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Quebecs Quiet Revolution: What Is It? How Has It Changed Quebecs Society? How
| Term Paper Title |
Quebecs Quiet Revolution: What Is It? How Has It Changed Quebecs Society? How |
| # of Words |
1023 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) |
4.09 |
Quebec's Quiet Revolution: What Is It? How Has It Changed Quebec's Society? How
Has It Affected Confederation?
The English-French relations have not always been easy. Each is always
arguing and accusing the other of wrong doings. All this hatred and differences
started in the past, and this Quiet revolution, right after a new Liberal
government led by Jean Lesage came in 1960. Thus was the beginning of the Quiet
Revolution.
Lesage had an excellent team of cabinet ministers which included Rene
Levesque. The Liberals promised to do two things during the Quiet Revolution;
one was to improve economic and social standards for the people of Quebec, and
the other was to win greater respect and recognition for all the French people
of Canada. The Liberals started a program to take control of hydro-electric
power companies. French-Canadian engineers from all over Canada returned to
Quebec to work on the project. Slogans during these times were "we can do it"
and "masters in our own homes". The government also started to replace programs
the Church previously ran, which included hospital insurance, pension schemes
and the beginning of Medi-Care. For these programs, the Quebec Liberals had to
struggle with Ottawa for a larger share of the tax dollars.
One of the greatest reforms was the modernization of the entire school
system. The Church used to own the schools of Quebec. Most of the teachers
were Priests, Nuns and Brothers. They provided a good education but Quebec
needed more in business and technology. Lesage wanted a government-run school
system that would provide Quebec with people in engineering, science, business
and commerce.
With the new freedom of expression, lots of books, plays and music about
French culture were all developed in Quebec. French contemporary playwrights
were very famous during that time. However, not all was going well in Quebec.
The French-English relation was going bad. Many studies showed that French-
Canadian Quebecers were earning the lowest wage in all of the ethnic groups in
Canada. Other complaints were that the top jobs in Quebec were given to English
speaking Canadians. Canada was going through the worst crisis in its history,
and unless equal partnership was found a break-up would likely happen. Some
Quebecers thought that separation was the only solution. They thought that as
long as Quebec was associated with the rest of Canada, French-Canadians would
never be treated equal.
The FLQ (Front De Libération Du Québec) was founded in 1963. It was a
smaller, more forceful group of separatists. They were a collection of groups
of young people whose idea was to use terrorism to achieve independence for
Quebec. The ALQ (L'Armée de Libération de Quebec) was even more of a violent
separatist group. Some of their actions included robbing banks in order to get
money. For their ammunition they had to raid arms depots of the Canadian Armed
Forces.
There were many Federalists that believed that separatism had no future
and that French-Canadians could play a role in a bi-lingual Canada. There were
three Quebec men that believed in Federalism. These men were Liberals and their
names were Pierre Trudeau, Jean Marchand and Gérard Pelletier. The President of
France, General De Gaulle came to Quebec in 1967 and gave speeches...Read entire document
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