The Quiet Revolution (French: Révolution tranquille) was the 1960s period of intense change in Quebec, Canada, characterized by the rapid and effective secularization of society, the creation of a welfare state (état-providence), a realignment of politics into federalist, and separatist factions.
The provincial government took over the fields of health care and education, which had been in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. It created ministries of Education and Health, expanded the public service, and made massive investments in the public education system and provincial infrastructure. The government allowed unionization of the civil service. It took measures to increase Québécois control over the province's economy and nationalized electricity production and distribution.
The Quiet Revolution was a period of unbridled economic and social development in Quebec and paralleled similar developments in the West in general. It can also be credited for the surge in Quebec nationalism, which remains a controversial topic in modern Quebec society.
Read more about Quiet Revolution: Origins, Secularization, Economic Reforms, Nationalism, Important Figures
Famous quotes containing the words quiet and/or revolution:
“Content thee, howsoe’er, whose days are done;
There lies not any troublous thing before,
Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more,
For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,
All waters as the shore.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)
“In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despite the fact that the American Revolution was successful—realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime—while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.”
—Irving Kristol (b. 1920)