Quebec nationalism
The autonomist political parties, which do not want the sovereignty of Quebec but the expansion of its powers and the defence of its specificity within Canada, such as the Coalition Avenir Québec, also claim to be Québécois nationalists.
The settlement of New France was made up of 7 regions that spanned from the Maritimes to the Rockies and from the Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.
[2] In effect, this "enlightened" action by leaders in the British Parliament allowed French Canada to retain its unique characteristics.
Often accomplished militarily, these national independence movements occurred in the context of complex ideological and political struggles pitting European metropoles against their respective colonies, often assuming the dichotomy of monarchists against republicans.
Some historians defend the thesis that it existed before the 19th century, because the Canadiens saw themselves as a people culturally distinct from the French even in the time of New France.
The idea of a nation canadienne was supported by the liberal or professional class in Lower Canada: lawyers, notaries, librarians, accountants, doctors, journalists, and architects, among others.
The party's constitutional policy, summed up in the Ninety-Two Resolutions of 1834, called for the election of the legislative and executive councils.
Two currents existed within the reformists of the Parti canadien: a moderate wing, whose members were fond of British institutions and wished for Lower Canada to have a government more accountable to the elective house's representative and a more radical wing whose attachment to British institutions was rather conditional to this proving to be as good as to those of the neighbouring American republics.
During the summer, many popular gatherings (assemblées populaires) were organized to protest against the policy of Great Britain in Lower Canada.
In November, Governor Archibald Acheson ordered the arrest of 26 leaders of the patriote movement, among whom Louis-Joseph Papineau and many other reformists were members of parliament.
[citation needed] In opposition with the other nationalists, ultramontanes rejected the rising democratic ideal that the people are sovereign and that the Church should have limited influence in governance.
To protect the power of the Church and prevent the rise of democracy and the separation of church-and-state, Lionel Groulx and other intellectuals engaged in nationalistic 'myth-making' or propaganda, to build a nationalistic French-Canadian identity, in purpose to protect the power of the Church and dissuade the public from popular-rule and secularist views.
In the time leading up to the radical changes of the Quiet Revolution the people of Quebec placed more importance on traditional values in life which included going back to their nationalistic roots.
[1] Even in terms of careers, the church governed the state in this aspect and people were working conventional jobs such as in the agricultural industry.
[7] Maurice Duplessis returned to win the 1944 election and stayed in the position of premier of Quebec for fifteen years whilst being the leader of the conservative Union Nationale party.
[8] Duplessis's main ideas to transform Quebec were through rapid industrialization, urbanization and a greater and faster development of the province's natural resources.
There were new opportunities created to provide economic and social stability but by doing so, decreased the importance and significance placed upon cultural and linguistic survival.
[7] However, the deaths of Maurice Duplessis in September 1959 and his successor Paul Sauve in January 1960 set in motion the final end to the old traditional definition of Quebec nationalism in the 1950s.
[8] A new leader, Quebec and ideology of nationalism would emerge and sweep across the province finally providing French-Canadians their greatly awaited need for change.
The election of Jean Lesage and his liberal party finally ended the longstanding ancient regime the people of Quebec had been living under.
The Quiet Revolution signified something different for Quebeckers but a common denominator was that both English and French speakers were happy with the end to Maurice Duplessis's conservative party the Union Nationale that brought much social and political repression.
The Quiet Revolution beginning in the 1960s gathered momentum with the many reformations carried out by Jean Lesage including changes to the education, social welfare, hospitalization, hydro-electricity, regional development and greater francophone participation in the industrial sector.
Because of the new openness of the province, travelers and people of the church were encouraged to go and learn the ways of life in other parts of the world and then return to share, compare, and incorporate the ideologies into their lifestyle.
He no longer wanted economic inferiority of French Canadians and the Francophone society, but rather evolving organized labor, educational reform, and the modernization of political process.
By the early 1960s a group of French Canadians from all classes were receiving proper education but only to go into careers in Anglophone dominated institutions.
Understanding contemporary Quebec nationalism is difficult considering the ongoing debates on the political status of the province and its complex public opinion.
This law hugely impacted the Muslim community in the province, with many citing it as proof of the movement's ethnic origins, and calling it Islamophobic, and discriminatory.
[11][non-primary source needed] Quebec nationalism and separatism being ethnically based was further evidenced when the PQ held a protest in Montreal on November 23, 2020, which called for the assimilation of immigrants, and for the strengthening on the French Language in the city.
Less than 150 people turned out for the occasion,[11] and by the PQ, as well as other nationalist and separatist parties refusing to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism in Quebec.
Premier François Legault and his Coalition Avenir Québec government justified this as necessary to preserve the French language that is central to Quebec nationalism.
