Sovereignty-association
The history of the relations between French and British descendants in Canada is one filled with a lot of rocky moments. After discovering Canada and establishing some outposts and cities, France lost it to Great Britain. After the Seven Years' War ended in 1763, France abandoned claims on Canada (except for the two small islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon) and Great Britain gave the West Indies islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and some others back to France in the Treaty of Paris, at which time France limited its activities to parts of North America south of present-day Canada.
From that point on, at different moments in Canada's history, some leaders and groups have risen to claim authority. The use of the word "sovereignty" and many of the ideas of this movement originated in the 1967 Mouvement Souveraineté-Association of René Lévesque. This movement ultimately gave birth to the Parti Québécois in 1968.
Sovereignty-association (French: Souveraineté-Association) is the combination of two concepts:
- The achievement of sovereignty for the Quebec state.
- The creation of a political and economic association between this new independent state and Canada.
It was first presented in Lévesque's political manifesto, Option Québec.
The Parti Québécois defines sovereignty as the power for a state to levy all its taxes, vote on all its laws, and sign all its treaties (as mentioned in the 1980 referendum question).
The type of association between an independent Quebec and the rest of Canada was described as a monetary and customs union as well as joint political institutions to administer the relations between the two countries. The main inspiration for this project was the then-emerging European Community.
The hyphen between the words "sovereignty" and "association" was often stressed by Lévesque and other PQ members, to make it clear that both were inseparable. The reason stated was that if Canada decided to boycott Quebec exports after voting for independence, the new country would have to go through difficult economic times, as the barriers to trade between Canada and the United States were then very high. Quebec would have been a nation of 7 million people stuck between two impenetrable protectionist countries. In the event of having to compete against Quebec, rather than support it, Canada could easily maintain its well-established links with the United States to prosper in foreign trade.
Sovereignty-association as originally proposed would have meant that Quebec would become a politically independent state, but would maintain a formal association with Canada — especially regarding economic affairs. It was part of the 1976 sovereignist platform which swept the Parti Québécois into power in that year's provincial elections – and included a promise to hold a referendum on sovereignty-association. René Lévesque developed the idea of sovereignty-association to reduce the fear that an independent Quebec would face tough economic times. In fact, this proposal did result in an increase in support for a sovereign Quebec: polls at the time showed that people were more likely to support independence if Quebec maintained an economic partnership with Canada. This line of politics led the out-spoken Yvon Deschamps to proclaim that what Quebecers want is an independent Quebec inside a strong Canada, thereby comparing the sovereignist movement to a spoiled child that has everything it could desire and still wants more.
In 1979 the PQ began an aggressive effort to promote sovereignty-association by providing details of how the economic relations with the rest of Canada would include free trade between Canada and Quebec, common tariffs against imports, and a common currency. In addition, joint political institutions would be established to administer these economic arrangements. But the sovereignist cause was hurt as many politicians (most notably the premiers of several of the other provinces) publicly refused to negotiate an economic association with an independent Quebec, contributing to the Yes side losing by a vote of 60 percent to 40 percent.
This loss laid the groundwork for the 1995 referendum, which stated that Quebec should offer a new economic and political partnership to Canada before declaring independence. An English translation of part of the Sovereignty Bill reads, "We, the people of Quebec, declare it our own will to be in full possession of all the powers of a state; to levy all our taxes, to vote on all our laws, to sign all our treaties and to exercise the highest power of all, conceiving, and controlling, by ourselves, our fundamental law."
This time, the sovereignists lost in a very close vote: 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent, or only 53,498 votes out of more than 4,700,000 votes cast. However, after the vote many within the sovereignist camp were very upset that the vote broke down heavily along language lines. Approximately 90 percent of English speakers and allophones (mostly immigrants and first-generations Quebecers whose native language is neither French or English) Quebecers voted against the referendum, while almost 60 percent of Francophones voted Yes, and 82 percent of Quebecers are French-speaking. Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau, whose government supported sovereignty, attributed the defeat of the resolution to money and the ethnic vote. His opinion caused an outcry among English speaking Quebecers since it exposed the ethnocentric perspective of the leader, who focused blame for the defeat on minority communities as if to discount the influence of 40% of Francophones who voted no.
An inquiry by Le directeur général des élections concluded in 2007 that at least $500,000 was spent by the federalist camp in violation of Quebec's election laws. This law imposes a limit on campaign spending by both option camps. Parizeau's statement was also an admission of failure by the Yes camp in getting the newly arrived Quebecers to adhere to their political option.
An orchestrated effort of 'election engineering' in several polling stations located in areas with large numbers of non-francophone voters resulted in unusually large proportions of rejected ballots. Afterward, testimony by PQ-appointed polling clerks indicated that they were ordered by PQ-appointed overseers to reject ballots in these polling stations for frivolous reasons that were not covered in the election laws.
While opponents of sovereignty were pleased with the defeat of the referendum, most recognized that there were still deep divides within Quebec and problems with the relationship between Quebec and the rest of the country.
Read more about this topic: Quebec Sovereignty Movement