConstantePseudo R-carréRéduction d’erreurLog-vraisemblanceN –1,528* 3,076*** 1,769*** –1,155* –1,741 3,261 1,702*** –0,793 74,81% –204,73 –2,485 0,63 –0,909 5,164 –0,406 –1,658 73,57% –90,44 –3,382 806 0,61 –0,903 2,456*** 2,973 –4,692** 50,00% –12,02 –4,285 0,85 345 53,19% –49,20 –2,051 0,63 232 221 Attachement au Québec 1,924** 2,183** 10,827 3,002* Attachement au CanadaValeurs –2,458*** –2,189** –1,661 –6,065*** *p < 0,10; **p < 0,05; ***p <0,01 36 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

L’effet des variables sociodémographiques sur la probabilité d’appuyer l’accession au statut de pays est sensiblement le même, bien que l’on constate cette fois l’apparition d’un gender gap et d’un income gap. favorables au pays (par 20 points) et les jeunes allophones à revenu La variable sexe ne joue pas chez les allophones et celle de revenu n’a pas d’effet chez les francophones. Ces deux écarts sont statistiquement puisque l’appui de ce groupe au statut de pays est extrêmement faible dans l’ensemble (tableau 1). Quant à la variable d’immigrant, notons que son effet est sensiblement le même qu’avec la souveraineté-partenariat. ne devrait pas accorder trop d’importance à cet effet, compte tenu que seulement cinq répondants allophones ne se conforment pas à notre semble donc que, au total, sur une question plus «dure», les allophones et les francophones se différencient un peu plus que précédemment en ce qui a trait aux déterminants sociodémographiques de leur intention de vote référendaire. Les facteurs sociopsychologiques sont ceux qui semblent exercer le plus de poids dans le choix d’appuyer ou non l’accession du Québec un impact plus fort que dans les analyses limitées à la souveraineté- partenariat, surtout chez les francophones et les allophones. Le facteur allophones, mais cet effet demeure légèrement plus faible que chez les jeunes francophones. La polarisation paraît encore plus grande entre ces deux groupes linguistiques lorsqu’on s’attarde à l’impact des variables d’attachement. Comme le montrent les graphiques 3a et 3b, chez les francophones, les deux facteurs d’attachement ont un effet inversé très similaire (+46 points pour l’attachement au Québec et –42 points pour celui au Canada). La situation est très différente chez les allophones, pour qui le poids de l’attachement au Canada s’avère être environ cinq fois celui de l’attachement au Québec dans leur décision d’appuyer l’accession au statut de pays (respectivement –83 points et +16 points). Comme l’illustre clairement le graphique 3b, un allophone pas du tout attaché au Canada a une probabilité (0,86) aussi élevée de voter OUI qu’un francophone partageant le même sentiment, alors que, à mesure qu’il devient plus fortement attaché au Canada, sa probabilité de voter OUI tombe au niveau de celle d’un anglophone (0,03). Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 37

Graphique 3a. Effets comparés de la variable d’attachement au Québec sur l’appui au statut de pays

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Peu attaché Plutôt attaché Attaché Très attaché

Francophones Anglophones Allophones

Graphique 3b. Effets comparés de la variable d’attachement au Canada sur l’appui au statut de pays

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Peu attaché Plutôt attaché Attaché Très attaché

Francophones Anglophones Allophones 38 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA

Une autre différence entre ces deux groupes linguistiques tient à la protection de l’environnement comme valeur motivant l’appui au pays. l’opinion des jeunes francophones, mais occupe un certain poids dans celle des anglophones et des allophones. Comme on peut le constater, les facteurs de type sociopsychologique révèlent dans l’ensemble des différences plus marquées entre francophones et allophones et des simi- larités plus évidentes entre allophones et anglophones en termes de leurs motivations à appuyer une version plus radicale de l’option péquiste. L’analyse de l’appui des jeunes à l’accession du Québec au statut de pays laisse voir également un rôle plus important des perceptions économiques dans la formation des opinions. Parmi les facteurs associés autres variables de manière plus frappante ici que dans nos précédentes analyses qui portaient sur l’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat. L’effet des perceptions économiques sur les deux options constitutionnelles, pour chacun des trois groupes linguistiques, est présenté au graphique 4. dans le choix d’appuyer la version plus «dure» de l’option paraît légè- rement plus importante chez les allophones que chez les francophones. L’effet de l’économie est surtout différent, en ce sens que, pour les à une perception neutre pour que l’appui aux deux options augmente substantiellement (les courbes du graphique 4 pour les francophones sont convexes). Par contraste, tant chez les allophones que les anglophones, c’est le passage d’une perception neutre à une perception positive qui semble davantage faire bouger l’intention de vote (les courbes sont concaves). Cela dit, on observe que, dans sa propension à appuyer le statut de pays, un allophone qui est convaincu que l’économie serait meilleure dans un Québec souverain (probabilité de 0,76 de voter OUI) rejoint presque un répondant francophone dont l’opinion est la même (probabilité de 0,92). Facteurs d’appui à la souveraineté du Québec chez les jeunes 39

Graphique 4. Effets comparés de la variable d’économie sur l’appui à la souveraineté ou au statut de pays

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Pire À peu près la même Meilleure

Si le Québec devenait un pays indépendant, croyez-vous que sa situation économique serait...

Appui à la souveraineté Appui au statut de pays

Francophones Francophones

Anglophones Anglophones

Allophones Allophones

Par ailleurs, les allophones se démarquent toujours par l’importance qu’ils semblent accorder à la protection des intérêts du Québec au sein du fédéralisme canadien dans leur choix d’appuyer ou non l’accession paraissent ici moins importantes qu’elles ne l’étaient dans l’explication de l’appui à la souveraineté-partenariat.

CONCLUSIONS

Récemment, des études ont fait état d’une progression notable de l’option souverainiste chez les citoyens issus de l’immigration et parti- culièrement chez les jeunes allophones ou la «génération 101». Ces résultats ont amené certains à conclure que l’intégration linguistique des jeunes Québécois issus de l’immigration faisait en sorte de les sensibiliser davantage à l’option souverainiste et que leur comportement électoral était maintenant devenu indifférencié, dans une très large part, de celui des jeunes francophones. Nos résultats indiquent toutefois que, malgré la hausse de l’appui à la souveraineté observée ces dernières années chez les jeunes allophones, les facteurs motivant cet appui ne sont pas tout à fait les mêmes que chez les francophones. Alors que les jeunes allophones, comme les francophones, semblent accorder beaucoup d’importance à la protection 40 ÉRIC BÉLANGER et ANDREA M.L. PERRELLA de la langue française lorsque vient le temps d’exprimer une intention de vote référendaire, ils semblent plus sensibles que les jeunes francophones aux valeurs associées au fédéralisme canadien, de même qu’aux conséquences économiques de la souveraineté. Contrairement à ce que l’on peut observer chez les francophones, l’identité comme Canadien ou Québécois et l’attachement au Québec n’ont qu’un impact très faible sur l’appui des allophones au projet souverainiste. En revanche, l’attachement au Canada semble peser beaucoup plus lourd dans leur décision que dans celle des jeunes francophones. En ce sens, le comportement des allophones s’apparente davantage à celui des anglophones. Le contraste entre francophones et allophones apparaît d’ailleurs encore plus marqué lorsqu’on examine l’appui à une question référendaire plus « dure » faisant référence à l’accession du Québec au statut de pays. Cette question fait même ressortir un gender gap chez les jeunes francophones et un income gap chez les jeunes allophones. Notre examen détaillé des déterminants derrière l’appui des jeunes Québécois à la souveraineté offre un portrait plus nuancé de la question que celui présenté par les études précédentes. Le portrait dépeint ici ne permet pas de conclure à une normalisation complète du comportement électoral des jeunes allophones du Québec. Au contraire, il démontre que, malgré les progrès de l’option souverainiste réalisés auprès de ces la souveraineté que les francophones. L’intégration à la société et à la culture québécoises des jeunes de langue maternelle autre que le français ou l’anglais ne semble pas empêcher ceux-ci d’accorder un poids très important à leur attachement au Canada et à la protection des intérêts du Québec au sein de la fédération canadienne dans leur choix constitutionnel. Autrement dit, même si, à la suite de leur passage à l’école française, les jeunes allophones deviennent plus attachés au Québécois que comme Canadiens, ils ne lient pas nécessairement ces que leur comportement électoral est substantiellement différent dans sa nature et ses motivations que celui des jeunes francophones. Ces résultats suggèrent que le rôle de la Loi 101 (Charte de la langue française) comme facteur d’intégration politique a peut-être été exagéré par les auteurs s’étant précédemment penchés sur la question du «vote immigrant» au Québec. Il semble bien que les jeunes allophones, tout en partageant la culture publique commune du Québec, demandent malgré tout à être mobilisés et, surtout, à être persuadés des bienfaits de la souveraineté politique. Le simple fait, pour les jeunes Québec par le biais de la fréquentation de l’école française ne semble cause souverainiste. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties Vol. 22, No. 1, 77–93, February 2012

Fear and Disappointment: Explaining the Persistence of Support for Quebec Secession

EMMANUELLE RICHEZ∗ &MARCANDRE´ BODET∗∗ ∗McGill University, Canada; ∗∗Universite´ Laval, Canada

ABSTRACT Since the election of the first Parti Que´bećois government in 1976, support for secession in the province of Quebec has demonstrated a surprising capacity to maintain itself, despite two lost referenda. Despite numerous attempts to explain such persistence, no definitive consensus has been reached. In this article, we propose a model that gives a primary role to governing parties at the provincial and federal levels. As the title suggests, certain parties generate fear while others produce disappointment. The interaction between the two and the fact that parties have tended to alternate in power in the last 35 years leads to a relative stability in public opinion, as these effects cancel each other out.

“It is thus more and more certain that a new country will soon democratically appear on the map where, up until now, the federal state has preferred to see nothing more than a province among others.” (Rene´ Le´vesque, November 1977)1

Introduction Since the British invasion in the late eighteenth century, French-Canadian leaders of all political stripes have put forward nationalistic claims, based on Quebec’s linguistic, cultural and historical particularities. After the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, during which French-speaking Quebeckers used the provincial state to afﬁrm and promote their national identity (Balthazar, 1986; McRoberts, 1999), the idea of Quebec secession became a viable political option. Secession quickly found its cham- pion in the Parti Que´be´cois (PQ), which gained seats in the province’s National Assembly in 1970, and then a parliamentary majority in 1976. The PQ, whose main objective is to achieve Quebec secession through democratic means, failed

Correspondence Address: Ms. Emmanuelle Richez, Department of Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1745-7289 Print/1745-7297 Online/12/010077–17 # 2012 Elections, Public Opinion & Parties http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2011.631709 78 E. Richez & M.A. Bodet twice to do so in two province-wide referenda. A ﬁrst referendum in 1980 on the mandate to negotiate sovereignty-association2 with the Canadian federal government failed to garner the support of a majority of Quebeckers, the “Yes” camp winning only 40.44% of the vote. However, a second referendum in 1995 that proposed secession with only an optional partnership with the rest of Canada, brought the province to a stalemate with the vote splitting 49.42% for the “Yes” camp and 50.58% for the “No” camp. Since then, support for Quebec secession has maintained itself mostly between the high thirties and low forties. Today, the PQ remains a mainstream political party, alongside the Liberal Party of Quebec (LPQ) and the Action De´mocratique du Que´bec. The reasons behind the persistence of opinions despite successive failures are not well understood. We know from the comparative literature that being constantly on the losing side affects citizens’ perceptions of the democratic process (e.g. Anderson et al., 2005), but we know little about its consequences on opinion formation. In the case of support for Quebec secession from Canada, scholars have attempted in the last few decades to explain this persistence with rather limited success (e.g. Drouilly et al., 1997; Gagne´ & Langlois, 2002; Mendelsohn, 2002; Pinard, 1997b). This article argues that the rigidity – or ambivalence – of Quebec public opinion regarding the province’s future is due to the entanglement of federal and provincial party effects. Making use of time-series polling data, this study sheds a new light on the inﬂu- ence of provincial and federal parties on support for Quebec secession. It also shows how the alternation of governing parties constrains support for secession within a stable range of percentages.

The Ambivalence of Quebeckers The theme of Quebeckers’ ambivalence towards their political future is recurring in the political science literature. Many authors indeed acknowledge the premise, though this ambivalence is primarily measured at the individual level with a prospective approach (see Blais et al., 1995; Martin, 1994; Nadeau & Fleury, 1995; Nadeau et al., 1999). We know that the Quebec electorate is composed of hard cores of seces- sionists and federalists (pro-Canada), none of which is able to rally an absolute majority of public opinion (Drouilly et al., 1997). The collective political mood is thus dependent on a middle group, known as “soft” nationalists, who depending on the political context tip the balance in favour of one or the other constitutional option. Interactions between these three groups cause what we refer to as the ambivalence of Quebeckers. In the Quebec context, ambivalence is given two meanings in the literature. First, it can mean indecisiveness or conflicting feelings towards the future of the province (Maclure, 2003). This would suggest that Quebec is a fragile nation, which has not reached its full maturity (see Aquin, 1988; Dufour, 1990; Vallie`res, 1971), in part due to past humiliations suffered by its French majority over the last 250 years. Bouchard (2001) believes that the indecisiveness of Quebeckers comes Fear and Disappointment 79 from internal divisions and external pressures that have been present since the French colonization. He finds it disappointing that Quebeckers hesitate between definitive integration and separation, despite the fact that the two are antinomic. Unfortunately, the author does not show how this fatalist depiction of Quebeckers’ indecisiveness explains regular variations in the support for sovereignty. The second meaning of ambivalence has a more positive connotation. It is notably used by Le´tourneau (2006) who, after retracing the political history of Quebec, con- cludes that French-Canadians and later Quebeckers have always tried to reach a certain autonomy, notably by breaking ties with what the author refers to as the Other, embodied consecutively by France, the British Empire, and the rest of Canada. Quebeckers’ ambivalence would illustrate the desire to establish a leverage position that would be optimal in terms of manoeuvring space for their collectivity. In a similar fashion, Dion (1996) argues that secessionist movements find their origins in fear of union and confidence in following a separate way. The combination of the two can fuel support for secession. Dion also argues that ambivalence is the fruit of a cost- benefit analysis, but also emotional perceptions. The author suggests that fear and confidence are determined by the sentiment Quebeckers have towards the symbolic political status given to their province. If ambivalence is more strategic than fatalist, how did it express itself in support for Quebec secession? Three studies try to answer this question. First, Pinard (1997b) argues that fluctuations in the public opinion since 1980 are explained by the expression of ethnic, political, economic and cultural grievances, in interaction with concerted efforts by elites to mobilize the population. Support for sovereignty would thus increase when Quebeckers were disappointed by the way they are treated in the Canadian federation. Second, Gagne´ and Langlois (2002) explain the relative decline of the sovereignist option between 1995 and 2001 by a satisfaction with the status quo in the population and the incapacity of the secessionist movement to reinvent itself. Finally, Mendelsohn (2002) suggests that support for sovereignty is in large part explained by the incapacity of Canada to accommodate the multiple identities of Quebeckers. He also underlines that certain events – for example the repatriation of the constitution and the failure of the Meech Lake Accord – have increased the saliency of primary identification to Quebec rather than Canada, at least temporarily. Unfortunately, these three studies do not offer strong statistical support for their claims and do not provide a definitive explanation of the source of support for Quebec sovereignty. They do not account for its persistence between the high thirties and low forties levels, or for its variations within this range. It is interesting to note that these three studies all identify the partisanship of government as an explanatory factor for sovereignty support. We thus believe governing parties have an important role to play in the outcome of the relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada. Le´tourneau (2006) suggests that, paradoxically, PQ governments do not have the legitimacy to realize their sovereignist project but must instead govern for all the citizenry. Similarly, Pinard (2005) argues that many Quebeckers are ambivalent towards the PQ in the sense that they are attracted to its managerial style but express reservations towards its sovereignist stance. The 80 E. Richez & M.A. Bodet same paradox is found in the LPQ which, despite being strongly federalist, must behave like a nationalist government when in power. The desire of Quebeckers to increase their autonomy while maintaining the federal framework may bring a good proportion of them to judge harshly LPQ governments for not doing enough for Quebec, and similarly, the PQ for risking too much in the secession project. What about federal political parties? Le´tourneau (2006), writing before the arguably earth-shattering 2011 election, states that Quebeckers’ limited support for federalist parties is conditional on the will of these parties to accommodate their nationalist aspirations. Numerous scholars (see Bickerton et al., 1999; Laforest, 1995; McRoberts, 1997) argue that the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada has been more inclined over the years to accommodate nationalist Quebeckers than its counterpart, the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC). The conservative label in Canada has taken different forms over the years. For the period under study, the Pro- gressive Conservative Party of Canada has been in government for a good part of the 1980s before its implosion in 1993. After a merger of the political right, the conservative movement came back to power in 2006 under the new label Conservative Party of Canada.3 Though these two entities differ somewhat ideologically speaking, the Progressive Conservative Party being to the left of the modern Conser- vative Party, they both share a common philosophy with regards to Quebec aspiration. In this article, we refer to these two parties using the most recent label, which is CPC. At first glance, we could conclude that CPC governments should be more capable of decreasing support for secession than LPC governments since they are more willing to accommodate Quebec. However, two different trends in the literature make us doubt this simple hypothesis and make us hold the contrary opinion. First, recent comparative work suggests that minorities use sovereignty support as a bargaining strategy to maximize concessions made to them by the central insti- tutions of their host country (Cetinyan, 2002; Jenne, 2004, 2007; Jenne et al., 2007). Minorities will strategically radicalize their demands, ranging from power- sharing agreements to outright independence in certain cases, when they believe they have increased leverage. This normally happens when minorities are faced with a central government that shows openness towards them (Jenne, 2004, 2007). As Jenne puts it: “Institutional opportunities may produce mobilisation even in the absence of collective grievances” (2007: 11). Moreover, concessions made by state centres will be met with greater demands for autonomy from the minority. Alterna- tively, Jenne believes that ethnic fears created by repressive central governments are not reliable predictors of fluctuations in minority claims. Following this line of argument, we could suggest that support for sovereignty would rise when Quebec faces a CPC government in Ottawa. In this scenario, Que- beckers would feel that they have the necessary leverage to radicalize their demands for autonomy. However, faced with a rigid LPC government, Quebeckers would feel they lack the necessary leverage to formulate greater demands for autonomy. While this institutional opportunity framework seems appealing, it fails to take into account Fear and Disappointment 81 the specific institutional restraints of the Canadian political context. On the electoral playing field, federal governing parties have to manage the expectations of many conflicting constituencies and cannot only cater to Quebec’s interests (Bickerton et al., 1999). Most importantly, the reality of Canadian politics limits the parties’ capacity to reform the constitution (Cairns, 1992; Manfredi & Lusztig, 1998; Russell, 2004). We believe that by showing too much openness, federal governing parties may have given the Quebec electorate unrealistic expectations and ineluctably led it to be disappointed, which in turn has led to an increase in support for sovereignty. For example, the “enthusiasm” for a redefinition of the Canadian compact led to successive aborted constitutional accords under PM Brian Mulroney, and failed ouver- tures under PM Stephen Harper. In contrast, the LPC has represented a safer bet for Quebeckers in the sense that the party’s promises – or lack thereof4 – have been more easily met. By not creating high expectations of accommodation, Liberal governments would tend to create less disappointment among Quebeckers than Conservative ones. The combined effect of institutional opportunities and restraints under CPC governments could thus push Quebec to radicalize its demands for autonomy. If one accepts that the ambivalent nature of Quebeckers towards their political future is strategic, it is possible to see public opinion as strategic as well. According to thermostatic theory, public opinion works like a thermostat,5 which adjusts to the current political context. This model, first developed for the study of public policy preferences, follows the new trend of aggregate models developed over the last two decades (see also Page & Shapiro, 1992). However, it differs from more classical models that tend to adhere to the static individual preferences hypothesis, by concep- tualizing individual preferences as dynamic and reflective. We find a good recent application of the thermostatic model in policy-making by Soroka and Wlezien who show that when governments adjust their spending behaviour in the light of public demands, people respond (2010). The authors find opinion responsiveness in defence programmes, social policy spending, welfare, health and education, and in a variety of institutional contexts, such as in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Instead of looking at public policy spending output, we are interested in looking at that of governing parties’ accommodation of Quebec’s national aspirations. In other words, as a new party takes power, we observe a shift in momentum in relative support for secession. Figure 1 illustrates the thermostatic logic in a stylized format. As we see, the relative weight of %Yes increases until party B wins the election. We then see a shift in momentum in favour of %No until party A comes back to power. In the Canadian context, the shifts are not symmetrical and two levels of government are at play, but the logic remains the same. LPQ and CPC governments would engender increases in the support for sovereignty while PQ and LPC governments would cause drops in this support. Since these reactions to governing parties occur simultaneously at both levels of government, they can reinforce or cancel each other out. This operationalization of governing party effects on public opinion is superior to the simple inclusion of dummies for 82 E. Richez & M.A. Bodet

Figure 1 The Role of Governing Parties in a Thermostatic Model two reasons. First, it captures incremental changes in support for secession instead of a less realistic single “jump” in absolute support following a change in government. Second, it builds on previous changes and captures the momentum of public opinion. These combinations of party effects in the last 30 years could explain the persistence of support for sovereignty between the high thirties and low forties levels, as well as the variations within this range. Parties get to power and leave at a relatively fast pace in Canada, and this turnover keeps at bay the possibility that the secessionist option dies off, or becomes inevitable. Finally, we believe the economic context can impact support for sovereignty. Many studies argue that economic gain anticipation tends to increase support for sovereignty among Quebeckers (Be´langer & Perella, 2008; Blais et al., 1995; Martin, 1994; Nadeau et al., 1999). By extension, it would be plausible to assume that Quebec’s economical prosperity has a positive inﬂuence on the sovereignist option. This hypothesis can also be supported by the fact that individuals’ prospective calculations are linked to Quebeckers’ general well-being and not to their own personal situation (Be´langer & Perella, 2008). Indeed, the individuals in these studies are usually questioned on their expectations with regards to the general standard of living of citizens (Martin, 1994), or with regards to the general state of the economy and unemployment rate (Nadeau et al., 1999) in a sovereign Quebec and not with regards to their own personal ﬁnancial situation. Fear and Disappointment 83

Hypotheses This article aims at testing the role of governing parties on the support for Quebec secession. We ﬁrst test whether, controlling for the economic context, there exists a thermostatic party effect at the provincial level. We expect to ﬁnd that Quebeckers tend to support sovereignty more and more as an LPQ government stays in power and less and less as the PQ maintains itself in government. This hypothesis tests for ambivalence in Quebec’s public opinion. Quebeckers would perceive the PQ as too nationalist and the LPQ as not nationalist enough. Our second hypothesis states that, again controlling for the economic context, there exists a party effect on support for sovereignty at the federal level. Quebeckers would tend to support sovereignty more and more as a CPC government stays in power and less and less as a LPC maintains itself in government. The combined effect of institutional opportunities and restraints under CPC governments would nurture nationalist sentiments. In contrast, the LPC, despite being opposed to special constitutional status for Quebec, kills all bargaining opportunities for Quebeckers and does not disappoint them. We thus should see two simultaneous thermostatic effects and four possible scenarios. A combination of LPQ and CPC governments should increase the support for sovereignty the most and a combination of PQ and LPC governments should decrease the support for sovereignty the most. The two other combinations should be somewhere in the middle, probably cancelling each other out.

Data and Model Specification Our longitudinal analysis covers 32 years, starting with the first election of a PQ government in 1976 and ending in 2008. We make use of quarterly data (128 quarters in total). Our statistical analysis is based on three sources of data we discuss below. We first make use of a comprehensive list of commercial polls on Quebec secession regrouped in a single database by Claire Durand at the Universite´ de Montreál.6 The main criterion to include a poll in our analysis is question wording. Generally speaking, the percentage of Quebeckers in favour of strict “separation” or “independence” tends to be significantly lower than the percentage of Quebeckers in favour of “sovereignty”.7 While the first two options refer to something somewhat brutal and definitive, the latter is more positive and more engaging. Historically, the nationalist movement in Quebec has preferred, for obvious reasons, the use of the word “sovereignty” in their electoral platforms and campaigns. The 1980 and 1995 referenda questions also made use of the term “sovereignty”. Consequently, we filter all polls and discard those that include words related to “separation” and “independence”. We are thus left with 610 valid polls conducted by 28 different pollsters. The polling data is standardized in the following fashion:

GAP t 100 %Yes %No / %Yes %No ( ) = ∗( − ) ( + ) As mentioned earlier, we are interested in quarterly data. As a result, there is a need to merge multiple polls within each quarter. We achieve this by taking into account the 84 E. Richez & M.A. Bodet relative sample size of each poll and building weighted averages based on these sample sizes. For example, if poll A has twice as many respondents as poll B and there is no other poll conducted during this given quarter, poll A will account for two-thirds of the weighted average and poll B only for a third. Our second dataset consists in a matrix that includes information about which parties are in power – both at the federal and the provincial levels – at the beginning of each quarter. This data is self-explanatory. Let us just say that, in our sample, LPC governments have been in power 63% of the time against 37% for the CPC. At the provincial level, LPQ governments have been in power 45% of the time against 55% for the PQ. We have four possible combinations of federal/provincial governments and all these combinations are found in our sample. CPC PQ combinations occur 6% of the time, CPC LPQ 31%, LPC PQ 49%, and+ LPC LPQ 14%. The rare occurrence of CPC+ PQ combinations+ is worrisome since+ we have to make our inferences from a very+ limited number of cases. Unfortunately, there is no adequate solution to this weakness, since we already include the entire population of cases for the period under study. Rather than including dichotomous variables to solely take into account the “colour” of governing parties, we multiply these dummies by the number of quarters in power at time t. For example, the LPC party effect variable takes values going from 0 to 54 since the LPC has been in the opposition a good amount of time (thus 0 on our party effect variable) and have been in power for a maximum of 54 consecutive quarters. This specification allows us to capture government fatigue as we should see exacerbated party effects on support for sovereignty as these parties remain in power for a long period of time. This is a simple method to modelize thermostatic effects.8 Finally, to control for the macroeconomic context, we make use of deseasonalized unemployment rates publicly available through Statistics Canada online library.9 The raw data is available on a monthly basis but we transformed it into quarterly indicators by computing three-month simple averages. Figure 2 illustrates variations in support for sovereignty and unemployment rates over the selected period.10 There is a good amount of variance in both instances, but this variation seems bounded in a relatively narrow range. The deseasonalized unemployment rate never goes below the 5% bar and rarely surpasses 15%. As expected in macroeconomic data, the fluctuation follows a cyclical path as unemployment peaks during the early 1980s and early 1990s recessions. The standardized difference between %Yes and %No varies significantly in the first half of our sampled years but has tended to stabilize after 1990. Time-series data are often plagued with non-stationarity.11 Ignoring this issue can have serious consequences in terms of estimation and inference. Fortunately, the Dickey-Fuller test can inform us on the magnitude of this non-stationarity (Dickey & Fuller, 1979). This test is built so that the null hypothesis is the presence of non-stationarity. A t-statistic above a critical value yields confidence that the variable under study is stationary. In the case of standardize support for sovereignty, the t-statistic takes the value 23.263, which is above the critical value at a 90% level of Fear and Disappointment 85

Figure 2 Two continuous variables over time.

confidence. We can thus reject the null hypothesis of non-stationarity in our dependent variable.12 We need to conduct a final manipulation before moving to model specification. Data on support for sovereignty is missing for 33 quarters in our series. These quarters are mostly concentrated in the mid-1980s, though we find some of them in the 1970s. The data is complete after 1988. We make use of the package “impute” in Stata. Imputation is conducted using the information contained in unemployment 86 E. Richez & M.A. Bodet numbers and governing party data.13 We are now ready to test empirically our hypotheses discussed above. Our dependent variable (GAP) is the standardized difference between the percentage for and the percentage against Quebec sovereignty. On the right-hand side, our model includes lagged unemployment rate, lagged unemployment rate squared, and a series of party-related variables. Formally:

GAP t b0 b1Unemployment Rate t 1 b2Unemp Sqrt t 1 b3LPC Govt t ( ) = + ( − ) + ( − ) + ( ) b4CPCGovt t b5LPQ Govt t b6PQ Govt t + ( ) + ( ) + ( )

We expect b1 and b2 to be both negative as a more difficult macroeconomic context in the province should lead to a decrease of the gap in sovereignty support. Moreover, if our main hypotheses are right, b3 and b6 should also be negative as LPC and PQ governments should lead to a decrease of the gap in sovereignty support. On the other hand, b4 and b5 should be positive and significant. There are four potential scenarios in the period under study. Liberal and Conserva- tive governments at the federal level can face Liberal or Parti Que´bećois governments in Quebec. To test if these combinations have a differentiated impact on the gap in sovereignty support, we also estimate linear combinations and show the results in a separate table. The following section describes our results in detail.

Statistical Analysis In Table 1, we estimate a series of Prais-Winsten linear regressions. Prais-Winsten estimation makes use of the generalized least-squares method to produce estimates that take into account serial correlation in errors. We opt for a ﬁrst-lag auto-regressive process. To test our hypotheses, four models are estimated.14

Table 1. Predictors of support for sovereignty (n-127)

Variables (1) (2) (3) (4)

Unemp Rate(t-1) 20.550 (1.111) 20.960 (0.967) 20.039 (0.761) 20.288 (0.808) 2 Unemp Rate (t-1) 21.410∗∗ (0.418) 21.468∗∗ (0.374) 21.638∗∗ (0.331) 21.539∗∗ (0.343)

LPC Govt(t) 20.044 (0.107) 0.035 (0.095)

CPC Govt(t) 0.389∗∗ (0.191) 0.218 (0.343)

LPQ Govt(t) 0.454∗∗ (0.158) 0.331∗ (0.196)

PQ Govt(t) 20.266∗ (0.137) 20.311∗∗ (0.147)

Intercept 3.901 (2.594) 2.547 (2.997) 4.132∗ (2.570) 3.523 (2.802)

MAE 11.3000 9.926 8.747 8.538 DW (transformed) 2.149 2.067 2.000 2.004

Notes: Prais-Winsten estimates; std. errors in parentheses; ∗p , 0.10; ∗∗p , 0.05. Fear and Disappointment 87

Model 1 is our base model. It includes only lagged unemployment rate, its squared value, and an intercept. As expected, higher unemployment rates at time t-1 lead to a lower gap in sovereignty support at time t. This relationship is non-linear so it is interesting to note that the impact on the gap in sovereignty support of a change in unemployment is quite different depending on the magnitude of this change in x. In model 4, a tenth of a percentage point increase in unemployment leads to a decrease in relative gap in sovereignty support of 1.251 percentage points, while an increase of 1 percentage points in unemployment leads to a decrease of 1.827 in the same relative gap in sovereignty support. The reader should keep in mind that the quarterly change in unemployment rate surpasses 1 percentage point less than 5% of the time. The mean absolute error (MAE) of this base model is 11.300.15 Model 2 adds our measure of party effects at the federal level. We find a statistically significant effect for CPC governments as each additional quarter in power increases the gap in sovereignty support by 0.389 percentage points. In other words, four years of Conservative government leads to a 9.926 percentage point increase in the gap in sovereignty support, controlling for the macroeconomic context. LPC governments do not seem to have an impact on the gap in sovereignty support. This model is more precise than the last as MAE is reduced by roughly 1.3 percentage points. What happens if we focus on provincial governing party effects instead? Model 3 drops our federal party effects and replaces them by provincial ones. The results suggest effects of even bigger magnitude. Each additional quarter of LPQ government leads to an increase of 0.454 percentage points in the gap in sovereignty support. On the contrary, each additional quarter of PQ government leads to a decrease of 0.266 percentage points of the gap in sovereignty support, again controlling for the macroeconomic context. The gain of precision compared to model 1 is roughly 2.5 percentage points. In model 4, party effects at both the federal and provincial levels are included. The impact of LPC governments on support for sovereignty remains non-significant. The CPC government effect also loses some precision as its standard error is multiplied by 3 due to multicollinearity. The magnitude and sign of the effect is similar to what has been found in model 2. At the provincial level, party effects remain strongly significant. The full model also improves MAE by a small margin relative to model 3. Clearly, provincial dynamics are the best predictors. We said earlier that we were interested in combinations of federal and provincial governments. Table 2 gives linear combinations of estimates found in the fourth column of table 1. In the top-left cell, we have the combination that should have the biggest depressing effect on support for sovereignty. It is indeed the case as a combination of PQ and LPC governments lead to a net quarterly decrease of 0.276 percentage points in the gap in sovereignty support. At the other end of the spectrum, the bottom-right combination of LPQ and CPC governments should increase the gap in sovereignty support the most; this is also the case. This combination leads to a quarterly net increase of 0.549 percentage points. The two other scenarios bring together opposite expectations. Interestingly, Liberal governments in both Ottawa 88 E. Richez & M.A. Bodet

Table 2. Four scenarios (linear combinations)

PQ Govt LPQ Govt

LPC Govt 20.276∗ (0.148) 0.366∗ (0.208) CPC Govt 0.093 (0.210) 0.549∗∗ (0.181)

Notes: Prais-Winsten estimates; std. errors in parentheses; ∗p , 0.10; ∗∗p , 0.05. and Quebec City still lead to a net increase in the gap in sovereignty support of 0.366 percentage points for each additional quarter. This is essentially due to the absence of party effect for the LPC that cannot counterbalance the LPQ party effect. Finally, party effects of PQ and CPC governments cancel each other out and the net impact is not statistically distinguishable from zero.

Discussion and Conclusion The objective of this article is to measure the impact of governing parties on support for Quebec sovereignty. Our statistical analysis suggests that parties do play a role in the variation of public opinion. We also find evidence that party effects at the provincial level tend to cancel each other over time as LPQ governments succeed PQ governments. At the federal level, results suggest that only CPC governments have an impact on support for sovereignty. This last party effect can be cancelled by the presence of a PQ government in Quebec City or, on the contrary, enhanced by the presence of a LPQ government. Since the two combinations favourable to support for sovereignty (LPC LPQ and CPC LPQ) represent 45% of cases while the sole combination that tends+ to decrease support+ (LPC PQ) represents 49% of cases, support for sovereignty remains stuck in the high thirties+ and the low forties. We believe our research gives a sensible explanation on why support for sovereignty varies, persists, but never prevails. The conflicting – or ambivalent – desires of Que- beckers to affirm their identity but still collaborate with other constituents of Canada pushes them to strategically radicalize their demands according to the prevalent partisan context. At the provincial level, our results support the theories reported in the literature (Le´tourneau, 2006; Pinard, 2005). The PQ scares off many ambivalent Quebeckers with its strong separatist option. Contrarily, the LPQ is seen as too complacent and not nationalistic enough. Our findings support the literature concerning the federal level as well. While our data does not explain whether this is due to the institutional opportunities created by the CPC’s willingness to accommodate Quebeckers (Jenne, 2004, 2007) or due to the institutional restraints that limits its ability to deliver on its promises (Cairns, 1992; Manfredi & Lusztig, 1998; Russell, 2004) – or a combination of both – our data shows that the LPC does not increase support for sovereignty, but that the CPC does so. Yet, we suspect that Quebeckers’ disappointment has a greater impact than their perceived leverage against the federal government in determining variations in support for sovereignty. Fear and Disappointment 89

Canadian authors agree that, when their nationalist aspirations are not met, Que- beckers mobilize in favour of sovereignty (Dion, 1996; Mendelsohn, 2002; Pinard 1997b, 1997c). History shows that since the election in 1976 of the first Parti Que´be´- cois government, this frustration vis-a`-vis the current Canadian constitutional con- tract has manifested itself through frequent threats of referenda and secession. Quebeckers feed their sovereignist fervour with unfulfilled promises of federal reforms by CPC governments in Ottawa and LPQ governments in Quebec City. However, political cycles being what they are in Canada, the return to power of LPC governments which tend to temper expectations, and the rise of referendum threats by PQ governments scare “soft” nationalists and provide a safety valve that represses support for Quebec secession. In a nutshell, fear and disappointment maintain Quebeckers in a political blur filled by inconclusive referenda and endemic inter- governmental crises. We believe our study can help the different political parties to further some of their political goals. First, we suggest that the only way the PQ can have a chance at winning a referendum is for it to hold one as soon as it forms government. Second, the LPQ can reduce support for sovereignty by making strong nationalistic demands to Ottawa. While our findings compel provincial governing parties to act in a certain way, it provides the federal governing parties with a certain rationale for inaction on the Quebec front. We suggest that the LPC will succeed in maintaining low levels of support for sovereignty by not making formal promises. As for the CPC, it could decide to adopt the LPC’s strategy in the hope of not disappointing Quebeckers. However, this change in attitude from active courtship to benign neglect would hurt the party’s fortunes in Quebec. Alternatively, the CPC could try to make promises to accommodate Quebec only if it can deliver on them. Consti- tutional reform attempts should be avoided and administrative arrangements favour- ing Quebec preferred. That being said, even the non-constitutional reforms the Harper government made, such as recognizing Quebec as a nation, providing the province with representation within the Canadian delegation at UNESCO and “solving” the fiscal imbalance, did not calm Quebeckers’ unrest. In that sense, the CPC seems to be in a catch-22 situation. Ultimately, the contribution of this article was to build a model able to predict changes in support for secession based on who is in power in Quebec City and Ottawa. Our results show that political parties at the provincial and federal levels account for a significant part of the variation of support for sovereignty within a set range of percentages. However, we do not claim to account for all of Quebec’s collective turmoil. The Quebec sovereignty movement remains very complex and its fluctuations are surely influenced by other factors. In the literature review, we identified regular political crises (Mendelsohn, 2002; Pinard, 1997b) and the strength of the sovereignist leadership (Gagne´ & Langlois, 2002; Pinard, 1997b) as having an impact on support for sovereignty. Other factors such as changes in the demographic make-up of Quebec16 and the fluctuating strength of the Bloc Que´bećois,17 while they are beyond the scope of this inquiry, deserve to be further explored in future research on the topic. 90 E. Richez & M.A. Bodet

Finally, can our theoretical model help predict how support for sovereignty will shift in the near future? The demise of the Bloc Que´bećois and the rise of the New Democratic Party in Quebec during the May 2011 federal election prompted many pundits to declare the sovereignty movement to be dead. However, support for sovereignty remains in the low forties levels since the beginning of 2011 (CROP, 2011). In reality, the possibility of a general election in Quebec at a time when the current CPC government in Ottawa is tired by years in power opens the door to the perfect storm. The best scenario for a winning referendum would then be a newly elected PQ government facing an electorate disappointed by a previous LPQ government and whose hope of greater accommodation would have been dashed by a CPC government in Ottawa. But a condition would need to be fulfilled: the would-be elected PQ government would have to find a way to act quickly and decisively to avoid the inevitable thermostatic decline of the sovereignty option that would follow its election. Since the creation of the PQ, such a scenario has never been observed.18 Furthermore, the new PQ leader Pauline Marois has taken a referendum off the table, making winning conditions practically unlikely. Yet, even if a winning scenario were observed, some of the other identified factors would come into play and there is no guarantee that a “Yes” vote would go through. The “winning conditions”, so dear to the sovereignty movement, thus remain highly conditional.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Stuart Soroka, E´ ric Be´langer and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. We are also grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for having funded this research.

Notes

1. Speech given in Paris, France, as part of an official visit of the Premier of Quebec. 2. As the reader will discover below, the term “sovereignty” is frequently used to describe what is essentially secession. However, for political reasons we discuss below, sovereignty has replaced secession in the public discourse. For the sake of simplicity, we use them interchangeably in this article. 3. In 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party merged to become the modern Conservative Party of Canada. The Canadian Alliance was the result of an earlier failed merger between the Reform Party of Canada and the Progressive Conservative Party in 2000. 4. The LPC has also attempted to respond to Quebec’s demands in certain instances. For example, during the 1980 referendum campaign, Pierre Trudeau promised to renew federalism while remaining ambig- uous about what would be concretely done to accommodate Quebec’s aspirations. Paul Martin also promised to promote the concept of asymmetrical federalism, which he recognized for the first time in his 2004 Health Accord to the benefit of Quebec. These promises of accommodation were however limited in scope. 5. See Wlezien (1995) for a seminal discussion on the question of public opinion as a thermostat. The thermostatic model was originally utilized in the study of the link between government spending and public preferences. 6. ,www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/durandc.. Fear and Disappointment 91

7. For good discussions, see Cloutier et al. (1992) and Pinard (1997c). 8. We do not use the same operationalization as Wlezien (1995) or Soroka and Wlezien (2010) because we are interested in momentum of relative support rather than the absolute change in support for Quebec sovereignty. The two operationalizations are arguably very close. 9. ,http://datacenter2.chass.utoronto.ca/chasscansim.. 10. A Lowess smoothing line with a 0.2 bandwidth is added to each scatter plot. 11. See chapters 10 to 12 of Wooldridge (2009) for a good coverage. 12. This Dickey-Fuller test also includes a trend regressor. 13. An anonymous reviewer has suggested the use of the package “ipolate”. We prefer to make use of imputation instead of interpolation because we want to make use of the information found in all our covariates, something not possible with interpolation. 14. A series of Durbin-Watson tests suggest that there is statistical evidence that the error terms are not negatively autocorrelated in our four models, at a level of confidence of 95%. 15. In this case, MAE captures the average gap between the model prediction of the gap in sovereignty support and the actual data. For a good discussion on MAE as goodness of fit measure in prediction and forecasting, see Krueger and Lewis-Beck (2005). 16. Studies show that Francophones tend to favour Quebec sovereignty more than Anglophones (e.g Blais & Nadeau, 1992; Drouilly, 1997; Pinard, 1997a). The changing linguistic profile of Quebeckers may thus influence support for sovereignty. Furthermore, the increasing number of newcomers to the province must be taken into account. While first generation immigrants usually favour the federalist option, second generation immigrants are more divided on the question (e.g. Be´langer & Perella, 2008). 17. Young and Be´langer (2008) show that the Bloc Que´bećois’ nationalistic interventions in the House of Commons tend to follow public opinion rather than lead it. That being said, it would be interesting to see if the Bloc Que´bećois’ mere presence in Ottawa has the effect of keeping the sovereignist troops mobilized due to periodical election campaigns. Additionally, it would be interesting to see whether the Bloc Que´bećois’ presence in Parliament adds pressure on the Canadian government to better accommodate Quebeckers and whether support for the Bloc Que´bećois is partially fuelled by some form of strategic bargaining on the part of Quebeckers. 18. The PQ waited four years after its first election to government to hold its first referendum in 1980. The second referendum, in 1995, was held a year after the PQ took power again. In both referendums, the PQ was unable to garner a majority of “Yes” votes, even though it came very close in 1995. Further- more, both referendums were held under recently elected LPC governments.

References

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Bouchard, Ge´rard (2001) Gene`se des nations et cultures du Nouveau Monde: Essai d’histoire compareé (Montreal: Boreál). Cairns, Alan (1992) Charter versus Federalism: The Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press). Cetinyan, Rupen (2002) Ethnic bargaining in the shadow of third-party intervention. International Organization, 56(3), pp. 645–677. Cloutier, E´ douard, Guay, Jean H. & Latouche, Daniel (1992) Le virage: l’e´volution de l’opinion publique au Que´bec depuis 1960 ou Comment le Que´bec est devenu souverainiste (Montreal: Que´bec/ Ame´rique). CROP (2011) E´ volution du climat politique au Que´bec – 11 au 16 mai 2011: Politique provinciale et politique fe´de´rale, Available at ,www.crop.ca/sondages/pdf/2011/EvolutionpolitiqueCROPmai2011. pdf. (accessed 8 June 2011). Dickey, David A. & Fuller, Wayne A. (1979) Distributions of the estimators for autoregressive time series with a unit root. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 74(366), pp. 427–431. Dion, Ste´phane (1996) Why is secession difficult in well-established democracies? Lessons from Quebec. British Journal of Political Science, 26(2), pp. 269–283. Drouilly, Pierre (1997) Le re´fe´rendum du 30 octobre 1995: analyse des re´sultats, in: Pierre Drouilly (ed.) Inde´pendance et de´mocratie: sondages, e´lections et re´fe´rendums au Que´bec, 1992–1997 (Montreal: Harmattan), pp. 277–314. Drouilly, Pierre et al. (1997) Entre le lys et l’e´rable, in: Pierre Drouilly (ed.) Inde´pendance et de´mocratie: sondages, e´lections et re´fe´rendums au Que´bec, 1992–1997 (Montreal: Harmattan), pp. 341–355. Dufour, Christian (1990) A Canadian Challenge: Le De´fi Que´bećois (Lanztville, BC: Oolichans Books). Gagne´, Gilles & Langlois, Simon (2002) Les raisons fortes: Nature et signification de l’appui a` la souverainete´ du Que´bec (Montreal: Presses de l’Universite´ de Montreál). Jenne, Erin (2004) A bargaining theory of minority demands: explaining the dog that did not bite in 1990s Yugoslavia. International Studies Quaterly, 48(4), pp. 729–754. Jenne, Erin K. (2007) Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). Jenne, Erin K., Saideman, Stephen M. & Lowe, Will (2007) Separatism as a bargaining posture: the role of leverage in minority radicalization. Journal of Peace Research, 44(5), pp. 539–558. Krueger, James S. & Lewis-Beck, Michael (2005) The place of prediction in politics, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington DC. Laforest, Guy (1995) Trudeau and the End of a Canadian Dream (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press). Le´tourneau, Jocelyn (2006) Que veulent vraiment les Que´bećois? Regard sur l’intention nationale au Que´bec (français) d’hier a` aujourd’hui (Montreal: Boreál). Maclure, Jocelyn (2003) Quebec Identity: The Challenge of Pluralism (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press). Manfredi, Christopher P. & Lusztig, Michael (1998) Why do formal amendments fail? An institutional design analysis. World Politics, 50(3), pp. 377–400. Martin, Pierre (1994) Geńe´rations politiques, rationalite´ ećonomique et appui a` la souverainete´ au Que´bec. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 27(2), pp. 345–359. McRoberts, Kenneth (1997) Misconceiving Canada: The Struggle for National Unity (Toronto: Oxford University Press). McRoberts, Kenneth (1999) Quebec: Social Change and Political Crisis, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press). Mendelsohn, Matthew (2002) Measuring national identity and patterns of attachment: Quebec and nationalist mobilization. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 8(3), pp. 72–94. Nadeau, Richard & Fleury, Christopher J. (1995) Gains linguistiques anticipe´s et appui a` la souverainete´ du Que´bec. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 28(1), pp. 35–50. Nadeau, Richard, Martin, Pierre & Blais, Andre´ (1999) Attitude towards risk-taking and individual choice in the Quebec referendum on sovereignty. British Journal of Political Science, 29(3), pp. 523–539. Fear and Disappointment 93

Page, Benjamin & Shapiro, Robert Y. (1992) The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences (Chicago: Chicago University Press). Pinard, Maurice (1997a) Le contexte politique et les dimensions sociode´mographiques, in: Maurice Pinard, Robert Bernier & Vincent Lemieux (eds) Un combat inacheve´ (Quebec City: Presses de l’Universite´ du Que´bec), pp. 307–313. Pinard, Maurice (1997b) Les fluctuation du mouvement inde´pendantiste depuis 1980, in: Maurice Pinard, Robert Bernier & Vincent Lemieux (eds) Un combat inacheve´ (Quebec City: Presses de l’Universite´ du Que´bec), pp. 69–99. Pinard, Maurice (1997c) Les quatre phases du mouvement inde´pendantiste que´bećois, in: Maurice Pinard, Robert Bernier & Vincent Lemieux (eds) Un combat inacheve´ (Quebec City: Presses de l’Universite´ du Que´bec), pp. 29–50. Pinard, Maurice (2005) Political ambivalence towards the Parti Que´bećois and its electoral consequences, 1970–2003. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 30(3), pp. 281–314. Russell, Peter H. (2004) Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People?, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Soroka, Stuart & Wlezien, Christopher (2010) Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion and Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Vallie`res, Pierre (1971) White Niggers of America, translated by Joan Pinkham (Toronto: McClelland and Stuart). Wlezien, Christopher (1995) The public as thermostat: dynamics of preferences for spending. American Journal of Political Science, 39(4), pp. 981–1000. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. (2009) Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, 4th ed. (Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning). Young, Lori & Be´langer, E´ ric (2008) BQ in the house: the nature of sovereigntist representation in the Canadian parliament. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 14(4), pp. 487–522. Is the Parti Québécois Bound to Disappear? A Study of the Current Generational Dynamics of Electoral Behaviour in Quebec

VALÉRIE-ANNE MAHÉO Université de Montréal ÉRIC BÉLANGER McGill University

With the rise and fall of several third parties since the mid-1990s, the Quebec party system has become increasingly fractionalized, and support for the two dominant parties has been oscillating (Godbout, 2013). Most notably, the Parti Québécois (PQ) has been in continuous decline since the 1995 referendum defeat. The 2014 Quebec election was a particular setback for the PQ, as the support for the party hit a historic low, winning only 25 per cent of the vote share (Bélanger and Falk Pedersen, 2015; Maioni, 2014). The PQ emerged during the nationalist resurgence that accompanied the province’s Quiet Revolution, and was founded by René Lévesque in 1968 with the clear objective to achieve Quebec sovereignty. While in power, the PQ adopted several important political reforms, such as the Charter of the French Language (better known as Bill 101), and held two referendums on Quebec sovereignty (Montigny, 2011). But with the PQ’s decline, political observers have wondered if that party still has a role to play in Quebec politics, or if it is ultimately bound to disappear.

Valérie-Anne Mahéo, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, succ. Centre-ville, C. P. 6128, Montréal (Québec) H3C 3J7, email: [email protected] Éric Bélanger, Department of Political Science, McGill University, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7, email: [email protected] We thank Scott Matthews, Maurice Pinard, and the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. We are also grateful to the participants of the Canadian Politics section of the 2016 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association and those of the 2016 biannual conference of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship for their comments.

Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique 51:2 (June / juin 2018) 335–356 doi:10.1017/S0008423917001147 © 2018 Canadian Political Science Association (l’Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique

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The PQ has been described as a “generational party” that emerged as a response to the sociopolitical context of the 1960s and 1970s, when dissatisfaction over economic and linguistic inequalities built up and tensions with the federal government grew (Lemieux, 2011). The electoral successes of the party were grounded in the mobilization of the young generation at the time: the baby boomers (Blais and Nadeau, 1984). But given that the PQ has been winning smaller vote shares since the 1980s, some have questioned whether the PQ was the party of a single generation. Generation X and millennials have been socialized in different sociopolitical contexts, with living conditions and problems that are distinct from those experienced by baby boomers. Consequently, these cohorts have developed political attitudes specific to their generation. The rise of new political generations, who have different political priorities and who progressively replace older generations, has the potential to shift how Quebec politics is conducted. In this study, we consider the theory of generational parties developed by Lemieux (2011), which states that a party grounded in one generation will inevitably decline when this generation no longer constitutes the majority of the electorate and when new generations are not recruited into the party ranks. Our objective is to examine support for the Parti Québécois among different generations in the 2014 Quebec election, and test different explanations for these levels of support. The intention is to ground Lemieux’s hypothesis in empirical evidence and to consider the implica- tions for the future of the PQ. Using data from an opinion survey conducted at the time of that election, we offer a snapshot of the generational dynamics currently at play in Quebec electoral politics. We first present the profiles of the three generations who were politically active in the 2014 Quebec election—baby boomers, generation X and millennials—and examine the sociodemographic and attitudinal differences between these generations. Second, we test how different factors explain support for the PQ across the three generations. The evidence shows that while the profile of generation X is not so different from baby boomers in terms of attitudes, the profile of millennials is particularly distinct from that of boomers on several dimensions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the decline of the PQ in 2014 was mostly concentrated among millennials, who were less inclined to see the Quebec sovereignty project as a priority and less likely to support the PQ’s controversial proposal to adopt a Charter of Quebec Values.

The Parti Québécois: A Generational Party? According to Lemieux (2011), a generational party is one that is anchored in one political generation, with the Parti Québécois being one example.1 These parties emerge as a response to the problems of a specific generation and propose a new conception of politics, one that distinguishes them from

.36768:DDC, 534697 957 27CD7670D73/33D,,C475DDD:7346977D7C8 C7333473D:DDC, 534697 957D7C :DDC,6 9 1 Abstract. In Quebec, the setback of the Parti Québécois (PQ) in the last 2014 provincial election testifies of a continuous decline of the party since the 1995 referendum defeat. With now only 25 per cent of vote shares, the question arises: Is the PQ bound to disappear? This article examines the support for the PQ across different generations, and tests explanations for these varying levels of support. The results show that the attitudinal profile of millennials is particularly distinct from that of baby boomers on several dimensions, but that generation X is not so different from the boomers. We demonstrate that the decline of the PQ in 2014 was mostly concentrated among millennials, who were less inclined to see the project of sovereignty as a priority and less likely to support the incumbent PQ government’s controversial proposal to adopt a Charter of Quebec Values. We conclude by examining how the results of the study can shed light on the PQ’s future prospects.

Résumé. Au Québec, le revers du Parti québécois (PQ) lors de la dernière élection provinciale de 2014 témoigne d’un déclin continu du parti depuis la défaite du référendum de 1995. Avec maintenant seulement 25% des voix, la question se pose: le PQ est-il voué à disparaître? Cet article examine le soutien au Parti québécois parmi les différentes générations et teste différentes explications pour ces niveaux de soutien. Les résultats montrent que le profil attitudinal des milléniaux est particulièrement différent de celui des baby boomers sur plusieurs dimensions, et que la génération Xn’est pas si différente des boomers. Nous démontrons que le déclin du PQ en 2014 était principalement concentré dans la génération des milléniaux, qui était moins encline à considérer le projet de souveraineté comme une priorité et qui était aussi moins susceptible d’appuyer la proposition controversée du gouvernement du PQ de l’époque d’adopter une Charte des valeurs québécoises. En conclusion, nous évaluons comment les résultats de l’étude peuvent nous informer sur les perspectives d’avenir du PQ.

the other parties. The emergence of the PQ was strongly supported by the youth of the 1960s and 1970s, also known as the baby boomer generation. The youth of this period were socialised in a context of socioeconomic and linguistic inequalities and sought political alternatives to voice their dissatisfaction. Blais and Nadeau (1984) showed that electoral support for the PQ in the 1970s was in fact the strongest among those born between 1945 and 1959. During this time, the PQ was becoming a dominant political force in Quebec by offering a renewed nationalist perspective and an egalitarian political project. However, from the electoral successes of the 1970s up to the 1990s, popular support for the party has declined (see Figure 1). We can think of several explanations to account for this downturn, either related to the demobilization of the sovereignist movement (Mendelsohn et al., 2007) or to the party’s internal organization (Montigny, 2011). However, we argue that the source of this progressive erosion in PQ support lies deeper than contextual factors and is not only tied to short-term factors (such as interactions with Ottawa or leader characteristics). Lemieux (2011) argued that generational parties usually maintain themselves for a period of 30 to 40 years; they emerge with a new generation, acquire

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FIGURE 1 Vote Shares Received by the PQ between 1970 and 2014

political prominence as this generation matures and subsequently decline as the generation ages. Following Lemieux, we argue that changes in the PQ’s electoral support reflect a process of intergenerational change. If the baby boomers who gave rise to the party are progressively replaced in the electorate by younger generations with different political priorities and orientations, then the PQ is unlikely to recruit voters among these new generations and may decline and disappear. Our generational argument rests on two hypotheses. First, the different generations of citizens were socialized in different sociopolitical environments and thus developed distinct political orientations and priorities. Second, their different political outlooks influence their electoral behaviour.

Generations, Continuity and Political Change The political outlook of individuals is shaped by both early life influences and their contemporaneous political context. The main postulate of political socialization is that actors and events during an individual’s childhood and adolescence shape their political development, affecting their adult political attitudes and behaviours (Beck and Jennings, 1982). Most notably, the family is considered the prime locus of political learning, as parents directly transmit their political values to their children and act as political role models (Jennings and Niemi, 1968). Parental socialization thus explains some of the continuity of attitudes and resemblance between generations (Jennings et al., 2009; Neundorf et al., 2013). But this process of

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intergenerational transmission of political traits is conditional on context, as individuals are also influenced by contemporaneous forces and societal events (Jennings, 2002; Johnston, 1985). In fact, even if the early phases of childhood and adolescence are important in the political development of individuals, this development does not suddenly stop when one enters adulthood. Individuals can further be influenced by events during the impressionable years of early adulthood. As individuals of the same birth cohort are socialized in a similar sociopolitical context and share common experiences of political events during their formative years, they tend to develop political attitudes that are distinct from other birth cohorts. In times of rapid and intense societal change, individuals are more likely to develop a common consciousness and particularly distinct political orientations, giving rise to a political generation (Mannheim, 1952). Thus, citizens display some of the values and attitudes of their parents, as well as the imprint of the values and attitudes dominant in their political times. This explains why we both find continuity and change in social and political orientations from one generation to another. In Quebec, three main generations are currently taking part in elections: baby boomers (born before 1960), generation X (born between 1960 and 1979), and millennials (born after 1979) (Gélineau, 2015). Each generation was socialized in a different sociopolitical context. Firstly, the baby boomer generation was socialized in a context of economic and linguistic inequalities and experienced an era of rapid social, political and economic modernization during the Quiet Revolution (Guay, 1997). The economic development and growth of the 1960s moved this generation away from materialist goals and towards post-materialist considerations (Inglehart, 2008; Martin, 1994; Pinard et al., 1997; Piroth, 2004). As a result, the PQ was able to capitalize on the appetite for more social and political reforms as well as on dissatisfaction over the place of Quebec in the Canadian federation. The party presented political sovereignty as a way to further Quebec’s economic, political and social development (Lemieux, 2011; McRoberts and Posgate, 1983). Thus, with the advent of the boomers generation in the 1970s, the national question became a significant political cleavage in Quebec electoral politics (Bélanger et al., 2018). The next generation, generation X, grew up in times marked by more limited opportunities due to the recession of the 1990s and rising unemployment (Zukin et al., 2006). In Quebec, the pace of reforms slowed and inequalities between anglophones and francophones progressively diminished. While support for the sovereignty project rose steadily in the 1970s, it was more mixed in the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, these two decades saw two referendums and several constitutional crises, which alternatively led to increases in support for Quebec sovereignty, followed by the demobilization and depoliticization of the national question, although

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perceptions of economic inequalities with anglophones remained (Mendelsohn et al., 2007; Pinard et al., 1997). Finally, millennials came of political age during the 1990s and 2000s. They experienced an era of improved life possibilities with some economic prosperity, rising levels of education, rapid changes in media and technol- ogies, and increased movements of population across the world (Putnam, 2000; Zukin et al., 2006). In Quebec, with successes in language protection and increased economic well-being, economic, cultural and linguistic grievances were less salient to this generation (Pinard et al., 1997). Hence, after the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty, there was less interest in constitutional debates. This period reflects a return to “normal politics,” with increased salience of the left-right socioeconomic cleavage and a relative depoliticization of the national question (Mendelsohn et al., 2007; Nadeau and Bélanger, 2013). Based on the different contexts of political development of these three generations, we hypothesize that attachment to Quebec and the importance of the sovereignty project will be highest among baby boomers, whereas they will be lowest among millennials. However, given the important fluctuations in the salience of the constitutional and nationalist debates during the 1980s and early 1990s, it is less clear where levels of attachment and the importance of sovereignty fall for generation X. It remains an open question whether the attitudinal profile of generation X more closely resembles the profile of baby boomers or that of millennials.

Factors Explaining Electoral Behaviour in Quebec: The 2014 Election In Quebec, two main dimensions structure electoral politics: the left-right socioeconomic dimension and the national question (Bélanger and Nadeau, 2009; Hudon, 1976). Since the 1970s, positions on the sovereignty-federalism axis have been a key determining factor of electoral behaviour. But depending on the time period, positions on the sovereignty-federalism axis have been sometimes more or less important relative to positions on the left-right axis in explaining vote choice (Nadeau et al., 1995). While positions on these two axes strongly impact Quebecers’ electoral behaviour, contemporary issues that occupy a central place in electoral campaigns also matter in explaining vote choice and more so when the sovereignty-federalism axis is less salient (Bélanger and Nadeau, 2009; Nadeau and Bélanger, 2013). As a consequence, to investigate and compare the electoral behaviour of the three generations in the 2014 provincial election, we focus on individuals’ position on the issue of sovereignty, their position on the left-right axis and positions on the Charter of Values, which was a central issue during this election (Tessier and Montigny, 2016).

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While there is still a relatively high level of support for sovereignty among all generations (Tanguay, 2007), there is a general disengagement from the national question, which is most pronounced among younger Quebecers (Guay, 2004; Mendelsohn et al., 2007). Guay (2004) explains this “paradox” of Quebec’s public opinion by the fact that people can support “symbolic sovereignty” (that is, the idea that Quebec is a distinct nation, especially culturally) but at the same time not support “real sovereignty” (that is, the concrete project of founding a country). Guay makes the claim that “real sovereignty” is not a major concern anymore, especially for the younger generation that prioritises issues of sustainable development, the environment and cultural diversity. In this sense, the PQ’s agenda may not be in tune with the priorities of millennials. The more recent return to “normal politics” means that positions on the left-right socio-economic dimension become more important in explaining electoral behaviour in Quebec. While we do not necessarily expect strong generational differences in terms of left-right positions, we know that there are generally age-related differences in left-right positions, with younger people usually more left-leaning and older citizens tending to be right- leaning. Even though the PQ emerged as a socio-democratic party promot- ing state intervention and egalitarian policies, the party’s position on the left-right axis has oscillated in the past decades (Guay, 2004). We thus expect the youngest citizens to turn to parties that are more clearly left- leaning (rather than the PQ), compared to older citizens. The Charter of Quebec Values was a project proposed by the Parti Québécois. This policy proposal was made public before the 2014 election campaign and aimed at reinforcing the secular nature of Quebec society by (among other things) banning “ostentatious” religious symbols for public employees at work (Tessier and Montigny, 2016). This Bill was presented by the governing PQ as a way to continue the secularisation of Quebec society started in the Quiet Revolution. However, opponents presented this project as an anti-immigration bill that privileged Quebec’s Catholic heritage and discriminated against newcomers, especially Muslim immigrants (Melançon, 2015). In this sense, the charter continues the discussion about diversity within the province, after the 2006-2007 debate over reasonable accommodations (Laxer et al., 2014). As the younger generations are more ethnically diverse and have grown up in a more diverse and globalized world, we expect that they will be more open to diversity and immigration (Mendelsohn et al., 2007), and thus less supportive of the charter. Alternatively, for the baby boomers who experienced the transition to a secular society during the Quiet Revolution and who were socialized in a less ethnically diverse environment, support for the charter should be higher. As it is hypothesized that the youngest generation will give less importance to the national question, other issues—such as diversity—should have

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more impact on their electoral behaviour. Hence, millennials’ attitudes on the national question and diversity should make them more likely to support a party other than the PQ, while positions of baby boomers on diversity and the importance of the national question should make them more likely to vote for the PQ. In sum, the generational hypothesis is that the determinants of a PQ vote will vary across generations, most notably between millennials and baby boomers.

Data and Methods

To examine these questions, we make use of individual-level data from an online opinion survey conducted during the week that followed the Quebec provincial election of April 7, 2014. The survey was designed by Éric Bélanger (McGill University) and Richard Nadeau (Université de Montréal) and was administered to 1,517 adult Quebecers by Léger Marketing through Web-based interviews between April 9 and 16, 2014. The survey respondents were recruited from Léger Marketing’s LégerWeb online panel of Canadian households. Weighting procedures are used to make the sample more representative of the Quebec population. The survey weights are based on official data from the 2011 Statistics Canada census about gender, age, region of residence and language. Our key independent variable of interest is the generation to which these survey respondents belong. For our analyses, we distinguish between three age groups: individuals born before 1960 (who were 55 years old or more at the time of the 2014 election), those born between 1960 and 1979 inclusively (who were between 35 and 54 years old), and those born in 1980 or later (who were between 18 and 34 years old).2 These three age groups make up 37 per cent, 36 per cent, and 27 per cent of our survey sample, respectively.3 In addition to the nature of the times during which they were politically socialized, these three age cohorts also differ on another key aspect: their ethnic background. Whereas 88 percent of the baby boomer generation self-declare as having either Québécois or Canadian ethnic origins, the other two generations present a more diversified ethnic profile with close to a quarter of each group self- declaring an ethnic origin other than Québécois or Canadian (24% for generation X and 25% for millennials). That said, the three age groups do not significantly differ from one another in terms of language (francophone, anglophone, allophone) or place of birth (in Quebec or outside). These findings mirror the greater ethnic diversity found in Quebec following the rise in immigration that occurred over the past few decades: younger individuals may be born in Quebec and may speak French, but they are less likely to be of French-Canadian descent than those of the baby boomer generation.

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Analysis The attitudinal profile of three generations in Quebec Table 1 presents a summary of the distribution of Quebecers’ attitudes on a host of political variables, broken down by our three age groups. We first look at general attitudes towards politics. The findings are consistent with what we know about youth’s views about politics when compared to older voters: they are less interested in politics in general, they tend to identify less with a political party, and they are more cynical vis-à-vis the political system (Gidengil et al., 2003; Putnam, 2000). In short, young Quebecers do not diverge much from the typical observations already made about youth’s attitudes towards politics in general. The table also offers a breakdown of each generation’s respective socioeconomic policy orientations, feelings of national attachment, and constitutional preferences.4 In terms of socioeconomic policy orientations, millennials in Quebec appear to be the most left-leaning of the three age groups (lower values indicate a left-leaning self-placement on the ideology scale, whereas higher values indicate a more right-leaning orientation). They are also the most morally liberal individuals, at least when looking at their opinions about same-sex marriage and the death penalty.5 Again, these findings confirm expectations regarding intergenerational differences in ideological positions.

TABLE 1 Political Attitudes by Generations (2014)

Millennials Gen X Boomers Attitudes towards politics Interested in politics (% very or somewhat) 62.9 65.2 79.9 Party identiﬁcation (% with none) 27.8 20.6 12.9 Cynicism (average score on 0-1 index) 0.52 0.51 0.50 Socioeconomic policy orientations Left-right self-placement (average score on 0-1 index) 0.49 0.54 0.55 Same-sex marriage (% in favour) 88.6 77.9 76.2 Death penalty (% against) 52.1 44.5 52.1 Immigrants (% thinking they should stay different) 20.2 17.8 6.9 Charter of Quebec Values (% in favour) 46.4 54.1 64.7 Feelings of national attachment Identity (% identifying as Quebecer only or Quebecer ﬁrst) 56.0 52.1 56.2 Attachment to Quebec (% very attached) 44.4 53.8 70.3 Attachment to Canada (% very attached) 31.3 34.9 38.2 Constitutional preferences Quebec sovereignty (% in favour) 30.4 26.4 35.1 Giving Quebec more powers (% in favour) 44.5 49.1 60.1 Sovereignty issue (% saying it is very important to them) 21.3 23.8 29.9

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With regards to the issue of immigration, we can look at two different indicators. The first one taps into a general view about immigrant integration and is measured in the survey using the following question: “There are different views about those who come from outside Quebec, often bringing their own customs, religion and traditions with them. Do you think it is best if such newcomers try to adapt and blend into the local culture? Or is it best if they stay different and add to the variety of customs and traditions in the locality?” Although the majority opinion is in favour of the cultural adap- tation and blending of immigrants, we can clearly see in Table 1 that millennials are the most open to the cultural differences that newcomers bring to Quebec. The second indicator assesses opinion about the Parti Québécois government’s proposal to adopt a Charter of Quebec Values. On this specific issue, we see disagreement between generations. While a majority of baby boomers and generation X are in favour of the charter, a majority of millennials are against this proposal. Taken together, these two indicators clearly show that the youngest generation in Quebec seems to be the most “multiculturalist” in its views about immigrant integration. What about feelings of national identity and attachment? Given that the three generations examined here have been socialized during very different political times as it pertains to the national question, we would expect to see notable generational differences in terms of their nationalist feelings. That said, the past literature has tended to show that Quebec youth are generally the most nationalist in their sentiments, no matter the historical period (Bélanger and Perrella, 2008; Piroth, 2004). The results in Table 1 provide a nuanced view on this question. On the one hand, we see that millennials are as likely as baby boomers to identify themselves either as “Quebecer only” or as “Quebecer first, Canadian second.” Millennials are also the ones to display the lowest level of attachment to Canada. On the other hand, the table reveals that youth feel the least attached to Quebec in 2014, and by a good margin; while 70 per cent of baby boomers feel very attached to Quebec, only 44 per cent feel so among the 18-34 age group. Members of generation X stand somewhere in between, but lean a bit closer to millennials than to baby boomers on this variable. The low level of attachment to Quebec among the younger generation constitutes one of the most surprising findings from these survey data; this goes contrary to usual expectations about Quebec youth’s nationalist sentiments (Piroth, 2004) and offers one clear piece of evidence that millennials in Quebec may be disconnected from the perennial national debate in their province. Finally, results on the constitutional preferences of the different generations offer the same kind of nuanced conclusions. As Table 1 shows, the level of support for sovereignty as a constitutional option in a hypothetical referendum stands at 30 per cent among millennials, which is slightly higher

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than among generation X (26%), but remains lower than among baby boomers (35%). While support for sovereignty is not entirely collapsing among Quebec youth, the 18-34 age group is nonetheless the one that con- siders this issue as the least important to them (only 21% say that it is very important to them personally, compared to 30% among baby boomers). In addition, millennials are the least supportive of the option to have more powers from Ottawa (that is, more autonomy) for Quebec’s National Assembly, which is a constitutional position that has deep historical roots in the province and that is currently being defended by the Coalition Avenir Québec. When asked which issue was, for them personally, the most important in the 2014 provincial election, respondents ranked the issue of Quebec sovereignty as fifth among the list of ten issues offered to them. As Table 2 indicates, there was not much variation between the three generations with regards to the salience of the sovereignty issue. Baby boomers and members of generation X ranked it as fifth, whereas millennials ranked it as sixth (8% of them mentioned sovereignty as the most important issue to them personally in that election, a proportion that is only slightly lower than for the other two age groups). Remarkably, the three generations mentioned the same top two issues: the economy and health care. Where they markedly differed in their issue priorities was on the importance given to education (third-most mentioned issue for millennials, compared to eighth and ninth for the other two groups), the environment (eighth for the youth, tenth for the others), and the charter (seventh for millennials, but mentioned more frequently among the other two age groups). To sum up, the three generational groups display some similarities in their attitudinal profiles. But the differences between the younger

TABLE 2 Salience of Issues in the 2014 Election by Generations (in per cent)

Millennials Gen X Boomers Economy 27.3 (1) 27.5 (1) 23.1 (1) Health care 13.8 (2) 18.9 (2) 21.6 (2) Education 10.9 (3) 4.3 (8) 1.3 (9) Integrity 10.1 (4) 7.4 (6) 17.3 (3) Taxes and public ﬁnances 9.3 (5) 12.0 (3) 15.2 (4) Quebec sovereignty 8.0 (6) 8.6 (5) 10.0 (5) Charter of Quebec Values 7.4 (7) 11.5 (4) 7.5 (6) Environment 5.9 (8) 2.3 (10) 0.5 (10) Family aid 4.2 (9) 4.6 (7) 1.7 (8) Poverty 3.1 (10) 3.0 (9) 1.8 (7) N 381 523 560

Note: Figures in parentheses indicate the issue’s rank within the column (generation).

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generation (18-34 years old) and older Quebecers are worth keeping in mind as we move forward in our analysis. Millennials are more disengaged from politics, as one would expect.6 They locate themselves on the left of the ideological spectrum in greater proportion than older Quebecers, which is not surprising either. They are clearly more open to a multicultural approach to immigrant integration than are baby boomers and, to a lesser degree, members of generation X. They are also more likely to consider issues like education and the environment to be important in an election (at least in 2014). Quebec sovereignty is less of a priority for them, and they do not seem as convinced by the idea of giving Quebec more powers within the Canadian federation. Even more surprising is the fact that they are less attached to Quebec, although they are not necessarily more attached to Canada in return.

Generations and the vote in the 2014 election We now examine the differences among generations in their voting behaviour, as well as the extent to which some of the political attitudes having just been examined have had more or less weight in determining this behaviour in the 2014 provincial election. We can first note that millennials had the lowest turnout rate in this election. According to answers given to the survey’s self-reported electoral participation question, individuals aged between 18 and 34 years old were twice as likely to abstain than those belonging to generation X and were three times as likely to abstain than baby boomers.7 This result is not unexpected given the high degree of cynicism and disinterest in politics we previously noted among the youngest generation of Quebecers in 2014. Table 3 presents the distribution of voting preferences among those individuals who reported having cast a ballot in the election. Looking first at support for the Parti Québécois, we can see that it received the lowest proportion of votes from millennials: 23 per cent of members from that generation voted for the PQ, as compared to 28 per cent among

TABLE 3 Vote Choice in the 2014 Election by Generations (in per cent)

Millennials Gen X Boomers Parti Québécois 22.6 27.6 36.5 Parti Libéral du Québec 30.5 40.0 35.5 Coalition Avenir Québec 25.4 22.6 22.2 Québec Solidaire 16.2 7.2 4.1 Other party 5.3 2.6 1.7 N 318 462 503

Note: Columns each add up to 100 per cent. Total number of observations is 1,283.

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generation X and 37 per cent among baby boomers. Second, we can also note that Québec Solidaire received most of its support among the youngest generation (16% of millennials voted for QS, as opposed to 7% of generation X and 4% of baby boomers). Small parties like the Green Party and Option Nationale also fared the best among millennial voters. One final observation worth making is that the PQ was the first choice of only one generation, namely the baby boomers. The party came in second place among members of generation X, and in third place among millennials (behind the Parti Libéral du Québec and the Coalition Avenir Québec). Based on all the figures reported in Table 3, it is thus clear that in the 2014 election the PQ was becoming increasingly less popular from one generation to the next.8 Table 4 displays results from a multivariate analysis of support for the PQ via binomial logit regression. The vote model includes as predictors many of the attitudinal variables examined in the previous section, together with some usual sociodemographic and socioeconomic control variables (gender, education, income and language). We include two dummy variables, one for millennials and another for generation X, leaving out baby boomers as the reference age group to which the voting behaviour of the other two is compared. Looking only at the statistically significant variables, the model indicates that the PQ found its support in 2014 among those individuals scoring low on cynicism and high on moral liberalism (the latter variable is an index combining views about same-sex marriage and the death penalty), those feeling attached to Quebec and not attached to Canada, those supportive of the PQ’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values, and those in favour of making Quebec a sovereign country. None of the other independent variables’ impact on the PQ vote is significantly different from zero, except for the relationship between voting for the PQ and belonging to millennials. According to this result, millennials were 7 percentage points less likely to vote for the PQ than members of the baby boomer generation (the reference group), everything else being equal. Since the coefficient associated with the dummy variable for generation X is not statistically significant, this indicates that the 35-54 year old and the baby boomer age groups did not significantly differ in their level of support for the PQ, everything else being equal. But millennials did significantly differ from the other two generational groups, on top of all the attitudinal differences already uncovered in the previous section and which are de facto captured in this multivariate model.9 Table 5 presents one last regression analysis. In this table we re-estimate the PQ vote model from Table 4 by adding interactions between the generation dummy variables and each of the other independent variables, in order to more directly assess the extent to which the generations differ in the determinants of their voting decision.10 Several interesting conclusions can be drawn from this table. Note first that the sovereignty issue

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TABLE 4 Determinants of Voting for the Parti Québécois in the 2014 Election

Voting PQ Millennials −0.67** (0.33) Generation X −0.05 (0.27) Female 0.14 (0.24) Education −0.58 (0.51) Income −0.69 (0.49) Francophone 0.41 (0.66) Left-right self-placement 0.01 (0.60) Moral liberalism 0.77* (0.42) Cynicism −0.87** (0.40) Support for the Charter of Values 2.42*** (0.31) Attachment to Quebec 2.10*** (0.70) Attachment to Canada −1.25*** (0.48) Support for giving Quebec more powers 0.41 (0.27) Support for Quebec sovereignty 1.31*** (0.29) Importance of sovereignty issue 0.66 (0.44)

Constant −4.62*** (1.13) Pseudo-R2 0.47 N 1,020

Note: Entries are unstandardized logit regression coefficients; standard errors in parentheses. ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.10 (two-tailed test).

operates in similar ways across the three generational groups. The salience of the issue as well as the variable capturing support for more power dev- olution have no significant influence on the vote decision for any of the three cohort groups, and the variable measuring support for making Quebec a sovereign country systematically impacts vote choice in all three groups in a roughly similar way (the change in the probabilities of

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TABLE 5 Determinants of PQ Vote by Generations (Results based on an Interaction Model)

Millennials Gen X Boomers Age −0.03 0.05 0.02 (0.05) (0.04) (0.03) Female −0.11 0.18 0.31 (0.55) (0.41) (0.43) Education 0.62 −0.39 −0.74 (0.96) (0.93) (0.92) Income −1.48* −0.69 −0.50 (0.78) (0.87) (0.89) Francophone 0.62 −0.08 1.00 (0.62) (1.08) (0.67) Left-right self-placement 2.16* 1.51 −1.92**a,b (1.11) (1.11) (0.89) Moral liberalism −0.59 1.15* 1.11* (0.97) (0.66) (0.64) Cynicism −1.07 −0.53 −1.20* (0.86) (0.69) (0.67) Support for the Charter of Values 1.51*** 3.20***a 2.70*** (0.51) (0.53) (0.63) Attachment to Quebec 0.74 2.46* 2.41** (1.45) (1.39) (1.21) Attachment to Canada −1.20 −1.66** −1.19 (0.83) (0.84) (0.79) Support for giving Quebec more powers 0.67 0.44 0.27 (0.56) (0.47) (0.44) Support for Quebec sovereignty 1.90** 1.21** 1.54*** (0.74) (0.56) (0.46) Importance of sovereignty issue 0.15 1.17 0.47 (0.94) (0.84) (0.64)

Constant −3.20 (2.20) Pseudo-R2 0.50 N 1,020

Note: Entries are unstandardized logit regression coefficients. Coefficients represent the main effects for each generation, taking into account the interaction coefficients (not reported here). Standard errors in parentheses. ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.10 (two-tailed test). aIndicates the effect is statistically different (at p < 0.05, two-tailed test) from that for millennials. bIndicates the effect is statistically different (at p < 0.05, two-tailed test) from that for generation X.

voting for the PQ associated with this variable is equal to 0.17 for millennials, 0.11 for generation X, and 0.19 for baby boomers). Where we do find striking differences in vote determinants across generations is with feelings of attachment and support for the charter. In the

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former case, we clearly see that attachment to Quebec has no significant impact on the vote choice of millennials, contrary to members of the other two generational groups for whom it significantly increases the probability of supporting the PQ by 21 and 29 percentage points, respectively. Combined with the fact that millennials are the least attached to Quebec, this result provides additional insight into the decline of the PQ in the 2014 provincial election. Looking at support for the charter, we see that this variable had much less of an influence on the youngest generation’s decision to vote for the PQ than for the other two age groups. While being statistically significant, this variable only increases the probability of voting for the PQ by 14 points for millennials, compared to 28 and 33 points for generation X and baby boomers, respectively. Again, viewed in tandem with the earlier finding about the youngest voters being the least supportive of the charter project, this provides further explanation for the lower level of PQ support observed among the youngest generation of voters in 2014. Another result from Table 5 worth highlighting concerns the influence of left-right ideological self-placement on support for the PQ. This variable may reveal a rather deep (and surprising) generational gap in the PQ’s 2014 support base. According to our estimates, voters positioning themselves on the right-leaning end of the scale saw their probability of voting for the PQ decrease by 24 points among baby boomers, but increase by 19 points among the youth. While the result for the baby boomer generation is not surprising, since it fits well with that party’s social democratic roots, the finding for millennials provides further evidence that the more progressively oriented youth are increasingly attracted to a party like Québec Solidaire than to the PQ, leaving only right-leaning young voters to join older left-leaners among the pool of PQ supporters. At the very least, it suggests that in the eyes of Quebecers aged 18 to 34 years old, the PQ of 2014 was not viewed as a progressive party alternative, reinforcing Pétry’s conclusion (2013) that the PQ does not differentiate itself significantly from the PLQ on the left-right axis. Note finally that we find no evidence of a linear effect of age on PQ support. Indeed, an individual’s age11 does not contribute significantly to the likelihood of voting for the PQ, which indicates that membership in a generational group appears to be a better predictor of PQ support than age itself. This suggests that what we are observing is a genuine generational phenomenon as opposed to a mere life-cycle effect.12

Conclusion

The PQ has been one of the two dominant parties in Quebec since the 1970s. However, its progressive decline, as well as the rise of other

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parties (notably the Coalition Avenir Québec and Québec Solidaire), have raised questions about its current and future centrality in Quebec’s party system. This study examined whether the demographic decline of its founding generation, the baby boomers, and the rise of new generations could help explain the party’s declining electoral force. To do so, we looked into differences between generations with regard to the factors linked to vote choice in the 2014 election. Our argument of intergenerational change posits that generation X and millennials, who were socialized in a different sociopolitical context, have developed different sets of political orientations than the baby boomers, which leads them to be less supportive of the Parti Québécois. This study provided evidence of clear generational differences in Quebecers’ political attitudes. In fact, millennials appear to be more left- leaning, more morally liberal, more open to cultural differences, more opposed to the Charter of Quebec Values, much less attached to Quebec and less engaged with the issue of sovereignty than baby boomers. While millennials’ position on the left-right axis may be due to a life-cycle effect, as young people are usually more left-leaning than older citizens, this generation’s position on the issue of diversity and the national question may reflect more permanent societal changes. One important finding is that there are large attitudinal differences between millennials and baby boomers, whereas generation X seems to fall somewhat in between these two generations. These conclusions extend those of Guay (1997), who observed that the greatest difference in political values and attitudes was between baby boomers and the generation that directly preceded it, while baby boomers and the members of generation X proved to be much closer in their views. When examining the electoral behaviour of these three generations, again the contrast was most pronounced between millennials and baby boomers. The Parti Québécois proved to be the most popular party among baby boomers, while it was the second choice in terms of voting preference for generation X, and the third choice for millennials. This tends to confirm the theory of Lemieux (2011) that the PQ is the party of the baby boomers’ generation. The slower and more progressive than expected decline of this party’s vote shares may be explained by two factors. First, the baby boomers’ generation was one of the largest birth cohorts in recent times and it was able to maintain its weight in the electorate due to gains in life expectancy. Second, generation X proved to be rather similar to baby boomers in some significant respects. It seems that the political context of the 1980s and 1990s has allowed the PQ to partly mobilize generation X and to keep—more or less—its place and relevance in the party system despite the beginning of the decline of the baby boomer generation.13

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But as millennials come to occupy a larger place in the electorate, and as the weight of the boomers continues to decrease, we may witness a continued decline of the PQ. When we look at the reasons behind the vote for the PQ, we see a clear divide between millennials and the others, a divide that limits the possibilities for the PQ to durably maintain itself in the electorate. First, while those who support the Quebec sovereignty project are still more likely to vote for the PQ, regardless of the generation to which they belong, millennials are much less likely to see Quebec sovereignty as a priority. Given that the first objective in the PQ’s program is to achieve Quebec’s sovereignty, it thus seems unlikely that the PQ could consistently recruit a sufficient number of supporters among millennials to compensate for the increasingly limited importance of the baby boomers’ generation. Second, the issue of diversity played a significant but different role in the electoral behaviour of the three generations. While support for the charter had a significant and positive impact on the likelihood of voting for the PQ among all generations, it was a less important factor for millennials, compared to the other two generations. Also, millennials were more likely to oppose the project of the charter than generation X and baby boomers. This means that the core policy of the PQ in the 2014 election tended to push away the younger generation. In a context of increasing rates of immigration, the issue of diversity will likely remain a central issue in Quebec politics in the years to come. The charter was a strong signal about the turn of the PQ towards an “identity-centred nationalism,” and this project led to heated debates within Quebec society. The question is now whether the PQ has permanently alienated the youngest generation, or if a change in the party’s stance on diversity would succeed in building support among its members. In this study, we have provided some evidence that the long-term reasons behind the shift in electoral behaviour indicate a possible realignment in Quebec’spartysystem.Thequestionisnowwhen such a realignment could occur. Political predictions are always a risky business. However, the present analysis of the generational dynamics of electoral behaviour, coupled with information on Quebec’s demography (Gélineau, 2015), can help us assess a range of possible outcomes for the Parti Québécois. On one hand, if generation X continues to align with boomers and offers some support to the PQ, the combined demographic weight of these two generations could help the PQ to maintain itself in the electorate until the 2034 election when millennials will make up the majority of Quebec’s electorate. On the other hand, if generation X distances itself from the boomers’ preferred policies and the PQ loses this support, the party could fall even more rapidly to third or fourth place in election results and as soon as 2018, when generation X and millennials will make up 66 per cent of Quebec’s electorate (Gélineau, 2015). That being said, several factors may condition these possible outcomes, such as the lower rates of electoral

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participation among generation X and millennials and the ability of the PQ to renew its political project. In addition, we have witnessed moments in the past when conflictual relationships with Ottawa and constitutional disputes revived sovereignist aspirations among Quebec’s citizens (Yale and Durand, 2011). Such moments have helped mobilize part of generation X in favour of the PQ and its constitutional option, which explains why the PQ remains a relevant actor of the party system at the moment. Similar events in the future could help either the PQ or another actor of the sovereignist movement mobilize millennials for the first time.

Notes 1 While Lemieux (2011: 33-47) presented the Parti Libéral du Québec as a generational party, he showed that this party was able to survive the passing of its founding generation and he argued that it could no longer be termed a generational party. As the Parti Québécois is still considered a generational party (according to Lemieux) and is currently experiencing a phase of decline, it is thus theoretically and empirically the most interesting political party to study, in light of Lemieux’ theory of generational parties. 2 We use exactly the same cut-off years as in Gélineau’s study of political participation among three generations in Quebec (2015). Guay (1997) has the same operationalization for Generation X (1960-1979), but in his study of generational differences in Quebec’s political culture he did not look at millennials. 3 In order to verify the robustness of our results, we re-estimated the models of Tables 3, 4, and 5 using different cut-off years; first by subtracting three years to our original cut-off points (1956 or before, 1957-1976, 1977 or later) and then by adding three years to them (1962 or before, 1963-1982, 1983 or later). These robustness checks indicate that our main findings are not sensitive to the exact years selected for dividing our sample into three generations. 4 A factor analysis suggests that, in fact, the three groups of attitudinal variables (socioeconomic policy orientations, feelings of national attachment, and constitutional preferences) correspond quite closely to three separate factors (eigenvalues of 0.27, 0.15, and 2.56, respectively). 5 Although we note that on the latter issue, the proportion of individuals against the death penalty is the same for millennials as it is for baby boomers (52 per cent). 6 They are also less likely to identify with a party in general, and with the PQ in particular. For instance, 78 per cent of PQ millennial voters report a party identification, as opposed to 86 per cent of PQ voters from generation X and 92 per cent of baby boomers having voted for the PQ in 2014. 7 Self-reported abstention among the three groups is respectively 19, 10, and 6 per cent; note that these figures are lower than the election’s actual abstention rate of 28.6 per cent because of opinion surveys’ well-known tendency to overestimate turnout. 8 This conclusion holds when we look at francophone voters only, as shown in Table A1 in the online appendix. 9 For comparison purposes, Tables A2 and A3 in the online appendix present findings from, respectively, the PQ vote model estimated for francophones only and a multino- mial logit regression of vote choice that analyzes the voting decision made between pairs of parties that include the PQ.

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10 In Table 5, we present the main effects for each generation, taking into account the (unre- ported) interaction coefficients. Taking the left-right independent variable as an example, the 1.51 coefficient for generation X is obtained by taking the main effect (which is 2.16 and corresponds to the reference category, the millennials) and subtracting 0.65 from it (since the interaction coefficient for generation X is −0.65). But since this interaction coefficient is not statistically significant, it means that the effect of the left-right variable for generation X (1.51) is not different from that found for millennials (2.16), hence the lack of an ‘a’ superscript next to the coefficient reported in the table. The same goes for the coefficient of −1.92 reported for baby boomers (2.16 – 4.08 = −1.92) although this time the interaction coefficient (−4.08) is statistically significant, indicating that baby boomers do differ from millennials in terms of the effect of left-right self-placement on their vote choice (hence the ‘a’ superscript next to that coefficient). 11 An independent variable for age was introduced in the model tested in Table 5. 12 The generational effect is further supported by the fact that the same cohort (the boomers) continues to be the most supportive of the PQ since the 1970s (Blais and Nadeau, 1984). Also, our analysis showed that the boomers who voted for the PQ in 2014 are still very much left-leaning, which goes against the life-cycle explanation that would predict a movement towards the right as birth cohorts age. 13 As Guay (1997: 87) noted, Jacques Parizeau considered that providing the PQ with a “new youth” had been the greatest accomplishment of his tenure as PQ leader (1988- 1995).

Supplementary materials To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S0008423917001147.

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