Parti Québécois Totally Explained

Everything about Parti Qu B Cois totally explained

The Parti Québécois [PQ] (translation: Quebecker Party) is a sovereignist (the word commonly used in Quebec for separatist) political party that advocates national sovereignty for the Canadian province of Quebec and secession from Canada, as well as social democratic policies and has traditionally had support from the labour movement. Unlike many other social democratic parties, it has no formal ties with the labour movement or labour unions. Members and supporters of the PQ are called "péquistes" (— a French word derived from the pronunciation of the party's initials).

History

The PQ is the result of the 1968 merger between René Lévesque's Mouvement Souveraineté-Association and the Ralliement national. Following the creation of the PQ, the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale held a general assembly that voted to dissolve the RIN. Its former members were invited to join the new Parti Québécois.
   PQ's primary goals were and still are to obtain the political, economic and social independence for the province of Quebec. In the 1976 provincial election, the Parti Québécois was elected to form the government of Quebec. The party's leader, René Lévesque, became the Premier of Quebec. This provided cause for celebration among many French-speaking Quebecers, while it resulted in an acceleration of the migration of the province's anglophone population and related economic activity toward Toronto.
   The first PQ government was known as the "republic of teachers" because of the large number of scholars who served as cabinet members. The PQ was the first government to recognize the rights of Aboriginal peoples to self-determination, insofar as this self-determination didn't affect the territorial integrity of Quebec. The PQ passed laws on public consultations and the financing of political parties, which insured equal financing of political parties and limited contributions by individuals to $3000. However, the most prominent legacy of the PQ is the Charter of the French Language (the Bill 101), a framework law which defines the linguistic primacy of French and seeks to make French the common public language of Quebec. It allowed the advancement of francophones towards management roles, until then largely out of their reach — despite the fact that 85% of the population spoke French and most of them didn't understand English, the language of management was English in most medium and large businesses. Critics, both francophone and anglophone, have however criticized the charter for restraining citizens' linguistic school choice, as it forbids immigrants and Quebecers of French descent from attending English-language schools. The party was re-elected in the 1981 election, but in November 1984 it experienced the most severe internal crisis of its existence. The incident resulted in the resignation of Premier René Lévesque. In September 1985, the party leadership election chose Pierre Marc Johnson as his successor.
   The PQ was defeated by the Liberals in the 1985 election.
   The Parti Québécois initiated the 1980 Quebec referendum seeking a mandate to begin negotiation for independence. It was rejected by 60 per cent of voters. With the failure of the Charlottetown Accord and the Meech Lake Accord, two packages of proposed amendments to the Canadian constitution, the question of Quebec's status remained unresolved, and the PQ called the 1995 Quebec referendum proposing negotiations on sovereignty. After leading all night, the final count showed sovereignty was supported by 49.6% of voters. On the night of the defeat, an emotionally drained Premier Jacques Parizeau stated that the loss was caused by "money and the ethnic vote" as well as by the divided votes amongst francophones. Parizeau resigned the next day (as he's alleged to have planned beforehand in case of a defeat). Lucien Bouchard, a former member of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Cabinet and later founder of the Bloc Québécois, a sovereignist party at the federal level, succeeded Parizeau as PQ leader, but chose not to call another referendum due to the absence of "winning conditions". Bouchard's government then balanced the provincial budget — a feat achieved in Canada only by the federal government and a few of the ten Canadian provinces at that point — by reducing government spending, including social programs. The PQ won another term in the 1998 election, despite receiving fewer votes than the Quebec Liberal Party of Jean Charest. Bouchard resigned in 2001, and was succeeded as PQ leader and Quebec Premier by Bernard Landry, a former PQ Finance minister. Under Landry's leadership, the party lost the 2003 election to Jean Charest's Quebec Liberal Party. Summer and fall 2004 were difficult for Landry's leadership, which was being contested. A vote was held during the party's June 2005 convention to determine whether Landry continues to have the confidence of the party membership. Landry said he wanted at least 80% of approval and after gaining 76.2% approval on the confidence vote from party membership on June 4, 2005, Landry announced his intention to resign. Louise Harel had been chosen to replace him until a new leader, André Boisclair, was elected November 15, 2005, through the party's 2005 leadership election. At the time of Boisclair's election, the PQ was as much as 20 percent ahead of the Liberals in opinion polls.
   However, in the 2007 provincial election, the party fell to 36 seats and behind the Action démocratique du Québec in number of seats and the popular vote: this is the first time since 1973 that the party didn't form the government or Official Opposition. Boisclair said that the voters clearly didn't support a strategy of a rapid referendum in the first mandate of a PQ government (This is shown by recent polls which demonstrate most Quebecers are not ready for another separation referendum). Instead of a policy convention following the election, the party will hold a presidents' council. As well, the usual post-election leadership convention may be postponed until 2008. The party caucus in the provincial legislative assembly was said to have supported Boisclair continuing as leader.
   On May 8, 2007, Boisclair announced his resignation as leader of the PQ. This was effective immediately, although Boisclair confirmed he'd remain within the PQ caucus for the time being. He was replaced by veteran MNA François Gendron, pending a leadership race and convention.
   Current Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe was the first to announce his intention to run for party leadership, on May 11, 2007. In a surprise move, he withdrew the next day. Pauline Marois also announced on May 11 that she'd be running. Marois was the only declared candidate.
   Leadership race rules have been drafted by the National Executive Committee and approved by the National Conference of Presidents. Candidates have until July 17, 2007 to declare. If the leadership is contested the vote result will be announced on August 25, 2007.
   Marois was acclaimed leader on June 26, 2007.

Relationship with the Bloc Québécois

The Bloc Québécois is a political party at the federal Canadian level that was founded in 1990 by future PQ leader Lucien Bouchard. It holds close ties to the Parti Québécois, and shares its two principal objectives: sovereignty and social democracy. The two parties frequently share political candidates, and support each other during election campaigns. The two parties have a similar membership and voter base. Prominent members of either party often attend and speak at both organizations' public events. The current Bloc leader, Gilles Duceppe, is also the son of Jean Duceppe, a Quebec actor who helped found the PQ. Jean Duceppe also helped found the New Democratic Party branch in Quebec, which later separated from the federal NDP and merged into the Union des forces progressistes (UFP), which gathered 1.0% of the vote during the 2004 election, twice the number of the closest fifth party (the Bloc Pot, with 0.5% of vote turnout in 2004). The UFP then merged with Option citoyenne to form the new political party Québec Solidaire.

Logo

The party's symbol was designed in 1968 by painter and poet Roland Giguère. It consists of a stylised letter Q, represented by a blue circle broken by a red arrow. The creator meant it as an allegory of the Parti Québécois breaking the circle of colonialism and opening Quebec upon the world and the future .
   The creator represented the second letter of the two-letter acronym only (see the Hydro-Québec logo, also an example of a second letter design).
   Compared to the rival Parti libéral du Québec, which has completely changed its logo often, the PQ has made very few significant modifications to its logo during its history. In 1985 it made the circle and arrow slightly thicker, and placed the tip of the latter at the centre of the circle. The original saw it span the whole diameter. When placed upon a blue background instead of a white one, the circle was commonly turned to white, the single main design variation currently observed.
   The party revealed a new logo on 21 February 2007, at the beginning of the 2007 provincial election campaign. While maintaining the basic style of past logos, the Q was redesigned and modernized. In addition, the tail of the Q was recoloured green, in order to present a more environmentally-friendly image of the party.

Party policy

Leader Pauline Marois told Ségolène Royal that the PQ won't hold another referendum on sovereignty if returned to power.. Instead, the party hopes to concentrate on the protection of the French language in Quebec, leading up to the ultimate result of sovereignty-association.
   The PQ will deliver a brief to the reasonable accommodation commission on minorities, now conducting holding hearings across the province. The commission headed will look to reformulate the relations between Quebec's francophone and minority populations. Its task will be a platform for the PQ's protectionism of French.
   Marois stated there's nothing dogmatic in francophones wishing to declare their existence even if it includes developing legislation requiring newcomers to have a basic understanding of French before becoming citizens of Quebec.
   Marois stated the PQ understands the appearance of newcomers is attractive and they donate largely to Quebec's growth, but she noted that doesn't say that to better acculturate them that "we must erase our own history."

Bill 195

In October 2007, PQ deputy Daniel Turp authored Bill 195, the "Quebec Identity Act", which included a requirement that immigrants must learn French to obtain rights, including a putative Quebec citizenship and the right to run in elections at all levels. The draft legislation concedes, though, that since Quebec isn't sovereign, it doesn't have any jurisdiction over citizenship. Article 49.2 of the draft notes landed immigrants can't obtain the status of "Quebec citizen" if they're not also Canadian citizens. The bill also proposed the fundamental values of Quebec that should be taken account in a future constitution, including equality between sexes and the predominance of French.

Political reactions

The Quebec Liberal Party also dismissed some of the measures that it considered harmful and that would divide Quebec society. House Leader Jean-Marc Fournier also made a parallel between the bill and Jacques Parizeau's speech on money and the ethnic vote following the 1995 referendum, while Cabinet Minister Benoit Pelletier added that it would violate the national Charter of Rights. Many current and past members of the Parti Québécois also rejected this proposal, including Bernard Landry.
Marois claimed Charest was cowardly for discussing the topic in the news media, such as with his open letter, instead of the provincial legislature as she asked. She stated that if the government went on refusing, the PQ would conduct its own hearings. She maintained Charest was amenable to "90 per cent of what is contained in the bill" (despite his calling for its withdrawal) and that she was open to negotiations on it.

Other reactions

The idea was met with criticism among various minority and other groups. Léger Marketing reports that a majority of Quebecers surveyed want Marois to remove the bill or revise it to agree with the Quebec and Canadian charters of rights.
   A number of Université de Montréal lecturers signed a denunciation of the draft law, noting that PQ co-founder René Lévesque "frowned on the idea that Québécois identity is affirmed by excluding certain citizens." B'nai Brith Canada and CRARR (Centre for Research Action on Race Relations) conducted a news conference where both groups' spokesmen criticized the PQ’s draft law as being an imposition on the democratic rights of all Quebecers and an assault on the rights of newcomers. It was described as intolerant and discriminatory, and of the kind expected from Europe’s extreme right-wing parties.
   Citizenship is a federal power, so the draft law bill would be both illegal under the Canadian constitution and violate both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Quebec human rights legislation.
   Several analysts think Marois’ attempts to use the language debate to be an effort to return some of the nationalist vote to the PQ, and a “false debate.” The province’s department of immigration already judges French-language ability to as irrelevant for more than 70 percent of newcomers.
   The Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ), which supported the PQ officially in the last general poll,, requested Marois to amend the bill to permit Canadians from other provinces to seek political office even if they're not fluently bilingual.
   The Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN) also expressed reservations about the citizenship bill. Quebec lacks independence, CSN president Claudette Carbonneau stated, so the bill is inadmissible. La Presse columnist Lysiane Gagnon, who followed Lévesque's career in some detail, stated that "He would have stopped the current hysteria in a second. He would have revealed the xenophobic Hérouxville manifesto for what it was - paranoia from a village that has never seen an immigrant."
   Outside Quebec, several newspapers qualified the bill as "racist". Don Martin, columnist for the National Post wrote that the population should try to stop the racism taking place in Quebec. However, while the vast majority of non-francophones are opposed, it was supported by a bare majority of francophones, and poll analyst Jean-Marc Léger opined that Marois made a good political act. However, the Liberals and the Action democratique du Québec stated that they'd defeat Bill 195.
   A spokeswoman for the Quebec Human Rights Commission stated that the PQ's proposition is unconstitutional, as it contradicts Section 21 of Quebec's human rights charter. Currently, any resident of Quebec who gets Canadian citizenship automatically has the right to vote, to stand as a candidate, and to make petitions to the provincial legislature.

Slogans

These are the slogans used by the Parti Québécois in general election campaigns throughout its history. They are displayed with an unofficial translation. The elections in which the PQ won or remained in power are in bold.

1970: OUI - Yes
1973: J'ai le goût du Québec - I've a taste for Quebec
1976: On a besoin d'un vrai gouvernement - We need a real government
1981: Faut rester forts au Québec - We must remain strong in Quebec
1985: Le Québec avec Johnson - Quebec with Johnson
1989: Je prends le parti du Québec - I'm choosing Quebec's party / I'm taking Quebec's side (double meaning)
1994: L'autre façon de gouverner - The other way of governing
1998: J'ai confiance - I'm confident / I trust
2003: Restons forts - Let us remain strong
2007: Reconstruisons notre Québec - Let us rebuild our Quebec

Party leaders

René Lévesque (1968–1985; Premier 1976–1985)

Pierre-Marc Johnson (1985–1987; Premier 1985)

Guy Chevrette (1987) (interim leader)

Jacques Parizeau (1987–1996; Premier 1994–1996)

Lucien Bouchard (1996–2001; Premier 1996–2001)

Bernard Landry (2001–2005; Premier 2001–2003)

Louise Harel (2005) (interim leader)

André Boisclair (2005–2007)

François Gendron (2007) (interim leader)

Pauline Marois (2007-present)

Leadership elections

Parti Québécois leadership election, 1985

Parti Québécois leadership election, 2005

Parti Québécois leadership election, 2007

Election results

General election	# of candidates	# of seats won	% of popular vote	result
1970	108	7	23.06%	Liberal majority
1973	110	6	30.22%	Liberal majority
1976	110	71	41.37%	PQ majority
1981	122	80	49.26%	PQ majority
1985	122	23	38.69%	Liberal majority
1989	125	29	40.16%	Liberal majority
1994	125	77	44.75%	PQ majority
1998	124	76	42.87%	PQ majority
2003	125	45	33.24%	Liberal majority
2007	125	36	28.33%	Liberal minority

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