A History of Quebec Nationalism

Terry A. Crowley is an associate professor of history at the University
of Guelph and the author of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality.

The continuing traumas over the fate of Canada and Quebec have sparked a
renewed interest in the history of Quebec’s nationalism. In Canada,
the word nationalism is generally used to convey ideas and beliefs about
the future course of “the nation.” Within contemporary Quebec,
sover-eigntists align the nation with the province, but in the past
French Canadians in the country as a whole were thought to constitute a
people with common interests.

Such niceties do not give pause for reflection to the Quebec academics
interviewed in a book stemming from television broadcasts in 1992.
Mostly historians, they provide a highly partial rendering of Quebec’s
evolving nationalism that most clearly associates the province’s
future with independence. This version of history is not new, although
it has generally been related with more nuance than television
permitted. Traditional heroes of this intellectual stream like Canon
Lionel-Groulx get extensive attention while short shrift is given to
thinkers, like Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who believe that participation in
the Canadian federal system ensures Quebec a more secure future.

Apart from the conventionality of the ideas expressed in the
interviews, there is an additional problem in this English-language
edition. The editor’s use of footnotes to explain unfamiliar elements
in the texts means that readers have to jostle between pages.