Partition: The Price of Quebec's Independence: A Realistic Look at the Possibility of Quebec Separating from Canada and Becoming an Independent State

Shortly before the 1980 referendum on Quebec secession, the authors outlined this scenario for the excision of three slices of territory from a newly independent Quebec republic: the northern two-thirds of the province would be retained by Canada following independence, on the basis that the territory had been assigned (not ceded) to the Province of Quebec in two steps, in 1898 and 1912; all Quebec territory south of the St. Lawrence River would also be retained by Canada, on the basis of the eighteenth-century claim of the then-colonies of New York and Massachusetts to these lands, which had been abandoned by the British Crown only after Quebec had been captured by Britain in 1759; and the Pontiac region of west Quebec, the lower north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the western part of the island of Montreal would remain in Canada on the basis that local populations are predominantly non-Francophone, and presumably therefore would be Canadian rather than Québécois in their loyalties. The author believed that their scenario would never play out because French Quebecers would rather have a large province than a small country. However, it did bolster the Partition movement in Quebec during the 1995 referendum and whenever the idea of a third referendum on Quebec separation is proposed.

Montreal

Thornhill Publication

1980

en