How Quebec became a North American Region State

Résumé : Our view of the evolution of Québec in the last decade is generally obscured by three elements. First, from the failed attempt at constitutional reform, called the Meech agreement of 1990, through two referendums, to the resignation of Premier Lucien Bouchard in early 2001, it seems that scarcely anything but political debate has gone on in the province. Second, Québec policies towards the rest of the world and Ottawa’s response to it may seem wholly attributable not to real structural evolution, but to political posturing aimed at the next independence showdown. Third, while looking at Québec’s vital signs, the inevitable and quite relevant comparison with Ontario usually puts it at a disadvantage. As though sitting besides a giant necessarily meant that you are a dwarf.

But beyond these elements and intertwined with them, Québec’s transformations during the nineties, mostly coming to fruition in the second half of the decade, deserve to be weighted on their merits. As Michael Keating notes in looking at the behaviour of nationless states in the new context of globalisation, it is true that nationalism predates and colours their actions and that the opening of markets provides a new opportunity for nationalistic policies (Keating, 2003). The combination of nationalist will and of opening markets compounds what is, nonetheless, real and measurable change.

The view of this text is that, in the last decade, Québec’s economic and political elite, with strong popular support, wanted Québec to become a region state – that is to act increasingly as a specific entity whether or not it became independent from Canada ; that it needed to become a region state in order to achieve optimal growth ; and that it was further pushed into becoming one by the peculiar political context.

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