La métropole contestée: le sort incertain de Montréal et l’intégrité du territoire québécois, 1828-1860

During the 1995 referendum in Quebec, a partitionist movement development in Montreal, especially within the city's Anglophone community, calling for the separation of Montreal from Quebec should the rest of the province vote in favour of Quebec's sovereignty. The author points out that this idea was not new, and its origins can be traced back to the 1830s, when Upper-Canadian Tory office holders expressed an interest in modifying the borders in such a way as to bring the island of Montreal under their control. He notes that in a campaign which led to reports and resolutions being adopted in the Assembly, Upper Canadian office holders found important allies in Montreal’s Tory circles, and particularly amongst the city’s English-speaking merchants and financiers. The partitionist movement picked up speed in the mid-1830s, as the Montreal Constitutional Association, which had been established in the wake of the Patriotes' 92 Resolutions calling for Lower Canada to become a French-language republic, promoted both Montreal’s annexation to Upper Canada and the legislative union of the two colonies. Eventually, the imperial government undertook its own examination of the situation through the Gosford Commission which visited the colony in 1835-1836. The author argues that after the Patriotes' failed armed uprising in 1837, Montreal’s fate was decided in the backrooms of the British parliament, where various political figures first sought to influence the content of the Durham report and later the drafting of imperial legislation on the Canadian question by Lord John Russell.

Les Cahiers des Dix

No. 70

1-42

2016

fr