Quiet Revolution - Origins

Origins

The Quiet Revolution began with the enacted Liberal provincial government of Jean Lesage, who was elected in the June 1960 provincial election and marked the end of Premier Maurice Duplessis's reign, known by some as the Grande Noirceur (Great Darkness) but by others as the last champion of a holy and wholesome Quebec. Paul Sauvé later took over the role of Premier in July It is generally accepted that the revolution ended before the October Crisis of 1970, but Quebec's society has continued to change dramatically since then, notably with the rise of the sovereignty movement, evidenced by the election of the Separatist Parti Québécois (first in 1976), the formation of a separatist political party representing Quebec on the federal level, the Bloc Québécois (formed in 1991), as well as the 1980 and 1995 Sovereignty Referendums. Some scholars argue that the rise of the Quebec sovereignty movement during the 1970s is also part of this period.

Prior to the 1960s, the government of Quebec was controlled by conservative Maurice Duplessis, leader of the Union Nationale party. Electoral fraud and corruption were commonplace in Quebec. Not all the Catholic Church supported Duplessis, as some Catholic unions and members of the clergy including Montreal Archbishop Joseph Charbonneau criticized Duplessis, but the bulk of the small-town and rural clergy supported Duplessis, sometimes quoting the Union Nationale slogan Le ciel est bleu, l'enfer est rouge (The sky (Heaven) is blue, Hell is red) — referring to the colours of the Union Nationale (blue) and the Liberals (red), the latter accused often of being pro-communist. Radio Canada, the newspaper Le Devoir and political journal Cité Libre were intellectual forums for critics of the Duplessis government.

Prior to the Quiet Revolution, the province's natural resources were mainly developed by foreign investors. As an example, the process of mining iron ore was developed by the US-based Iron Ore Company of Canada. In the Spring of 1949 a group of 5,000 asbestos miners went on strike for three months. The 1949 Asbestos Strike found Quebecer miners united against a nationalist foreign corporation. Those who supported the miners included Monsignor Charbonneau, Bishop of Montreal, the Québécois nationalist newspaper, Le Devoir, and a small group of intellectual individuals. Until the second half of the 20th century, the majority of Francophone Quebec workers lived below the poverty line and did not join the executive ranks of the businesses of their own province. Singer and political activist Felix Leclerc described this phenomenon, writing, "Our people are the waterboys of their own country."

In many ways, Duplessis's death in 1959, quickly followed by the sudden death of his successor Paul Sauvé, served as a trigger for the Quiet Revolution. Campaigning under the slogans Il faut que ça change (Things have to change) and Maîtres chez nous (Masters of our own house), a phrase coined by Le Devoir editor Andre Laurendeau, the Liberal Party, with Jean Lesage at its head, was elected within a year of Duplessis's death.