Scott W. See. The History of Canada. Second Edition

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theater productions, ballet schools, and artistic programs had created

a respectable community of artists across the country. Supported by a

combination of government agencies and private patrons, a cultural

industry carved out a role for itself. For example, one of the world’s

most famous Shakespearean festivals began annual productions in

Stratford, Ontario, in 1953. At the same time, the small cultural

industry was beleaguered by the overwhelming volume of American

material as well as constantly fending off critics who argued that the

function as steward of the arts represented an inappropriate intrusion

of government. In many ways, the expansive role of government in

the wake of the Massey Report foreshadowed the creation of the

social and medical networks of the 1960s. A growing number of

Canadians believed that their federal and provincial governments

should be the first line of defense for maintaining and defining a

distinctive Canadian culture.

A “Quiet Revolution”?

Antecedents to Change

Following the Conquest, Canada’s francophone population, partic-

ularly in Quebec, struggled to maintain its cultural identification,

preserve its language, and protect its civil laws. From the eighteenth

to the mid-twentieth century, la survivance was characterized to a

large extent by memories of an agrarian past, devotion to Roman

Catholicism, the active defense of the French language, and conscious

efforts to resist assimilation. For most of this period, political, church,

and social elites took charge of the task and defined the terms of

francophone identity in North America. Challenges came in the form

of Canada’s western expansion after 1867, which was essentially a

nonfrancophone enterprise. Further problems came with the loss of

approximately one million people from 1840 to 1940 as people

migrated from Quebec to the United States, especially New England,

in search of employment and economic opportunity. Illustrated by

the anti-imperialist stance of Henri Bourassa and the nationalistic

arguments of Lionel Groulx, Quebec’s francophones by the twentieth

century lived in a society that cherished certain memories. The past

was punctuated by repeated official and unofficial attempts to

180 A “Quiet Revolution”?

assimilate francophones and colored by the triumphant will of the

group to survive against overwhelming odds.

Changes that accompanied the Depression and World War II

altered the ways in which francophones defined their position in

Canadian society and ultimately led to a fundamental reorientation of

political and social power in Quebec. The province during the mid-

twentieth century was swiftly becoming more urban and industrial in

nature. As the population in rural areas declined precipitously during

and after the war, cities such as Montreal burgeoned. Quebec families

grew robustly, creating a provincial baby boom. In addition, a

growing number of nonfrancophone immigrants —Italians, Greeks,

Poles, and Germans—came to Quebec after the war. Technological

changes, especially the encroachment of anglophone media, chipped

away at French Canada’s traditional culture.

The most immediate root of the changes of the 1960s was the end

of the political dominance of le chef . Maurice Duplessis’s Union

Nationale, outmaneuvered by a combination of federal and

provincial forces at the outset of World War II, returned to power

in 1944. Duplessis ran Quebec in an old-style political fashion.

Patronage and excessive control were the hallmarks of his premier-

ship. A gulf separated Duplessis’s promises and his actions. Allegedly

he championed political and social reforms, and he successfully

appealed to French-Canadian pride. He courted business investments

from outside the province, especially from Americans. His govern-

ment was particularly repressive concerning communists and labor

unions. The Padlock Act of 1937, which was found unconstitutional

two decades later, outlawed the publication of communist literature

and imposed stringent sentences on offenders. A sensational strike of

asbestos workers in 1949, which divided politicians, Roman Catholic

church officials, journalists, workers, and students, is generally

considered evidence that Duplessis’s repressive regime was beginning

to unravel. Cité Libre, a paper founded by journalist Gérard Pelletier

and law professor Pierre Elliott Trudeau, promoted modern

democratic ideals, liberalism, and individual rights. The emergence

of Cité Libre and other journals that were harshly critical of older

French-Canadian ideals and elites helped to channel an intense debate

over the future of Quebec’s francophone society. Duplessis kept

control of the province until his death in 1959, but his Union

Nationale successors failed to maintain the party’s impetus. With the

A “Quiet Revolution”? 181

election of a Liberal government in 1960, the province underwent a

staggering transformation that ultimately stretched the bonds of

Confederation to the breaking point.

The Quiet Revolution

The events of the early to mid-1960s fundamentally reconfigured the

definition of French-Canadian survival and put in motion political

forces dedicated to the permanent alteration of Quebec’s relationship

with the rest of Canada. The election of Liberal Jean Lesage in 1960

served as a catalyst for a movement that journalists referred to as the

“Quiet Revolution.” Based on a combination of demographic,

economic, cultural, and political ingredients, la revolution tranquille

radically transformed Quebec. It shifted from an essentially

conservative society, steeped in Roman Catholicism and focused on

a pessimistic interpretation of the francophones’ lot in Canadian

history, to a more modern and forward-looking place where the state

assumed a proactive role in determining the future and protecting the

special rights of French Canadians. Some historians think of the

Quiet Revolution as a societal catharsis. It was indeed a mixture of

heated intellectual and emotional discussions that ultimately left few

stones unturned. Critics questioned Quebec’s traditions, economy,

arts, education, and religion. By the end of the 1960s, francophone

Quebecers were calling themselves Québécois, implying a French-

Canadian nationalism that was now rooted to the province.

Although Jean Lesage did not create the Quiet Revolution, he

presided over it. The Liberals attempted to corral the various threads

of the movement, and an activist state became the hallmark of

modern Quebec. Lesage’s political refrain of maîtres chez nous—

masters of our own house— struck a responsive chord to millions of

Quebecers who wanted the government to lead the province into the

future and protect francophone rights. One of the centerpieces of the

new Quebec was the government’s investment in developing hydro-

electric energy. Under the leadership of the natural resources minister,

René Lévesque, the Liberals built Hydro-Québec into a government

monopoly by absorbing private hydroelectric power companies. The

success of Hydro-Québec, with French as its business language and

francophones as its engineers and workers, encouraged people to

conclude that French-Canadian survival would be achieved by

182 A “Quiet Revolution”?

developing industries and resources in a francophone environment.

Over time, however, other corporate efforts to replicate the successes

of Hydro-Québec, such as a steel company named Sidbec, were not as

financially successful.

One of the most far reaching of the Lesage government’s measures

was revamping the province’s educational system from grade school

through the university level. Charged by the government to assess edu-

cation, the Parent Commission reported its findings from 1963–1966.

It suggested a separation of church and state, the creation of a gov-

ernment ministry of education, and a more inclusive system of higher

education that incorporated vocational and technical training in

addition to traditional academic subjects. As a result, the province

experienced an educational revolution in the 1960s that produced

tuition-free high schools and an expanded public university system,

the Université du Québec. Religious influences in education eroded,

replaced in many cases by scientific and technical courses. Many of

Quebec’s current political, economic, and social leaders came of age in

this expansive period of educational growth.

Finally, during the height of the Quiet Revolution, Lesage’s

Liberals engaged in bitter struggles with the federal governments of

both Diefenbaker and Pearson to extract more provincial rights and

responsibilities. While a minority of Québécois were advocating

separation of the province from Canada at this point, a growing

number of people wanted more freedom to exercise control over social

programs as a way to ensure French-Canadian survival. The clashes

with Ottawa focused on revenue sharing, because the federal

government collected the bulk of the country ’s taxes, and the operation

of social agencies. For example, the Lesage government insisted that

Quebec run its own pension plan after Pearson introduced measures to

construct a federal plan in 1963. While these changes empowered

Quebec’s government, they also brought negative side effects. Taxes

increased, the debt rose, and the province developed a cumbersome

bureaucracy that was much criticized by the mid-1960s.

The Quiet Revolution cut paths in many directions, so summariz-

ing its impact in a definitive fashion is problematic. Clearly the period

under Lesage’s tutelage from 1960 to 1966 was one of intense,

exciting, and sometimes frightening debate and change. In less than

a decade Quebec underwent a cultural metamorphosis that created a

highly secularized society out of one of the world’sbastionsof

A “Quiet Revolution”? 183

Roman Catholicism. Even Pope John Paul II would criticize the new

Quebec as a “de-Christianized society.” The provincial birthrate

also declined sharply; by the end of the decade, it was the country’s

lowest. A better-educated and professional citizenry probably wanted

to devote its energies to building careers and modernizing Quebec

instead of raising the large families of earlier generations. A form of

Quebec nationalism, based on ideas that reached back into the early

decades of the twentieth century, was given a clearer voice during the

Quiet Revolution. Mounting tensions between Quebec and Ottawa

helped to refine a political movement that called for the province’s

removal from Confederation. Finally, the Quiet Revolution helped to

spawn small militant groups that tried to expedite, through threats and

even violence, the province’s independence from Canada. Thanks to

the whirlwind events of the Quiet Revolution, les Canadiens,an

expansive term that encompassed francophones across the country,

had all but disappeared. It had been replaced by les Québécois, a self-

identification that hinted at increased sovereignty or separation for

theprovinceofQuebec(see“A Voice of the New Quebec” in the

Documents section).

Capitalizing on a general sense of exhaustion and disillusionment,

the Union Nationale returned to power in 1966 under the leadership

of Daniel Johnson. Many supporters of the Quiet Revolution were

losing their enthusiasm, rural voters wanted to counteract a move-

ment that had been primarily urban and intellectual, and Lesage’s

Liberal government was under attack for its high taxes and spending

habits. While there is some disagreement as to when the Quiet

Revolution came to a close, the resurgence of the Union Nationale

clearly indicated that the most intensive period of change was in

temporary retreat. In the 1970s, however, the movement for Quebec

nationalism would come into full blossom: a stepchild of la revolution

tranquille.

Canada in the Mid-1960s: A Tumultuous Time

The advent of the Cold War, the embers of which can be found in the

ashes of World War II, signified momentous adjustments for Canada.

The war helped to position the country as one of the world’ s leading

184 Canada in the Mid-1960s: A Tumultuous Time

democracies and industrial powerhouses. Geographically sand-

wiched between the emerging superpowers, Canadians deliberately

fashioned an international role based on a middle power principle.

With financial and trade linkages to Great Britain redefined because

of the war, Canada’s North American focus became magnified. In

1963 Pearson’s victorious Liberals capitalized on Diefenbaker’s failed

attempts to disentangle Canada from American defensive, economic,

and cultural influences. Canadians were ambivalent about their

relationship with their superpower neighbor, and events after the

mid-1960s would only intensify that uncertainty.

On the domestic front, the historic tensions between anglophones

and francophones that had served to define so much of Canadian

history continued apace. Importantly, the battleground became more

sharply clarified as a contest between a self-assured Quebec and the

federal government. On another level, the influx of immigrants in

the postwar era profoundly altered Canada’s ethnic composition.

An increasingly urbanized and industrialized society after the war, the

country would slip into a global postindustrial environment by the

1980s. The federal and provincial governments would expand their

powers considerably, creating collectively or individually a vast

network of social and medical programs. The next two decades

would bring the clearest articulation yet of Canadian nationalism,

illustrated by a new constitution that effectively completed the

protracted process of gaining sovereignty from Britain. At the same

time, events in Quebec kindled a provincial variation of nationalism

that threatened to dissolve the bonds of Confederation. Hard on the

heels of these events came trade agreements with the United States

that led many Canadians to believe that their country’s chances for

survival into the twenty-first century had been severely diminished. In

sum, one of the most eventful periods in Canadian history loomed on

the immediate horizon in the mid-1960s.

Canada in the Mid-1960s: A Tumultuous Time 185

Chapter 9

One Nation or Two?

(1960s–1984)

Competing Nationalisms

During the 1960s Canadians experienced a period of intensive

nationalistic feelings that seemingly moved in opposite directions. To

improve the quality of life for all Canadians, Liberal governments

under Pearson and Trudeau passed legislation for medical coverage,

welfare programs, pension plans, and unemployment insurance.

These social measures became a bedrock ideal of the new Canadian

state, but they also raised troublesome questions of how to pay for the

expensive services and control the government’s mounting debt. Yet

even to the critics of the Liberal mandate, the notion that Canada

boasted a superior quality of life with a government that cared for

every one of its citizens became an essential ingredient of nationalistic

pride. Illustrations of Canada’s maturation included the adoption of a

new flag in the 1960s and the creation of a constitution to replace the

BNA Act in 1982. With Americans mired in political upheavals and a

seemingly intractable war in Vietnam, Canadians felt that their

country had developed a superior model of governance that struck

the right balance of individual rights and governmental stewardship.

While Canadians justifiably trumpeted their country’s accom-

plishments, the Quiet Revolution led to a celebration of nationalistic

pride in Quebec. By the 1970s a growing political movement, the

Competing Nationalisms 187

Fireworks display on Parliament Hill in Ottawa during the Centennial

celebration of 1967.

Source: Library and Archives Canada / Malak Karsh / C-027286

Parti Québécois, dedicated itself to seeking a fundamental restructur-

ing of the relationship between Quebec and Canada. A series of

Quebec legislative measures designed to ensure that French would

become the language of politics, work, and education prompted

intense discussions and widened divisions between anglophones

and francophones. The political agenda to explore separation culmina-

ted in a referendum in 1980. Voters rejected the sovereignty proposal,

but the issue remained alive. Other groups and regions in Canada

also agitated for more representation and rights. They maintained that

the francophone-anglophone debate received a disproportionate

share of the nation’s f ocus. Thus, Canada from the mid-1960s to the

early 1980s was an immensely complex place. Its many strengths

notwithstanding, competing social, political, class, and ethnic identities

repeatedly threatened to unravel the skein of nationhood.

The Liberals and the Social State

Lester Pearson’s promise to bring “sixty days of decision” to tackle

the complex economic and social issues that had been pestering the

country under Diefenbaker’s leadership helped to bring the Liberals

into power in the spring of 1963. Pearson brought tremendous

diplomatic experience to his new job as prime minister. He had served

as president of the General Assembly of the United Nations in the

early 1950s and garnered a Nobel Peace Prize for his peacekeeping

efforts during the Suez crisis of 1956. His stewardship of Canada

until 1968 would sorely test those skills in both domestic and foreign

policy issues. Tricky political crosscurrents of nationalism, regional-

ism, and Quebec’s uneasiness, in addition to maintaining a close but

not intertwined relationship with the United States, meant that

Pearson and the Liberals would enjoy only marginal successes.

The rapid changes brought about by industrialization and the

interconnected trade patterns of the postwar world deeply affected

Canadians. The country’s explosive population growth, through

both natural increase and immigration, contributed to a climate for

social reform. In the 1960s the Canadian government aggressively

developed a broad range of social programs. The Economic Council

of Canada, created in 1963, created a think tank to explore economic

The Liberals and the Social State 189