Partition of Quebec
The threat of partition will prevent separation.’"[5] In December 1976, an organization called the "Preparatory Committee for an Eleventh Province" was formed in Montreal.
This group contained some individuals who believed, along with Shaw, that the threat of a partition in which some parts of Quebec would remain within Canada would weaken support for separation.
Apparently taking their inspiration from this statement,[8] Shaw and co-author Lionel Albert published a book on the subject by the end of the year.
For this reason, potential players began to take actions that would strengthen their positions in the coming unity crisis.
[13] Forty-three municipal councils in Quebec, including many on the western part of the Island of Montreal, passed resolutions expressing their will to stay in Canada.
This in turn provoked an open letter from federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, arguing that partition was a legitimate option.
Finally, on August 14, Quebec's deputy premier, Bernard Landry, responded with an open letter in Le Droit, accusing partitionists of being anti-democratic.
Montreal Gazette columnist Henry Aubin observed shortly afterwards that "many sovereigntists hoped that the merger would boost French and stymie partition.
The most precise expression of the argument that international law would guarantee a sovereign Quebec's right to its current boundaries was given, in 1992, from the Bélanger-Campeau Commission, by a panel of international law experts (Thomas Franck, Rosalyn Higgins, Alain Pellet, Malcolm Shaw, Christian Tomuschat) commissioned by the government of Quebec in the aftermath of the failed Meech Lake Accord.
They responded to the following two questions on the territorial integrity and the potential partition of an independent Quebec, which were posed by a special commission of the Quebec National Assembly: The panellists answered with their opinions as follows: This line of argumentation is supported by "Uti possidetis juris" which states, as per customary international law, that newly formed sovereign states should have the same borders that their preceding dependent area had before their independence.
First, Canada including French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians would be considered not to be a nation, and hence its territorial integrity does not warrant the protection given under international law to the existing borders of nation-states.
This argument is also based in international law, more specifically Section b. of Article XI of the Charter of the United Nations, stating: Worded otherwise, this means that Quebec, as a distinct nation, has the right to aspirations to form a sovereign state, as well as the right to be supported by the Federal government in this endeavour.
Mayor Guy Cousineau explained this reversal to a newspaper reporter by stating "I had letters and calls from many francophones in Nepean, Gloucester, and on the Quebec side."
In 1997, future Parti Québécois leader Bernard Landry expressed this point of view when he wrote, As an example of what ex-premier Bernard Landry explained, it can be established that after the Quebec Referendum of 1995 where the Yes vote lost by a margin of about 0.5% (49.42% Yes, 50.58% No), no attempts to partition were made by the "Yes" voter base, in respect of the referendum.
This argument has been advanced by Raymond Villeneuve, a founding member of the FLQ and leader of the Mouvement de libération nationale du Québec (MLNQ), who says, There is merit in Villeneuve's characterization of partition as being primarily an argument designed to encourage Quebecers to vote against separation in any future referendum on separation.
The first book on the subject, and the one which gave its name to the movement, was 1980's Partition, the Price of Quebec's Independence, by Lionel Albert and William Shaw.
The title of this book makes clear its intention to use the threat of territorial losses to dissuade Quebecers from voting in favour of secession.
[34] Political rivals Mario Dumont (Action démocratique du Québec) and Andre Boisclair (Parti Québécois) criticized this.
On 26 November 2015, PQ leader Pierre-Karl Péladeau created controversy when he implied First Nations and other groups could negotiate secession from an independent Quebec.
