Quebec secedes in 1983

Hi!

I just saw the following comment on a Quebec independence movement website:

Despite having lost the referendum, the PQ was returned to power in the 1981 election with a stronger majority than in 1976, obtaining 49.2 per cent of the vote and winning 80 seats. However, they did not hold a referendum in their second term and put sovereignty on the back burner, concentrating on their stated goal of "good government."

Consider the following POD: the Quebec independence movement does enough legwork for the Quebecois to pass a binding independence declaration in 1982, to take effect in 1983. What would the effects of Quebecois independence have been given the events which we know took place in the next quarter century?

Would some of the other Canadian states try to become independent or join the US? Would some US territories like Guam and the Virgin Islands try to become independent?

Thanks in advance,

ACG

You are aware that in the 1981 referendum the independence vote got only 40% and that the 1995 referendum got only 49.4%?

Despite the mythology that the PQ like to to spread around, the independence vote was and always has been a tough sell. Even if you handwave some factors into their favour, there's simply no way that the independence vote will ever get more than 55-60% without entering ASB territory.

The question is - how strong is the Yes vote and how much are they willing to negotiate?

Also--there's like a million of these 'quebec goes independent' threads.

Also, PQ's definition of independence is rather...vague.

Typo said:

Also, PQ's definition of independence is rather...vague.

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A line I like, which is all to accurate I'm afraid, is that the average Quebecois wanted "A free and independent Quebec within a strong and united Canada"

"Sovereignity Association" was a total non-starter, it would never, ever have flown in the rest of Canada. It's like a guy who announces to his wife that he wants a divorce so that he can start dating other women, but they're going to keep living in the same house...

Dathi THorfinnsson said:

A line I like, which is all to accurate I'm afraid, is that the average Quebecois wanted "A free and independent Quebec within a strong and united Canada"

"Sovereignity Association" was a total non-starter, it would never, ever have flown in the rest of Canada. It's like a guy who announces to his wife that he wants a divorce so that he can start dating other women, but they're going to keep living in the same house...

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I always used to say it was like a kid moving out but telling his parents he still wanted an allowance.

I like your analogy better than mine.

The Quebecois policy makers wanted it that way, I believe, because they knew if they ever became independent, they'd get an economy the size of Austria surrounded by Canada and the US who were immediately hostile towards them.
And besides...what would they base their currency on? If it was free floating, it'd go down the tubes so fast you'd see illegal immigrants heading across the St. Lawrence to get jobs in New York.
So they wanted to find some way to keep the Canadian dollar, because they knew the US wouldn't crucify that. Which was a BS way of doing it, considering that the Canadians would never go for it.

MacCaulay said:

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The Quebecois policy makers wanted it that way, I believe, because they knew if they ever became independent, they'd get an economy the size of Austria surrounded by Canada and the US who were immediately hostile towards them.

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I was living in Quebec for both of these referendums; it was even worse than you thought, because the Cree indians up north made it clear in no uncertain terms that, while they're not too crazy with the way the Canadian government has treated them over the years, they would much prefer dealing with ottawa than with Quebec City. In the 1995 referendum they basically stated outright than if Quebec goes, they will seperate from Quebec and rejoin Canada.

Cree territory could end up being as much as the northern third of Quebec.

There was also serious consideration in making Montreal a city state or maybe making it rejoin Canada, as almost all the No votes had come from Montreal.

So...yeah---a Quebec with no Montreal and no northern half.

Good luck with that...

My fathers friend is Quebecois and once spoke of a time when he was handed a pistol and told that he might need to use it one day (I believe at this time he was a Canadian border guard).

He asked why and his senior officer replied that some radical seperationists may try to cause some trouble.

I believe the trouble part, I just do not know why he was handed a pistol as a border guard, unless they were going to transport his unit northwards.

Doctor What said:

I was living in Quebec for both of these referendums; it was even worse than you thought, because the Cree indians up north made it clear in no uncertain terms that, while they're not too crazy with the way the Canadian government has treated them over the years, they would much prefer dealing with ottawa than with Quebec City. In the 1995 referendum they basically stated outright than if Quebec goes, they will seperate from Quebec and rejoin Canada.

Cree territory could end up being as much as the northern third of Quebec.

There was also serious consideration in making Montreal a city state or maybe making it rejoin Canada, as almost all the No votes had come from Montreal.

So...yeah---a Quebec with no Montreal and no northern half.

Good luck with that...

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So the answer to the age old question "If Quebec becomes independent which parts of Canada will follow suit?" is "More bits of Quebec".

Quite handy really. You could end up with an independent Republic of Quebec that's small enough for you to carry round with you. The world's first portable nation state.

For Campell and Doctor What: I've got to ask. What in the name of god where the Quebecois thinking? I didn't ever mention any of that stuff to any Quebecois I knew, mostly because when I knew them they had guns and you just don't bring up politics around people with guns.

But just what in the name of God did the Quebecois get in their heads that made them think they could take control of the whole damn Province? Why would they ever believe that the federal government wouldn't order the 22e to truck every single APC, tank, truck, helicopter, and plane out of it's bases and sit them on the dams and the rest of the federal installations and just wait for the Quebecois to try something?

And how do the Quebecois independence folks even expect to get a running economy? Are they going to get currency from the sky? Because that whole "we'll just just Canadian dollars" thing is a crock. What are they going to do when Canada and the US give them the cold shoulder out of NAFTA and jack up tariffs so high they can't afford to trade across the border?

This whole thing just baffles me. And makes me want to write.

Doctor What said:

I was living in Quebec for both of these referendums; it was even worse than you thought, because the Cree indians up north made it clear in no uncertain terms that, while they're not too crazy with the way the Canadian government has treated them over the years, they would much prefer dealing with ottawa than with Quebec City. In the 1995 referendum they basically stated outright than if Quebec goes, they will seperate from Quebec and rejoin Canada.

Cree territory could end up being as much as the northern third of Quebec.

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Now I'd be very much interested in seeing a POD about just that part of the question on its own. Another First Nation run territory besides Nunavut.

Anyone have maps that would show this?

Also lets not forget Six Nations people down near the US border. They'd certainly see this as sovereignty issue.

Mac: Why would the US and Canada want to make live hard for an independant Quebec?

HJ Tulp said:

Mac: Why would the US and Canada want to make live hard for an independant Quebec?

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I'm going to go with...they just ripped apart Canada for no good reason.

It's like asking "Why would the United States make life hard for the Confederacy?"

Obviously, they just literally divided the country in half (that's supposing the whole province seceded), and the US is going to side with Canada on that one.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I served in the CF for a tour, and it just doesn't make any sense to me why they'd want to leave that country. It also doesn't make any sense to me how they ever think they could make a working economy.

MacCaulay said:

For Campell and Doctor What: I've got to ask. What in the name of god where the Quebecois thinking?

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Shhh--you're using Logic and Reason. You know we have rules against that kind of stuff here.

As for how did they think they could get a viable economy? Beats the hell out of me - the whole 'We could just use Canadian money' and 'We will be independent but not really independent' never made any sense to me when I was living there either.

AmIndHistoryAuthor said:

Now I'd be very much interested in seeing a POD about just that part of the question on its own. Another First Nation run territory besides Nunavut.

Anyone have maps that would show this?

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Some discussion papers

Aboriginal Peoples and the 1995 Quebec Referendum: A survey of the issues. Parliamentary Research Branch (PRB) of the Library of Parliament. February, 1996.

Sovereign Injustice paper

And a map


Traditional Cree and Inuit lands in Northern Quebec

MacCaulay said:

I'm going to go with...they just ripped apart Canada for no good reason.

It's like asking "Why would the United States make life hard for the Confederacy?"

Obviously, they just literally divided the country in half (that's supposing the whole province seceded), and the US is going to side with Canada on that one.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I served in the CF for a tour, and it just doesn't make any sense to me why they'd want to leave that country. It also doesn't make any sense to me how they ever think they could make a working economy.

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So it would be out of spite? Hell I could understand why the USA would want to beat the snot out of the CSA because of Slavery but who would Canada try to bully Quebec back into Canada? It is so useless. I agree that from the outside atleast it doesn't look like Quebec has any real reason to secede. However, I'm not from Quebec. What if they majority of the population wants to secede? Why stop them? If anything efforts should be made to make the transition as smooth as possible to limit economic and other damages.

HJ Tulp said:

So it would be out of spite? Hell I could understand why the USA would want to beat the snot out of the CSA because of Slavery but who would Canada try to bully Quebec back into Canada? It is so useless. I agree that from the outside atleast it doesn't look like Quebec has any real reason to secede. However, I'm not from Quebec. What if they majority of the population wants to secede? Why stop them? If anything efforts should be made to make the transition as smooth as possible to limit economic and other damages.

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It's not so much the RoC (rest of Canada) wanting to force Quebec back into Canada as the RoC being clear that independence is independence, not a 'union of equals' (which some separatistes thought they'd negotiate after independence). Quebec independentistes assumed they'd get to keep their Canadian passports, keep the Canadian dollar (and have some input into its running, etc), automatically get all all the benefits of NAFTA and Autopact, etc., etc.

A lot of that stuff was just not, NOT going to be on the table.

One of the problems, as I see it, was that the Quebecois tended to see Anglos as dry, unemotional and motivated only by economics. The fact that they would have ripped the heart out of our country, and that there would therefore be emotional reactions/consequences, just never really seemed to occur to many of them.

HJ Tulp said:

So it would be out of spite?

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HJ Tulp,

Spite? No.

It would be done to drive the point home that being a nation is hard work and you need more important reasons to destroy Canada than just putting gravy on your french fries.

Quebec wanted the glory of nationhood but none of the chores that come with the job. If talks began over succession, Quebec would be told point blank that NO you can't use Canada's passports and that NO you can't use Canada's money and NO treaty rights negotiated between the US and Canada devolve unto Quebec.

You don't get to murder your roommate and still keep the furniture. You don't get to say NON to Canada and still keep everything Canada built and negotiated for you. That point would be driven home good and hard during any independence talks. Think of it as a national version of "Scared Straight".

Hell I could understand why the USA would want to beat the snot out of the CSA because of Slavery but who would Canada try to bully Quebec back into Canada?

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We've already got one Francophone failed state to our south. We don't need another to the north, especially one that shares a land border with the US.


Bill

Bill Cameron said:

It would be done to drive the point home that being a nation is hard work and you need more important reasons to destroy Canada than just putting gravy on your french fries.

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I agree with everything you said...but come on! Poutines are good...if I were Canadian, I'd be willing to play ball on the poutine issue...

MacCaulay said:

I agree with everything you said...but come on! Poutines are good...if I were Canadian, I'd be willing to play ball on the poutine issue...

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MacCauly,

I'm live in New Hampshire, which borders on Quebec, poutine is found on menus here, and I enjoy it.

However, local cuisine, funny hats, and other politically inflated cultural issues are no real reason for succession.


Bill

All of this is very interesting...

So, if Quebec passed a secession ordinance, it would immediately find that it would not get the "best of both worlds" with Canada.

Would this get violent? Mac seems like he's talking about a military conflict. Indeed, that could lead to a shooting war, sending in the troops like that. So, are we then going on the idea of:

Quebec attempts to secede, has starry eyed hopes for new arrangements.
The Rest of Canada says "no deal"; tensions flare.
Canadian troops march into Quebec; the Cree and Inuit signal that they want to secede from Quebec.

Man alive, that is a scary situation. Is Quebec going to be able to ask France, or the Soviet Union, for help? Is this going to turn into a mass arrest and scattered incidents, or will Canada tell Quebec that it is on its own and all armed support, all legal supervisor and all federal funding is gone?

This is going to be bad at best and some level of a civil war at worst...

Blue Max said:

All of this is very interesting...

So, if Quebec passed a secession ordinance, it would immediately find that it would not get the "best of both worlds" with Canada.

Would this get violent? Mac seems like he's talking about a military conflict. Indeed, that could lead to a shooting war, sending in the troops like that. So, are we then going on the idea of:

Quebec attempts to secede, has starry eyed hopes for new arrangements.
The Rest of Canada says "no deal"; tensions flare.
Canadian troops march into Quebec; the Cree and Inuit signal that they want to secede from Quebec.

Man alive, that is a scary situation. Is Quebec going to be able to ask France, or the Soviet Union, for help? Is this going to turn into a mass arrest and scattered incidents, or will Canada tell Quebec that it is on its own and all armed support, all legal supervisor and all federal funding is gone?

This is going to be bad at best and some level of a civil war at worst...

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I don't think it would get into the point of "military invasion," I just think that the Quebecois, if they had voted for independence (most likely point, as said many times on many threads, was in '96), then they'd have found themselves in the middle of a lot of riots. The provincial government might even have been deposed for it.
And if that happened, then what do you do? The government that made the vote isn't around to enforce it, and the people see that Canada and the US aren't friendly now. The borders are shut. The CF is already out of town and sitting on the Ontario and Newfoundland borders ready to move, unless they're already sitting on every installation (dams, power stations, locks, etc.) to make sure seperatists don't try to take stuff that they didn't pay for.

I'd almost think that the government would fall, there would be rioting, then the new Quebecois government would call for federal troops a la October Crisis.

By the time it's done, god knows what's happened to those poor Bloc Quebecois folks who voted for secession. Or to any people who actually lowered the Canadian flag and raised the Fleur de Lis. Montreal would be in chaos, the north would be that way, too.

It's making my gears turn...