French-Canadians have long had a separate culture from the larger English-speaking culture that surrounds them in the other Canadian provinces. For this reason, many Quebecois desire to separate from the Canadian federation, and develop their own sovereign state. Let’s discuss the history of Quebec, as well as their arguments for wanting separation, and the counter-arguments against sovereignty.
History
One of the most important points that needs to be made is that the province of Quebec, even before the time the Canadian Federation went into effect in 1867 with the passing of the British North America Act, has been predominantly French speaking. This means that up to a quarter of the population of Canada do not speak the majority language, the predominant language, English, as their native language, or mother tongue. In fact, the francophones were present even before New France was acquired by the British in 1763. Because of this, the Canadian government has legally recognized the French language as a special minority mother tongue since the beginnings of the Canadian federation. Even today, special recognition is given to the French language in such things as Canadian federal laws that require that all traffic signs be in both English and French – you can see an example of this is as you travel up highway 401 in Ontario, and notice that for every English sign, there is a French sign that follows. This, of course, seems to be the policy in the English-speaking provinces, but Quebec seems to be more persistent in limiting things to French in most cases, particularly business signs.
Since the beginnings of the Canadian federation, the province of Quebec has been given a large amount of autonomy, being allowed freedom to make their own civil law, religious liberties and laws concerning religion, control over their own education system, and the use of their own language in civil courts, legislature, and educational systems of their province, as well as the federal courts and Parliament of the Canadian nation.
Part of the problem is that, even though the elected leaders throughout the English-speaking part of Canada try to persuade the populace that Canada is a two-language and two-culture society, in order to try to ease the troubled minds of the French-speaking people in Quebec, this does little to appease the francophones, as what appears in reality is different than what is spoken by the country’s leaders. It appears to those people who speak French, and live in Quebec, that the nation of Canada is more like an English-speaking nation, with the French-Canadian area being only a small pocket within the larger nation. The francophones argue that English is the language of business, and that you cannot succeed, or advance, in business by limiting yourself to French. This made the French-Canadians feel as though they were being forced into being assimilated into English culture, which many French-Canadians saw as an affront to their culture and heritage.
It appears that in the 1960’s, French-Canadians had an attitude that they referred to as Revolution Tranquille, or Quiet Revolution, where they competed on a large scale with English-speaking Canadians for more power and jobs in the then present government and business environment. Unfortunately, this quiet revolution, which was allowing the French-Canadians to make progress in these areas, ground to a halt as the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ) started doing terrorist attacks, complete with bombings, murder, and kidnappings, causing the mainstream French-Canadian culture, complete with the French-Canadian who was the Canadian prime minister at the time, to react to this upheaval by assuring the rest of Canada that they were, in fact, part of the Canadian confederation, and accelerate bilingualism in the federal civil services, as well as several other areas of cultural importance.
The 1970’s saw a different direction than the direction that happened as a reaction to the terrorism of the FLQ in the 1960’s, going back to the original philosophy of those who were quietly practicing revolution tranquille, which reduced the use of English in business, education, and government within the province of Quebec. This, in effect, made Quebec unilingual instead of bilingual, even though federal law states that the nation is bilingual – in fact, all provinces in Canada are, by their own laws, unilingual, these days, except for New Brunswick.
Because of the demands of the French-Speaking people on the business culture of Quebec, especially their largest city of Montreal, many English-speakers fled the province between 1966 and 1996, as well as more than 300 business firms, including some of Canada’s bedrock businesses, such as the Bank of Montreal and Canadian Pacific Railways, usually to Toronto, the capital of neighboring Ontario – this has caused the city of Toronto to skyrocket past Montreal in both population and GDP. Because the French-Canadians are so stubborn when it comes to keeping their culture and language intact, it has actually caused an economic stagnation to take place, including high chronic unemployment.
Arguments for French-Canadian Separatism
With all this in mind, the question is then asked, what are the French-Canadian arguments for wanting to separate Quebec from the rest of Canada?
The first argument would be that they have had a long had a French history. They were originally settled by the French, even before the British took control of the area in 1763. Even at the time of the making of the Canadian confederation, with the passing of the British North America Act in 1867, it was recognized that Quebec had a cultural identity which was much more in line with the French than with the English, including their continued use of the French language instead of English. Not only that, but since their earliest days, there has been religious differences as well – the French-speakers are Roman Catholic, while many of their Canadian English-speaking counterparts, if they are Christians, are protestant Christian.
Another issue is the anti-Quebec sentiment that takes place, where there tends to be quite a bit of animosity directed towards the French-Canadian and their culture by their English-speaking counterparts. They claim that the French-Canadians just need to step up to the plate and recognize that they are part of a larger culture that is primarily English and British in its cultural background. Many Quebecois don’t like that argument one bit, as it makes them feel like their culture is less important than the surrounding Canadian culture, and makes them feel that their culture is disadvantaged. The Quebecois really don’t want to be treated that way, but want to be treated as an equal, with a distinctly different culture, that happens to have just as much reason to exist as the larger English-speaking and Canadian culture around them. The Quebecois feel that if they give in to the larger culture too much that they will lose their French-Canadian identity, and end up with nothing.
Those that want to secede from the Canadian federation believe that if they don’t secede soon that there might not be any French-Canadian culture around a hundred years from now. They are afraid of extinction. They feel a need to separate from the larger Canadian federation for the survival of their own culture.
Counter-Arguments Against French-Canadian Separatism
Now that we have what might be considered to be the arguments in favor of French-Canadian separatism, let’s give some counter-arguments regarding this matter. Many people would disagree with the arguments given by the French-Canadian separatist in favor of these counter-arguments.
First of all, let’s take another background as an example – one found in the United States. Many people who have a German-American background continued to go to German-speaking schools, and speak German in their homes, until it became illegal at the beginnings of World War I, in which case they were required to start attending English-speaking schools and started to speak English in their homes as well. Since then, German-Americans have been completely Americanized, being the largest single immigrant group out of Europe, while at the same time keeping their cultural identity. They still hold some of the same traditions, culinary items, family culture and structure, and ways of thinking, while still considering themselves American. The same could hold true for most people in the United States – they consider themselves American, having a strong link to the American culture at large, while at the same time keeping links to their own cultural backgrounds. This is a normal thing. If the French-Canadians would see things from this angle, they might realize that it would be acceptable to look at themselves as part of the larger Canadian culture, while at the same time keeping their own cultural identity on a smaller scale. It is quite natural for all human beings to want to know, and keep their identities, including cultural and ethnic identities, just to know who you are as a person.
Another thing to keep in mind is that their strong desire to make sure everything, especially in business, is done in French, is actually detrimental to their business climate, not because the native language for most of Canada’s people is English, but because, it seems, the international language of business, trade and commerce is English. Historically speaking, the reasons for this are based on a couple of things: first because of the effects of British colonization and empire throughout the world, then because of the economic rise and status that the United States, which is English-speaking, has had on the business climate of the world, as well as the global economy. For example, in South Korea, many children are sent to after-school academies where they are taught English, because they know that it would be good for them in a global business climate where English is the global language of trade and business, although they, at the same time, still consider themselves Korean, identify as such, and continue to speak Korean in their homes, and with each other. The same is true in other countries as well, such as Brazil in South America, where language schools that teach English are all over the place, and businesses pay big money to have their management and marketing employees learn it to help them get ahead from a business standpoint. Everywhere in the world, it seems to be understood how important knowing English is to business advancement in an era of global trade and economics, except for places there people are just downright belligerent in terms of their own language, such as in France or Quebec – by rejecting English as a business language, they are damaging their economy and hindering their ability to do business on a global scale.
Another thing to keep in mind is the interconnectedness that Quebec has with the rest of the provinces of Canada, even though the rest of them are English-speaking, except for the pockets of French-Canadians found here and there. They all need each other for economic reasons. If Quebec decides to disconnect with the rest of Canada, it will likely cause a collapse, or extreme stagnation, of their economy, which won’t be good for the Quebecois. Besides, it would also be economically painful to the rest of Canada, as well, besides the fact that it would geographically isolate the Maritime Provinces from Ontario and the western provinces. Would this force the Canadian provinces, out of dire necessity, to ask to join the United States as as part of a larger North American Union, in order to keep their economic framework and way of life intact? Hopefully not! If that did happen, would Quebec, after a length of time of being independent and sovereign, realize the blunder of their mistake, and ask to be readmitted to a Canadian federation? If it was too late to be readmitted to a Canadian federation, because it didn’t exist anymore, due to French-Canadian belligerence, and all the other provinces had joined a new North American Union setup, would we just let Quebec burn (metaphorically speaking), or help them out, or let the previous provinces reunite into a Canadian federation again, or what? It would be better if the Quebecois would just recognize their need to be part of a Canadian federation, while at the same time keeping their cultural and linguistic background.
Hopefully this article has helped you to understand both the pros and cons about a French-Canadian separate and sovereign state for Quebec.
