The Empire Within: Montreal, the Sixties, and the Forging of a Radical Imagination by Sean William Mills A thesis submitted to the Department of History in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada November 2007 Copyright © Sean Mills 2007 Abstract This thesis explores the wide variety of ways in which radical intellectuals and activists in Montreal used and adapted Third World decolonization theory to build a broad movement of solidarity and anti-colonial resistance from 1963-1972. Beginning in the early 1960s, activists and intellectuals in Montreal began drawing upon the language of Third World decolonization to resituate their understandings of themselves, their society, and the world in which they inhabited. Through their engagement with Third World liberation theory – and the closely related language of Black Power – radical intellectuals in Montreal sought to give new meaning to the old conception of humanism, and they worked to drastically expand the geographical frame of reference in which Quebec politics were generally understood. After analyzing the shifting meaning of decolonization in the period leading up to the late 1960s, this thesis explores the ways in which various groups adopted, built upon, challenged, and shaped the conception of Quebec liberation. Montreal’s advocates of women’s liberation, the city’s Black activists, defenders of unilingualism, and labour radicals were all deeply shaped by the intellectual and urban climate of Montreal, and by ideas of Quebec decolonization. They developed their own individual narratives of liberation, yet linked by the flexible language of decolonization, these narratives all greatly overlapped, forming a vast movement which was larger than the sum of its parts. If the concept of decolonization was extremely powerful, however, it was also highly ambiguous and contradictory, and activists only slowly came to an understanding of the multi-layered nature of colonialism in Quebec. By the early 1970s, the idea of decolonization was slowly abandoned by those advocating radical social change in the city. This thesis makes three interrelated arguments. First, it argues that radicalism in Quebec in the 1960s cannot be understood outside of the larger international context in which it emerged. Second, it attempts to rethink the ways in which different groups and movements during the 1960s interacted and fed upon each other’s analyses and learned from each other. And, finally, by looking at the centrality of Third World decolonization to the development of dissent in Montreal, it hopes to add new perspectives to the growing field of international Sixties scholarship, by insisting that history of the ‘West’ was profoundly shaped by its interactions with the Third World. i Acknowledgements This thesis could not have been written without the help and support of numerous friends and colleagues. Financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Queen’s History department, and the Montreal History Group made the research possible in the first place. Marc-André Lavigne, Benoit Dubreuil, and Dominique Perrault-Joncas first initiated me to political debate about Quebec, and Matt Rankin, Damien-Claude Bélanger, and Louis-Raphaël Pelletier have debated many of the ideas which have found their way into this study. Philippe Fournier has been an indefatigable friend and colleague for over ten years now, and he has helped in so many ways that it is impossible to innumerate them. Sarina Kumar, even from a distance, has offered sage advice and constant friendship, as have Heather Johnson, Matt McKean, Belinda Hewitt, Rob Dennis, Alyssa Tomkins, Gwen Rushton, James Dunlop, Greg Griffin, Stephanie Bolton, Claire Abraham, Kareen Latour, Annie Gagnon and Megan Webster. In my beloved café Utopik, where so much of this thesis was written, I have been able to find my own ‘free space’ for creativity. Meeting me there and elsewhere have been my fellow travellers, Nicolas Kenny, Liz Kirkland, and Dave Meren. Jarrett Rudy’s enthusiasm for history – and for life in general – has helped me focus on the excitement of this endeavour. My sisters Al, Sue, and Jillian have set a standard of academic excellence that I have constantly attempted to attain, and my parents, Alan and Pat, have supported me from the very beginning. Jamie Swift, Bradford Lyttle, Stan Gray, Kari Levitt, Dimitri Roussopoulos, Anne Cools, Robert Comeau, Daya Varma, Fernand Foisy, and Jean-Marc Piotte shared their memories and thoughts about the 1960s. Long meals and conversations with Kari Levitt have clarified my thinking about the Caribbean, politics, and life in general. Intellectuals of her calibre ii are a rare breed. Andrée Lévesque has long been an inspiration, and I thank her for her support and encouragement. Cynthia Wright, Barrington Walker, Susan Lord, and Adnan Husain have helped in many ways, sharing both thoughts and material. Marc Comby sat down with me to discuss Quebec labour. Stéphanie Poirier shared her expertise on the Montreal Central Council of the CSN and, in the best tradition of scholarly collaboration, made all of her files available to me. At the University of Wisconsin- Madison, Jeremi Suri has continually been enthusiastic about my present and future projects. Van Gosse acted as a thorough and encouraging external reader. My Belgian colleagues, especially Serge Jaumain, Anne Morelli, and José Gotovitch, who twice hosted me in Brussels, offered important feedback on earlier versions of this project. Denyse Baillargeon helped me in my initial explorations of Quebec feminism, and Suzanne Morton has followed this project closely, encouraging and helping me throughout the entire process. The thesis has been written in between – or perhaps on the fault lines – of my two intellectual homes of the past four years, the Queen’s History department and the Montreal History Group. I was first initiated to the world of the Montreal History Group when I was still an undergraduate, and I found in it a community of scholars committed to intellectual engagement and scholarly collaboration across the linguistically divided world of the Canadian academy. The Group’s members – Denyse Baillargeon, Amélie Bourbeau, Bettina Bradbury, Magda Fahrni, Donald Fyson, Karine Hébert, Daniel Horner, Darcy Ingram, Nicolas Kenny, Liz Kirkland, Andrée Lévesque, Suzanne Morton, Tamara Myers, Lorraine O’Donnell, Louis- Raphaël Pelletier, Mary Anne Poutanen, Jarrett Rudy, Sylvie Tachereau, and Brian Young – have provided material and intellectual support. A special word must be iii said for Brian Young, a scholar who embodies a spirit of generosity which represents academics at its best. His encouragement, questioning, and intellectual searching continue to remind me why we are doing history in the first place. Over the past four years, the Queen’s History department has been an extremely exciting and dynamic place to be. During my time there, I have had the opportunity of working with some of the best historians anywhere. Karen Dubinsky combines a sharp and rigorous mind with the human warmth one rarely finds in the university. Ian McKay, who supervised this project from start to finish, has encouraged my intellectual questionings from the very beginning. His intellectual rigour and his commitment to meaningful and honest intellectual work place him in a league of his own among historians. His support and friendship has meant a great deal to me; I have been truly privileged to work with him. Over the past two years, my fellow students of anti-imperialism and decolonization, Scott Rutherford and David Austin, have undertaken much of this journey with me. In long conversations about the meaning of race and empire, and gender and resistance, they have clarified my thinking and sharpened my focus. Both read the entire product, and their feedback and ideas are very much a part of it. My greatest debt is to Anna Shea. It has been many long years now since we first began on our parallel yet overlapping projects. Over the years, she has debated every idea and challenged my every word. She not only put up with me during the last months of writing, but, in so many ways, inspired its creation in the first place. For her love, this thesis is for her. iv Table of Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Table of Contents v List of Abbreviations vi Note on Language vii 1. Introduction 1 Part One: 1963-1968 Antecedents 2. The Project: The Dream of Decolonization 26 3. The Protagonists: Building an Alternative America 54 4. Streets, Cafés, and the Urban Texture of Revolt 89 5. ‘Nègres blancs d’Amérique’: Internationalizing Resistance 126 Part Two: 1968-1972 Rebellion 6. Montreal’s Black Renaissance 174 7. Québécoises deboutte!: The Origins of the Women’s Liberation Movement 228 8. The Language of Liberation : McGill français, Bill 63, and the Politics of 275 Unilingualism 9. Labour’s Avant-Garde: The Montreal Central Council of the CSN 320 Part Three: New Horizons 10. Towards Revolution: Labour, Imperialism, and the New Working Class 360 Conclusion: May Day, 1973 396 Bibliography 413 v List of Abbreviations ASIQ Action socialiste pour l’indépendance du Québec CCSNM Conseil central des syndicats nationaux de Montréal CEQ Corporation des enseignants du Québec CNR Canadian National Railways CSN Confédération des syndicats nationaux FFQ Fédération des femmes du Québec FLF Front de Libération des Femmes FLN Front de Libération Nationale FLP Front de