Masters in Our Own House: Quebec and the Quiet Revolution

"C'est le temps que ça change"

In the 1960 Quebec election, the Liberal Party under Jean Lesage used a simple slogan: C'est le temps que ça change ("It's time for things to change"). It won. Over the next six years, Quebec changed so quickly and so deeply that historians call this period the Quiet Revolution (la Révolution tranquille). It was "quiet" because it happened through elections and laws, not violence. But it was a revolution because it transformed how Quebec was run, who controlled its economy, and how French-speaking Quebecers saw themselves.

To understand why it happened, you first need to understand Quebec under Maurice Duplessis.

The Duplessis years

Maurice Duplessis and his Union Nationale party governed Quebec from 1944 until his death in 1959 (he had also been premier from 1936 to 1939). His supporters saw him as a defender of Quebec's autonomy against Ottawa and of traditional French-Catholic values. His critics called his years la Grande Noirceur, "the Great Darkness".

• The Catholic Church ran most schools, hospitals and social services.
• Duplessis favoured rural Quebec and offered generous terms to foreign (mostly American and English Canadian) companies that developed mines and forests, but he was hostile to unions.
• His government used patronage (rewarding supporters with jobs and contracts) and harsh laws, such as the Padlock Law (1937) used against people accused of communism. The Supreme Court struck it down in 1957.
• Many big businesses in Montreal were owned and managed by English speakers, and French-speaking workers often earned less and had to speak English to get ahead.

Signs of change in the 1940s and 1950s

• Refus global (1948): a group of Montreal artists led by painter Paul-Émile Borduas published a manifesto rejecting the Church's control over society and art. Borduas lost his teaching job.
• The Asbestos Strike (1949): about 5 000 asbestos miners in Asbestos and Thetford Mines went on strike against American- and English-Canadian-owned companies, for better wages and protection from asbestos dust. Duplessis sided with the companies and sent provincial police; there were violent clashes. But Archbishop Joseph Charbonneau of Montreal supported the strikers, and young intellectuals, including union leader Jean Marchand, journalist Gérard Pelletier and Pierre Trudeau, backed them. Many historians see the strike as an early step toward the Quiet Revolution.
• The Richard Riot (1955): in March 1955, NHL president Clarence Campbell suspended Montreal Canadiens star Maurice "Rocket" Richard for the rest of the season and the playoffs after a violent on-ice incident. Many fans felt an English-speaking official had treated a French-Canadian hero unfairly. When Campbell attended the Canadiens' next home game at the Montreal Forum on March 17, fans protested, and a riot spread into the streets. Some historians see it as a sign of French Canadians' frustration with their place in Canada.

The Quiet Revolution, 1960–1966

After Duplessis died in 1959, Lesage's Liberals came to power in June 1960. They used the provincial government (the State of Quebec) to modernize society:

• Education: a royal commission (the Parent Commission) recommended major reforms. In 1964 Quebec created a Ministry of Education, taking control of schools from the Church. CEGEPs (general and vocational colleges) opened in 1967. Many more young people finished high school and went to college.
• "Maîtres chez nous" ("Masters in our own house"): this was the Liberals' slogan in the 1962 election, which was fought on one big promise: the province would buy out private electricity companies. Minister of Natural Resources René Lévesque led the plan, and by 1963 Hydro-Québec controlled most of the province's power. It became a symbol of what francophone engineers and managers could build.
• Economic tools: the Quebec Pension Plan (1966) and the Caisse de dépôt et placement (1965), which invests the pension money in Quebec, gave the province economic power.
• Social change: the government took over hospitals and welfare; the Church's influence dropped quickly; fewer people attended Mass.
• Identity: many French-speaking Quebecers stopped calling themselves Canadiens français and began calling themselves Québécois: a people whose homeland is Quebec.

Ottawa responds: bilingualism

The federal government saw that Quebec's changes could threaten national unity.

• In 1963, Prime Minister Pearson appointed the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (the B and B Commission), led by André Laurendeau and Davidson Dunton. In 1965 it warned that Canada was "passing through the greatest crisis in its history".
• In 1965, three Quebec leaders, Jean Marchand, Gérard Pelletier and Pierre Trudeau, entered federal politics to fight for Quebec's place within Canada. Trudeau became prime minister in 1968.
• The Official Languages Act (1969) made English and French the official languages of the federal government. Canadians could get federal services in either language, and more French speakers were hired into the federal public service.

Not everyone agreed. Some English Canadians, especially in the West, resented official bilingualism. Many Quebec nationalists said it did not go far enough, because it focused on individuals across Canada instead of on Quebec as a nation.

From reform to sovereignty

Some Quebecers began to believe that Quebec needed more than reforms: it needed its own country, or at least much more power. In 1967, René Lévesque left the Liberal Party and formed a movement for sovereignty-association: political independence for Quebec, combined with an economic partnership with Canada. In 1968 he founded the Parti Québécois (PQ). A year earlier, in 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle's cry of "Vive le Québec libre!" in Montreal had shown that the idea was getting international attention. You will follow this story to 1982 in the next lesson.