With the lead favouring the Yes side, two weeks before the vote, the Federalist swung into action and held rallies and Prime Minister Chretien made several speeches in support of Canada. Then the single biggest event of the campaign took place on October 27th, just a few days before the vote, when about 100,000 Canadians from all across the country gather in Montreal for a massive Unity Rally which appealed to French Canadians to vote for Canada. The crowd was addressed by Prime Minister Chretien, the leaders of the Federal opposition, Jean Charest, and the leader of the Provincial opposition, Daniel Johnson.
The separatists Parizeau and Bouchard made preparations to declare separation almost immediately and form a Quebec national army and seize fighter aircraft at military bases in Quebec if a Yes vote was successful. The Federalists responded by suggestion that a legal process would be more complicated then a unilateral declaration of independence and the CF-18 aircraft were taken out of Quebec to avoid a confrontation over them.
Another factor in the process were the Cree people who were overwhelmingly the largest grouping most of Northern Quebec. They refused to be caught up in a separation movement and held their own referendum about remaining in Canada and voted to stay in with a 96.3% majority.
On referendum day the yes vote was heavy in francophone areas but a minority on the West side of Montreal, Northern Quebec and the Eastern Townships. The final results were
|
No - Federalist |
Yes - Separatists |
# of Votes |
2,362.648 |
2,308,360 |
Percentage |
50.58% |
49.42% |
Jacques Parizeau appeared that night before a packed arena of separatists supporters and made a bitter and racists speech which blamed the defeat of separation on big business and non-white French Canadian ethnic groups. He offered his resignation as Premier the next day and it was quickly accepted with Lucien Bouchard stepping into the job to continue the fight. Support for separation quickly dissipated after that and by 2003 they lost power to the Liberals.