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:
“A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“I want the necessity of supplying my own wants. All this costly culture of yours is not necessary. Greatness does not need it. Yonder peasant, who sits neglected, carries a whole revolution of man and nature in his head, which shall be a sacred history to some future ages.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)