|
3 Wisemen | Trudeaumania
| October Crisis |
Bilingualism |
Petro Canada |
72 Super Series |
Wage & Price
Controls | 1976 Olympics
|
PQ come to Power |
Interlude |
Western Alienation
| 1980 Referendum |
The Constitution |
Changing of the
Guard The
Parti Québécois was first formed by René Lévesque as the
Mouvement Souveraineté-Association in late 1867.
Lévesque had joined the Provincial Liberals years before
and as a Cabinet Minister led the charge to publicize
the energy sector in Quebec. His constant battles
against the English based business establishment pushed
him more and more into the Quebec nationalists camp and
by 1867 he had concluded that some form of sovereignty
or separation from Canada was the only real solution to
maintaining and strengthening French Canadian culture
and its language. Several other notable figures on the
Quebec political landscape, such as Jacques Parizeau and
Jérôme Proulx, soon joined him.
The other parties in
Quebec, the Liberals, the Parti Créditiste and
the Union Nationale had fought bitter election campaigns
over the previous decade and in 1970 when the PQ
contested their first election they managed to elect
only 7 members. By he next election in 1973, they
actually lost one seat and only had 6 members sitting
but they drastically increased their percentage of the
popular vote to 30%. Although the Liberal majority had
increased the support for the Parti Créditiste
and the Union Nationale had collapsed and the PQ were
able to form the official opposition.
Over the next 3 years the Liberal
Government of Robert Bourassa was plague by scandals and
incompetence. By 1976, the Quebec electorate was ready
for a change and the main campaign theme that the PQ
promoted was good government. An election was called by
the Liberals for November 15, 1976. Although some turned
back to the old Union Nationale, who elected 11 members,
most deserted the Liberals for the PQ who won 71 seats,
leaving the Liberals with just 26 seats. Although polls
showed that the PQ could win the election it still came
as a surprise to the rest of Canada that Quebec would
actually vote a separatist government into power.
The PQ quickly turned
their attention to their political agenda and the first
bill hey introduced was Bill 1 which was to become Bill
101 or the Charter of the French Language which
entrenched French as the only official language in
Quebec and severely restricted the use of other
languages in signage, education and a variety of other
areas.
This and many other
laws were only a prelude the real agenda of the PQ which
was to hold a referendum on separation or as the PQ came
to call the process, sovereignty-association. The
referendum was to come in 1980 at a time that the PQ
believed that the Federal Government was at it's
weakest, but events and political changes were to
surprise them and bring back it's strongest opponent
Pierre Trudeau to face them during the referendum
campaign. |
