Before December 2014, it was known as the Conseil de la souveraineté du Québec (CSQ) An earlier organization of the same name existed in 1995 and played a prominent role in the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty.
[1] The original council was established in May 1995, with former Parti Québécois cabinet minister Yves Duhaime as its first president and prominent Quebec nationalist Louise Laurin was its first vice-president.
[2] During the buildup to the referendum, it ran full-page advertisements in English-language newspapers arguing that the government of Canada was wasting millions in taxpayer dollars by promoting Canadian federalism in Quebec.
[3] Quebec's Parti Québécois government authorized payments to the council amounting to four million dollars in August and October 1995; this money was not subject to campaign finance limits, as it was all spent before the referendum campaign officially started.
[7] In 2006, the council introduced a book, Parlons de souveraineté à l'école ("Let's talk about sovereignty at school") intended to be taught in classrooms for children of kindergarten age upwards.