Union Nationale (Quebec) - Second Time in Office

Second Time in Office

The Union Nationale enjoyed a surge after a majority of Canadian voters allowed the federal government to pass conscription. Duplessis, who would later create a provincial income tax equal to 15 per cent of the federal income tax, claimed that Adélard Godbout failed to impose the strict respect for the principles established in the British North America Act of 1867. The Liberals received a plurality of the vote in the 1944 election, but a majority of the seats were won by the Union Nationale.

World War II prosperity kept unemployment low. Machine politics, fiscal conservatism and a program of rural electrification consolidated the dominance of the Union Nationale over the province. The government of Maurice Duplessis adopted the current flag of Quebec to replace the Union Jack. It won a landslide victory in the 1948 election. The Liberals were decimated; their caucus was made up almost entirely of MNAs from Montreal's West Island, and the party didn't have a full-time leader in the legislature.

Duplessis's administration was not flawless. Its relation with labour in general and trade unions in particular was difficult and led to a number of strikes. The government was also accused of being too strongly aligned with the Catholic clergy. Indeed, many priests openly supported the Duplessis government and attacked the Liberals by using the slogan Le ciel est bleu, l'enfer est rouge (Heaven is blue, hell is red)--a reference to the primary colours of both parties (blue for the UN, red for the Liberals). The government was also accused of discrimination against Jehovah's Witnesses, receiving insufficient royalties for the extraction the province's natural resources and allowing election fraud for its own benefit.

Nonetheless, the Union Nationale was re-elected in the 1952 election with a reduced majority, and in the 1956 election. Moreover, its influence was made obvious when its organization helped defeat Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau in 1957 and assisted John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative candidates getting elected in the 1958 federal election.