During the two centuries which followed the Conquest, French-Canadian society achieved a broad consensus on the values which guided it.
Of course, there was not unanimity. At the end of the XIXe century, Arthur Buies professed a virulent anticlericalism before he joined Curé Labelle. In 1925, the socialist Albert Saint-Martin founded the Workers’ University in Montreal, considered so dangerous to the established order that it was closed by a special law. In 1948, the signatories of Global refusal wanted to give in their turn a big kick in the ambient conservatism.
While there have always been debates, sometimes bitter, within the intelligentsia, the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and the democratization of education allowed for ever wider participation.
In this regard, 1967 marks a more than symbolic turning point. For a large number of Quebecers, the Universal Exhibition was an open window on the complexity of the world and its multiple realities, very different from those they had experienced “in the shadow of the steeple”.
Africa appeared quite different from that of Tintin in Congo. The communist world was no longer just a huge concentration camp that threatened the planet with a nuclear cataclysm. In light of what was happening elsewhere, Quebeckers began to take a fresh look at themselves. The globalization of ideas has long preceded that of markets.
With the founding of the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association (MSA), which would give birth to the Parti Québécois (PQ) the following year, 1967 also marked the end of the consensus on the political future of Quebec. Admittedly, there was already the Rally for National Independence (RIN) and the National Rally (RN), which themselves had succeeded the Laurentian Alliance, but the two separatist parties had totaled less than 9% of the votes. the 1966 election, while the PQ had won 23% by that of 1970.
For 30 years, the constitutional question polarized Quebec society at least as much as it can be today. Pierre Elliott Trudeau set the tone in May 1964 in an article published in Free city under the title “The separatists: counter-revolutionaries”, in which he vomited on “the nationalist breed”. Once he became Prime Minister, he launched a veritable witch hunt, which culminated in the October Crisis.
Did federalists and sovereignists hate each other less than multiculturalists and identitarians? Journalists who today have the impression of walking on eggshells are living what was also the lot of their predecessors, whose reports were scrutinized to discover the traces of any bias. Power Corporation was careful to keep its newspapers on the right track, while Mr. Trudeau threatened to shut down Radio-Canada and broadcast only images of Chinese vases.
Long after his departure, the constitutional debate continued to overshadow all others. In 1991, the last leader of the Quebec Socialist Movement, Germain Gauvin, explained his scuttling as follows: “As long as the national question is not resolved, it will be extremely difficult to set up an organization centered on social interests. , because sovereignty still ends up monopolizing the debates today. “
Even in 2016, the current leader of the PQ, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, lamented in his essay titled The political orphans that sovereignty should have the effect of a “black hole” in which any other ideology or political proposition was lost. He must miss the good old days.
In fact, the gradual shelving of the sovereignist project following the 1995 referendum freed up a space for discussion that other debates began to occupy, allowing Québec solidaire in particular to establish itself permanently in the political landscape.
Many criticize wokes for importing from the United States a fight against systemic racism that does not fit the reality of Quebec, but the early separatists and left activists also drew their inspiration from what was happening elsewhere, whether in the decolonization movement of the 1960s or in the Cuban revolution.
However, the oppression felt by Quebec within the confederation was not comparable to the fate of the former African colonies, and it was difficult to equate the misdeeds of capitalism here and in Cuba under the Batista regime.
Ideologies have always had the effect of demonizing the adversary and causing polarization. Quebec may be a “distinct society”, but it is no exception to this rule. The difference today lies above all in the way in which polarization is expressed. Being insulted in a letter, on a platform or in the street is an annoyance with which it is always possible to deal; To be continually attacked by an army of invisible trolls on social media is infinitely heavier, whether you are a politician, a star, a journalist or an ordinary citizen.
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