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Why separatism? Why now? For the Parti Québécois, the answer is simple logic: a people with a common language, customs and culture should "naturally" form a nation-state. That conviction has been nourished by a sudden, popular expansion of French pride, in which Quebec became, if not a political state, most certainly a state of mind. It is summarized in a provincial-government slogan: "De plus en plus en Québec, c 'est en français que ça se passe " (More and more in Quebec, it's in French that things are happening). Quebec has sprouted dozens of novelists, playwrights and chansonniers who sing their culture's praises—and bewail their unhappy history as a conquered people. One of the most popular plays in Quebec City, La Complainte des Hivers Rouges (The Red Winters' Lament), by Roland LePage, salutes the leaders of an abortive 1837 rebellion against the British with the lines:
You taught us to climb toward the
heights.
It took us a while, but now we are
following you.
The real reasons behind separatist feeling in Quebec are more complicated than that. The rapid industrialization of the province has brought unprecedented mobility to Quebecois—and with it, uncertainty about whether their unique way of life can possibly last. The Quebecois birth rate, once the highest in Canada, has become the lowest: 15 per 1,000 people. The French-speaking proportion of Canada's population has dropped from 27% to 25% and is likely to decrease further. Since 1946, nearly 378,000 immigrants, mostly Greeks and Italians, have come to Montreal. In nine cases out of ten, the newcomers learned English, rather than French, as their new working language. That was especially painful to Quebeckers, who are proud to call Montreal the second-largest French-speaking city in the world.
Many Quebeckers fear the compelling force of North America's predominant language and culture. When French-speaking sons and daughters of the province learn English—as they frequently must to gain jobs or advance in them —they begin to be weaned from their native language. Outside Quebec, Canada's scattered French-speaking minority regularly loses a large part of its younger generation to English-speaking North America. Says Quebecois Poet Fernand Ouellette: "In a milieu of bilingualism, there is no coexistence, there is only a continuous aggression of the language of the majority." Quebecois are particularly bitter because little effort is given to preserving their language in the rest of Canada. Quebec has traditionally provided comprehensive, tax-supported education and complete social services in English to its English-speaking minority. No other province fully reciprocates.
The Parti