QUIET REVOLUTION

The 'Quiet Revolution' (French: 'Révolution tranquille') was the 1960s period of rapid change in Quebec, Canada.
Quebec's "Quiet Revolution" was characterized by:

★ The rapid and effective secularization of society;

★ The creation of welfare state (''État-Providence'');

★ The rise of active nationalism among Francophone Quebecois
The changes were the result of many important transformations within Quebec society. Among those often cited are:

★ Creation of a Ministry of Education and massive investments in the public education system;

★ Unionization of the civil service;

★ Provincial government measures meant to increase Quebecois' control over the province's economy;

★ Nationalization of electricity production and distribution.

Contents

Origins

Secularization

Economic reforms

Nationalism

External links

Important figures

See also

Origins

There is no consensus as to when the Quiet Revolution began, except perhaps on the political level with the reforms enacted by the Liberal provincial government of Jean Lesage who was elected in the July 1960 provincial election. Similarly, there is no consensus as to when the Quiet Revolution ended, but it is mostly agreed that it was before the October Crisis of 1970.
Many events are said to have been precursors or at least signs of this impending revolution. Among them are the Asbestos miners' strike of 1949, the Maurice Richard Riot of 1955, the signing of the ''Refus Global'' by les Automatistes and the publication of ''Les insolences du Frère Untel'', which criticized the near absolute dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec. The political journal ''Cité Libre'' is also credited with being an intellectual forum for critics of the Duplessis regime.
Economic and social spheres of Quebec were controlled by the fiercely conservative Maurice Duplessis, leader of the ''Union Nationale''. Since first settled as part of New France, the Roman Catholic Church used entities such as the Company of 100 Associates to keep control but under British rule, business maintained a powerful lobby to protect the investments needed to keep Canada's economy on pace with the United States. Electoral fraud and corruption were commonplace in Quebec, with the Union Nationale manipulating religion with slogans such as ''Le ciel est bleu, l'enfer est rouge'' (Heaven is blue, hell is red — referring to the colours of the ''Union Nationale'' (blue) and the Liberals (red)).
The Catholic Church was not unanimously with Duplessis, as demonstrated by the leading role of the Catholic Unions and of many members of the Clergy in the Anti-Duplessis movement (Ex.: Joseph Charbonneau, the Archbishop of Montreal), but a certain number of Clergy members were satisfied with the ''laissez-faire'' economics of Duplessis, as it left to the Catholic Church the control of the social and educational services.
Because of the small population of Quebec - and Canada as a whole - capital for investment was regularly in short supply. As such, the province's natural resources were developed by foreign investors willing to risk the investment needed. As an example, iron ore was explored for and its mining developed by the U.S.-based Iron Ore Company of Canada. Even if the Stewarts of the French regime tried to create industries (Ex. The Forges du Saint-Maurice), Quebec industries were still largely undeveloped when the British conquered the territory in 1760. It was British immigrants favoured by the British Crown, (notably the Scots-Quebecoiss) who invested and built the industrialized economy in Quebec, making it the foremost economic centre in Canada and a major force in North America. Even so, 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. Folksinger Felix Leclerc described this phenomenon, writing, "Our people are the waterboys of their own country." Historians have referred to this period as the ''Grande noirceur'' (Great Darkness), but most will add that this period is often described and perceived as being much worse than it actually was.
In many ways, Duplessis's death in 1959, very soon followed by the sudden death of his successor Paul Sauvé, served as a trigger for the Quiet Revolution, or rather, the two unleashed energies that had been held back by the Alexandre Taschereau and Maurice Duplessis policies for decades. Within a year of Duplessis's death, the Liberal party was elected with Jean Lesage at its head. The Liberals had campaigned under the slogans ''Maîtres chez nous'' (Masters of our own house) and ''Il faut que ça change'' (Things have to change).

Secularization

At the time, the religious communities still controlled the schools and hospitals, and as a consequence, administered by members of the clergy. This began to change as the Quebec society quickly began secularizing, with the management of such institutions being entrusted to the laity.
The ''Commission Parent'' was established in 1961 to study the education system and to bring forth recommendations, which eventually led to the adoption of several reforms, the most important of which was the secularization of the education system. Although schools maintained their historical Catholic or Protestant character, in practice they became secular institutions since the province was now in charge of the school programs. Other reforms included mandatory school attendance until the age of 16 and free instruction until the 11th grade.
In 1967, CEGEPs were created to offer post-secondary professional public education everywhere in the province. In 1968 the government created the Université du Québec network to achieve similar goals for university-level education. Nevertheless, it would be almost twenty years later before business programs were put in place in Quebec's French-language universities that would equal the quality of those elsewhere in North America.
With the diminishing role of the Church in society, which coincided with (though was not caused by) the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the birthrate among Francophones began to drop significantly, with the rate of divorce rising. Proclamations against the use of birth control by the Church largely went ignored.
Today, researchers have noted that the low birthrate amongst Francophones (the lowest in North America) and a lack of adoption of the French language by allophones (those whose primary language is neither English nor French) immigrants could cause the French-speaking population in the city of Montréal to dive below the 50 percent mark in the coming decades. [1].

Economic reforms

On the economic level, the government sought to increase Francophones' control of the province's economic sphere, which, until then, had been largely dominated by English Canadian and American investors.
Seeking a mandate for its most daring reform, the nationalisation of the province's electric companies under Hydro-Québec, the Liberal party called for a new election in 1962. The Liberal party was returned to power with an increased majority in the National Assembly of Quebec and within six months, René Lévesque, Minister of Natural Resources, enacted his plans for Hydro-Québec.
More public institutions were created to follow through with the desire to increase the province's economic autonomy. The public companies SIDBEC (iron and steel), SOQUEM (mining), REXFOR (forestry) and SOQUIP (petroleum) were created to exploit the province's abundant natural resources. The Société générale de financement (General financing corporation) was created in 1962 to encourage Quebecers to invest in their economic future and to increase the profitability of small companies. In 1963, in conjunction with the Canada Pension Plan the government of Canada authorized the province to create its own ''Régie des Rentes du Québec'' (Quebec Pension Plan); universal contributions came into effect in 1966. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec was created in 1965 to manage the considerable revenues generated by the RRQ and to provide the capital necessary for various projects in the public and private sectors.
A new labour code (''Code du Travail'') was adopted in 1964. It made unionising much easier and gave public employees the right to strike. It was during the same year that the ''Code Civil'' (Civil Code) was modified to recognise the legal equality of spouses. In case of divorce, the rules for administering the Divorce Act were retained using Quebec's old Community property matrimonial regime until 1980, when new legislation brought an automatic equal division of certain basic family assets between spouses.

Nationalism

The heightened sense of national capacity and identity generated by the multiple reforms helped to transform the nationalist discourse of Quebec, which had stemmed in part from political deadlocks between the provincial government and the federal government in Ottawa since 1867. For some, this could be achieved through a reform of the British North America Act, while for sovereignists, the BNAA was considered a null and void act passed by an imperialist foreign power.
In the 1966 election, a post-Duplessis ''Union Nationale'' party ridiculed the rapid changes made by the Liberal government and promised reforms if returned to power under leader Daniel Johnson Sr. While visiting Montreal for Expo 67, General Charles de Gaulle proclaimed ''Vive le Québec libre!'' in a speech at Montreal City Hall, which gave the Quebec independence movement further public credibility. Though the Union Nationale lost the popular vote, they captured a six-seat majority government. In 1968, the sovereignist ''Parti Québécois'' was created, with René Lévesque as its leader.

External links

★ Jean Lesage and the Quiet Revolution, 1960-1966

★ The Quiet Revolution

Important figures

★ Pierre Bourgault

★ Thérèse Casgrain

★ Michel Chartrand

★ Paul Gérin-Lajoie

★ Eric Kierans

★ Pierre Laporte

★ Jean Lesage

★ René Lévesque

See also

★ État québécois

★ Le Refus Global

★ Quebec general election, 1960

★ Quebec general election, 1962

★ Quebec politics

★ Timeline of Quebec history