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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2009
For a majority of Québécois whose mother tongue is French, transnational relations with the United States are like palm trees. They are known to exist elsewhere but are rarely talked about and much less seen. This apparent neglect, which contrasts markedly with the almost frantic attention now accorded to Canadian-American relations in anglophone Canada, does not imply that Québécois are unaware of the economic, cultural, and political proximity of the United States or that significant transactions across the Québec-American border do not take place. They do occur, but they are not always readily apparent.
1 Words are seldom neutral carriers of meanings. In Canada whether one speaks of French Canadians or Québécois, or of separation rather than independence, for instance, serves to define one's political coordinates. In recent years a number of French-speaking Canadians living in Québec have come to define themselves as Québécois, thus stressing their geographic rather than their ethnic affiliation, while French-speaking minorities outside of Québec continue to refer to themselves as French Canadians. In the same way the term separatist is most often used by those who wish to stress negative aspects of the independence option. In this article I use the word independentist, an anglicized version of the French indépendentiste, to refer to those who favor independence for Québec.
2 This is evidenced by the positive response of English-Canadian scholars to this idea of a special issue of International Organization on Canadian-American transnational and transgovernmental relations as contrasted with polite indifference of Québec social scientists who, on the whole, have shown little interest in the United States-Canada-Québec triangle.
3 The dependent character of the Québec economy is well documented in the first comprehensive study of the Québec economic structures: Saint-Germain, MarcelUne économie ´ liberer (Montréal: Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1973).Google Scholar Since 1970 the annual Québec GNP has been more than $4 billion. Its GNP per capita is more than $3,500 per year, surpassed only by the US, Sweden, the rest of Canada, and Switzerland (among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries).
4 This use of the scenario, which contrasts with that of Herman Khan and the Hudson Institute, was first proposed by a research team working for the planning office of the French government. See Délégation ´ l'aménagement du territoire et ´ l'action regionale, Une image de la France en l'an 2000 (Paris: La documentation française, 1971). Many of the ideas expresed here were first suggested by colleagues at the Future Research Group of the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, notably, Pierre Lamonde, Pierre-André Julien, and Edouard Cloutier.
5 Until now, models of international relations, for example those of Morton Kaplan, have typically been tested by applying them to past historical situations. But it is also possible, as Dennis Meadows has done in his study of The Limits to Growth (New York: Universe Books, 1972), to test the internal coherence of a model by projecting the model into the future rather than referring to the past.
6 Founded in 1968, the Parti Québécois has rapidly become the major spokesman for Québec's independence, obtaining 23 percent of the vote in the 1970 election, an increase of 17 percent from the 1966 performance of the first independentist party, the Rassemblement pour l'Indépendance Nationale, and 30 percent in the 1973 election. For empirical studies on the support for Québec's independence, see Lemieux, Vincent, et al., Une election de réalignement (Montréal: Editions de l'Homme, 1970);Google ScholarJenson, J. and Regenstreif, P., “Some Dimensions of Partisan Choice in Québec,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 3, no. 2 (1970): 308–18;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Serge Carlos and Daniel Latouche, “La composition de l'électorat péquiste,” in D. Latouche, G. Lord, and J. G. Vaillancourt, L'élection de 1970 (Montréal: Editions H.M.H., forthcoming).
7 On 12 March 1974, Dan Int-Hout, president of the American Paper Institute, referred to Prime Minister Robert Bourassa as the “knight who expurgated separatism from the Province of Québec” (La Press, 13 March 1974).
8 See Guindon, Hubert, “Social Unrest, Social Class and Québec's Bureaucratic Revolution,” in Thorburn, Hugh, ed., Party Politics in Canada (Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall of Canada, 1967), pp. 189–200;Google ScholarTrudeau, Pierre E., “Les séparatistes: des contre-révolutionnaires,” Cité Libre 15 (1964): 2–6.Google Scholar
9 The strength of attraction of the PQ among selected social groups at the time of the 1973 election is as follows: francophones-Montreal-young—63 percent; francophones-Montreal-old—41 percent; francophones-province-high education—39 percent; anglophones-low revenue-blue collar—30 percent; francophones-province-low education—21 percent; anglophones-province-white collar—11 percent; anglophones-high revenue-blue collar—10 percent. See Carlos, Serge, Cloutier, Edouard, and Latouche, Daniel, “The 1973 Election,” La Presse, 19–25 November 1973.Google Scholar
10 Within greater Montreal, only in the western part of the Montreal region, where French-speaking voters usually make up less than 30 percent of the electorate, did the PQ not succeed in winning an absolute majority of the French-speaking vote. But even in western Montreal the PQ obtained a plurality of the French-speaking vote. See Drouilly, Pierre, “Une analyse du vote du 29 octobre à Montr´al,” Le Jour, 28 February–6 March 1974.Google Scholar
11 This group clearly outnumbers the nonindependentist PQ supporters: 26.1 percent of the independentists did not support the PQ in the 1973 election, while 12.5 percent of the PQ electorate disapproved of independence.
12 In the 1973 election the most spectacular PQ gains were made in the Québec region (from 20.1 to 35.7 percent), the second most urbanized center in Québec. See “Aprés ce 19 octobre 1973,” Maintenant, no. 131 (1973), pp. 4–34.
13 Québec delegations have been established in Paris (1961), London (1962), Milan (1969), Düsseldorf (1970), Brussels (1973), and Tokyo (1973). In addition to an extensive program of cooperation with France, Québec is a member of the Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique and has signed bilaterial agreements with eight African countries—Gabon, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Zaire, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Dahomey—as well as with Lebanon.
14 In Boston, New York, Chicago, Lafayette (Louisiana), Dallas, and Los Angeles, a series of interviews I carried out in 1970 for a study of Québec commercial offices in the United States confirmed this feeling of impotence and frustration of Québec representatives. The Louisiana office includes commercial concerns, but the major part of its activities is in the cultural and educational field.
15 LeMoyne, Jean, “L'indentité culturelle,” in Le Canada au seuil du siècle de l'abondance (Montréal: Editions H.M.H., 1969), p. 27.Google Scholar
16 Saint-Laurent, Claude, “Pendant ce temps ´ Washington,” Maintenant, no. 131 (1973), p. 16.Google Scholar
17 Social Research Group, “A Study of Interethnic Relations in Canada,” a study prepared for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Ottawa 1967. (Mimeographed.) The survey does not differentiate between franco-phone Québecois and French-speaking minorities living outside of Québec, although very few of the latter group were included in the sample. In their article in this volume, Sigler and Goresky reported that 12 percent of Québec respondents (anglophone and francophone) in 1972 favored “joining the US even though this meant losing Canadian independence.” The correspondig figure for all of Canada was 5 percent.
18 The love-hate attitude of Quebec intellectuals toward the United States is well described in Bergeron, Gérard, Le Canada français après deux siècles de patience (Paris: Seuil, 1967);Google Scholar and Rocher, Guy, Le Québec en mutation (Montréal: Editions H.M.H., 1973), pp. 91–106.Google Scholar
19 Saint-Laurent, “Pendant ce temps ´ Washington,” p. 16.
20 This section is primarily derived from official PQ documents: Lévesque, René, Option-Québec (Montréal: Editions de l'Homme, 1968);Google ScholarQuébécois, Parti, La Souveraineté et l'économie;(Montréal: Editions du Jour, 1970);Google ScholarQuébécois, Parti, La Solution: la programme du Parti Québécois (Montréal: Editions du Jour, 1970);Google ScholarQuéb´cois, Parti, Quand nous serons vraiment chez-nous (Montr´al: Editions du Parti Québ´cois, 1972);Google ScholarQuébécois, Parti, Les dossiers du 4e Congrés (Montréal: Editions du Parti Québécois, 1972);Google ScholarQuéb´cois, Parti, Un gouvernement du Parti Québ´cois s'engage (Montréal: Editions du Parti Québécois, 1973)Google Scholar; Québécois, Parti, C'est pas sorcier (Montréal: Editions du Parti Québ´cois, 1973).Google Scholar Personal interviews supplemented these public sources.
21 This expectation is naive if we consider the results of a 1971 survey conducted by the American Institute of Public Opinion for the Canadian embassy in Washington: 96.3 percent of the American public had no opinion as to whether or not the United States should support an independent Québec. See Goldblatt, Murray, “Ce qu'Oncle Sam pense du Canada: Les résultats d'un sondage,” Perspectives Internationales, May-June 1972, pp. 14–016.Google Scholar
22 Paradoxically, the Québec-American border is the only one of the five maritime and land borders of Québec that has been definitely settled. The borders with Ontario, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and the Northwest Territories are still subjected to claims and counterclaims. See Nicolson, N. L., The Boundaries of Canada (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1964).Google Scholar
23 However, it has recently been argued by a research team from the Bedford Oceanographic Institute that 65 percent of the variation of the fish catch in the Gulf of St. Lawrence can be attributed to the water level in the American Great Lakes (Le Devoir, November 1972).
24 In the case of Lake Memphremagog an ad hoc meeting was held in November 1973 between Québec and Vermont officials. All participants agreed that the American city of Newport was the sole culprit and that remedial measures should be taken by Vermont and Newport.
25 Labrador, now part of Newfoundland but claimed by Québec, could possibly give rise to Québec-US disagreements on questions of extent of territorial seas, economic zones, and passage rights. But although a PQ government would seek a ruling on the matter by the International Court of Justice, it is not expected that an independent Québec would press its claim in a vigorous way.
26 The Maine-Québec agreement, signed in August 1973, includes the following provisions: an exchange of civil servants; a Québec cultural week in Augusta; an exchange of popular music groups; a tour by Qu´bec artists; the financial participation of Québec in a research program on Madawaska folklore; an exchange of secondary school teachers; 30 Québec scholarships to a French summer school. Except for discussions on energy matters and on the perennial question of a Québec-New Brunswick highway across northern Maine, the agreement has no commercial or financial provisions.
27 “Le Québec et les minorit´s: attentes et intérêts réciproques,” Le Devoir, 4 October 1972. As a symbolic gesture, the PQ program suggests that an independent Québec would welcome the immigration of French-speaking Canadians from other provinces. No mention is made of French-speaking immigrants from the US. Presumably they will be treated in the same way as other American immigrants.
28 Except for British Columbia and Newfoundland, the percentage of Canadians who declared French as their mother tongue has declined in all Canadian provinces between the 1961 and 1971 censuses. Outside of Ontario and New Brunswick the assimilation rate—those with one (or more) francophone bilingual parent whose offsprings no longer speak or understand spoken French—has been estimated at close to 50 percent.
29 As soon as the anglophone population in a given Québec census district reaches the figure of 5 percent of the total population in that district, it does not suffer significant transfer to the other linguistic group. The equivalent figure for the French population is 88 percent. In other words, only when there are 88 percent francophones in a district is this population in no danger of assimilation. See Castonguay, C. and Marion, J., “L'anglicisation du Canada,” Le Devoir, 8 and 9 January, 1974.Google Scholar
30 However, new American (and other anglophone) immigrants would not be granted any special status and their children would have to attend the French school system, at least until university level. On the other hand, the PQ has no plan to restrict, as in Nova Scotia, foreign ownership of summer (or other part-time) residences.
31 Le Devoir, 28 March 1972. This Québec view is typified by a 1973 interview of Québec's minister of commerce and industry: Question: “You have certainly discussed the Gray report with your federal counterpart.” Answer: “Beg your pardon …” Question: “You know, the Gray report …” Answer: “Ah, yes. You should understand that this is not the sort of thing that we discuss when there are so many urgent and important tasks to meet.” See Le Devoir, 12 January 1972.
32 Le Devoir, 4 May 1972. According to the president of the Montreal and the Canadian Stock Exchange, the federal bill simply amounts to a reiteration of the guidelines for corporate “good behaviour” in Canada.
33 Le Devoir, 9 May 1972. Contrary to Québec, Ontario has established its own study groups (Parliamentary Commission, Inter-Ministerial Working Group, Conference on Economic and Cultural Nationalism) to deal with the question of foreign investors.
34 Schendel, Michel Van, “Dépendanceéconomique et souveraineté canadienne,” in La dualité canadienne à l' heure des Estats Unis (Québec: Les Pressées de l' Université Laval, 1965), pp. 111–20.Google Scholar Another economist, Roland Parenteau, president of the Conseil d' Orientation Économique du Québec, has made substantially the same point: “Instead of an economic policy which has served to specialize each region of Canada through a subsidized national transportation system, it would have been possible to diversify the economy of each region in order to increase its autonomy” (“Crise de l'unité nationale, crise du régime économique,” in Le Canada face à son avenir [Montréal: Editions du Jour, 1964], p. 87).
35 In 1971–72, 16.1 percent ($814 million) of the total revenue of the Québec government was in the form of unconditional fiscal transfers from the federal government, and 9.1 percent ($459 million) in the form of conditional transfers (i.e., for specific programs). No statistically comparable figures are available for the Maritime provinces but the federal contribution is usually estimated at 50 percent of the provincial revenues. See Statistiques financiéres du Gouvernement du Québec (Québec: Bureau de la statistique, 1973).
36 PQ, C'est pas sorcier, p. 16.
37 Naively the PQ assumes that the promulgation of French as the official and working language in Québec will have no impact on investment decisions since American firms are already used to operating in non-English-speaking countries. Obviously the PQ leadership is not aware of a recent study that shows the variable “American ownership” to be one of the most important factors explaining the necessity of French-speaking employees to work in English in Quebec. See Morrisson, Robert N., Corporate Ability at Bilingualism and Biculturalism (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1970).Google Scholar All quotations are from official PQ documents. For an analysis of the PQ economic doctrine, see Treddenick, J. M., “Quebec and Canada: The Economics of Independence,” Journal of Canadian Studies 8, no. 4 (1973): 16–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 PQ, La Solution, p. 39.
39 Already in a 1969 symposium one leading Québec economist, Bernard Bonin, argued vigorously in favor of the multinational firm. See Bonin, Bernard, “La firme plurinationale comme véhicule de transmission internationale de technologie,” Actualité Economique 46, no. 4 (1971): 707–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar When the Gray report on foreign investments was published, Québec economists were the first to point out its weaknesses and contradictions. See Leroy, Velg, “Le Rapport Gray: prelude d'un nouveau testament,” Actualité Economique 48, no.2 (1972): 211–25;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Tremblay, Rodrigue, “Investissements directs étrangers et stratégies industrielles et commerciales: le dilemme canadien,” Actualité Economique 48, no. 2 (1972): 226–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40 See Sigler and Goresky in this volume. The Québec respondents included also anglophone respondents, but it is unlikely that their weight was sufficient to modify significantly the findings. Their exclusion would have probably reinforced the trends noticed here.
41 An exception will probably be made for Time which has only an English edition. In the case of Reader's Digest, which publishes a widely distributed French edition, an exception is less certain since this magazine is viewed by the Québec intellectual and cultural elite as the epitome of propaganda for the American way of life.
42 SIDBEC has recently announced plans for a joint venture.
43 PQ economic thinking borrows heavily from Adler-Karlsson, G., Reclaiming the Canadian Economy: A Swedish Approach through Functional Socialism (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1970).Google Scholar
44 Levitt, Kari, Silent Surrender: The Multinational Corporation in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1970), p. 147.Google Scholar
45 PQ, C'est pas sorcier, p. 15. One is struck by the frequent allusions to General Motors in the PQ program as if this economic giant were representative of economic success.
46 Department of Trade and Commerce, La situation économique au Québec, (Québec: Ministry of Industry and Commerce, 1973), p. 49.
47 Jacques Parizeau, the leading PQ economic spokesman, was the main force behind the dismantling of this brokers club headed by the Bank of Montreal and the A. E. Ames Corporation. See his “Les Dessous de l'Histoire, 1963–70,” Le Devoir, 2 February 1970.
48 See Treddenick, J. M., “Québec and Canada: Some Economic Aspects of Independence,” Journal of Canadian Studies 7, no. 4 (1974): 16–31.Google Scholar
49 Les dossiers du 4e Congrès National du PQ, pp. 77–150.
50 The five major companies are Canadian International Paper, Consolidated-Bathurst Ltd., Bathurst Power and Paper Company Ltd., Price Company Ltd., and Domtar Ltd.
51 According to a government report, asbestos companies have not created a single new job since 1945 (Le Devoir, 19 March 1974).
52 On international unions in Québec, Tremblay, Louis-Marie, Idéologie de la CSN et de la FTQ, 1940–1970 (Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 1972);Google ScholarBernard, Jacques Dofny et Paul, Le syndicalisme au Québec: structure et mouvement (Ottawa: Imprimeur de la Reine, 1970);Google ScholarLoranger, Jean-Guy, “L'impérialisme américain au Québec: analyse de donnés récentes,” Socialisme 68, 14 (1968): 26–52.Google Scholar
53 These figures are taken from the 1974–75 budget proposed to the electorate by the PQ during the 1973 campaign. These figures were obtained by the PQ from a confidential Québec government document on the costs of federalism to which the PQ had access.
54 The mid-Canada radar line was abandoned in 1965 and the Pine Tree installations have either been dismantled or integrated in a larger radar network. There are no DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line installations on Québec territory. The headquarters of the fifth NORAD region are in North Bay (Ontario) where the SAGE control centre is also located.
55 During the 1967–71 period, 45 Québec companies had received defense contracts totalling $200 million from the Canadian government while one Québec university, McGill, received close to 25 percent of the $35 million attributed directly by American defense authorities to Canadian universities. See Noumoff, Sam, “How to Make a Killing,” McGill University, 1972.Google Scholar (Mimeograph.)
56 Excluding Mexico, of course.
57 The internal situation of Québec after independence is obviously an important variable that is not considered here.
58 The PQ budget calls for spending $11.08 billion for 1974–75. The similarity of outlook between the PQ and the actual Liberal government leadership in the province is best illustrated by the fact that there is a .94 correlation between the PQ budget and the 1973–74 budget of the Québec government.
59 Quebec International 1, no. 4 (1973): 3.