What if Quebec Had Voted For Independence?
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- čas přidán 28. 11. 2023
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Quebec. A French state in an English world. Quebec has often wished to go its own way, and it almost did in 1995. But then they didnt. So what if they had voted to leave? Probably would have caused a lot of headaches.
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Edited by: Martin Stamatov
Quebec seperating from Canada via a long diplomatic discussion without armed conflict would be a very Canadian thing to happen
Pretty much. Canada did the same when it came to England. Canada sends a letter to England, we like our freedom. England...why not lol.
Or they create another amendment to the Geneva Convention, one can never tell with Canadians.
Quebec had one of the only "pacific" revolution in the history of the world. The "quiet revolution". Where we basically kicked out the church who had way too much control over our politics and overall lives. Hence why Quebec wants to be secular in government, and the ROC keeps calling us racist for it.
Tbf it used to be way worse, the FLQ in the 70’s-90’s operated like the IRA in Northern Ireland where they kidnapped and killed several politicians and political representatives
There's no chance of armed conflict. Quebec has no militias. Its population is unarmed.
Strange fact: when Charles de Gaulle visited Canada(Quebec)in the 1960s. He said how much he supported Quebec independence “Long live a free Quebec”(this was one of the earlier independence movement)caused a diplomatic incident and had to leave.
"Vive la France, Vive le Québec Libre!"
That's all it took.
Vive le Québec libre as he said it
That’s funny: a friend of mine’s family moved from France to Quebec during the 1950s…right before de Gaulle returned to politics and inaugurated the Fifth Republic. Then they moved from Quebec to Massachusetts right after (or before?) the 1995 referendum.
Yeah it was a pretty bad gaffe
Wasn’t he struggling to keep Algeria French at the time?
As a guy raised in Quebec, boy was a shocked when I realized how the rest of Canada is so different, literal culture shock.
To someone in French Quebec, Anglo Quebec feels like a foreign country, and the rest of Anglo Canada, even more so.
Try leaving Canada…it’s strange how people are different in different places…LOL.
as someone who is born, raised and living in quebec, and have visited much of canada and the world, french canadian culture is not very different from the rest of canada, besides minor pop culture things and being bilingual.
@@1i8m wasn't the case for me lol
@@doogleticker5183 Ottawa, Toronto and London felt pretty much the same to me on a lot of points actually. I felt like I was going in another country as a Quebecer when leaving my province and no, it is not only the language.
French Canadian from Quebec here, we don't wear berets here, that's French, berets go with baguettes and wine and the Eiffel tower.
A real French Canadian would wear something like a Habs cap or beanie, or a hockey helmet or beer helmet, lumberjack jacket and a *Poutine o Bacon* with maple syrup and milk in bags.
toque*
As an anglo quebecker, it absolutely blew my mind that milk bags were inexistant outside quebec 😂😂
Using the word "beanie" threw me off lol
u forgot the most important part.... annoying af🤣🤣🤣
@@RyanPMJ4907wow
It's difficult to imagine Trudeau coming to power after Quebec leaving, the Liberal party won in part due to seats they picked up from a Quebec angry at the incumbent Conservative government. Without Quebec, the political center of gravity in the country would shift notably to the right.
Gotta thank those French for not being as bad as the states then
@@Joostmhw I mean, the Canadian conservative party would be labelled as far-Left Marxists in the US. Not hard to be better than that. X)
The Trudeau name also wouldn't have much value in a country where Pierre Trudeau's legacy of integrating Quebec was undone a few decades later under the premiership of one of his closest political allies.
Not to mention Trudeau’s seat is in Montreal, he wouldn’t be able to run for PM because his seat wouldn’t exist! He’d’ve had to move to the ROC (rest of Canada, it’s a term here) and I don’t know how successful he’d’ve been running from anywhere else.
Let's also not forget the other reason for this: JUSTIN TRUDEAU IS A QUEBECKER. If Quebec became independent, Justin Trudeau wouldn't be Canadian anymore, he'd be Quebecois.
Bérets and baguettes are french stereotypes, not québécois stereotypes. It's like representing Americans with a British stereotype.
Quebecois is more cigarettes and a habs jersey.
@@THEDOCO13yeah right we’re closer to americain than French from France
@@THEDOCO13 habs jersey and poutine.
womp womp
@@THEDOCO13more like Pepsi n May west or Labatt blue
I was born and raised in Montreal and I have a immense love for Quebec. I must admit that I felt this video represented both sides of it very well especially for someone who isn’t from Quebec. Most content on this matter usually undermines what Quebec felt at the time.
so quebec acts out of feelings instead of doing whats just or right is that what your saying? basicaly like women
@@rayrayray7494try baiting more subtly
@@rayrayray7494 Wow! Xenophobic AND misogynist!
@@rayrayray7494do you not feel any honor?
I wish Quebec did seperate. I’d love to see the have not province desperately figure out how to survive without the wests money
You missed the fact Québec did not sign the constitution to this very day, so they could technically turn their back if Canada did want to stop it.
I found it really funny he mentioned the constitution doesn't have anything about leaving when Québec didn't even sign it in the first place
You're right Québec never signed this wet rag of a constitution !!?!!
Quebec not signing the constitution doesn’t make it invalid according to the supreme court
@@ecogeilsnwaccording to the Canadian Supreme Court.
@@Daguigoz wdym?
I feel like if Quebec independence went smoothly it could have larger ramifications outside of Canada. I think Scottish independence would have much more merit if Quebec was used as a successful example.
That's what I was thinking too. I wouldn't be surprised if many nations outright refused to recognize Quebec as an independent nation due to minorities in their respective nations that want independence.
@@concept5631it would basically be only recognized by two of the five great powers.
@@Azurethewolf168 US and who?
Duh. Why do you think mass-media refuses to condemn Spain's reaction to the Catalonian referendum (instead painting Catalonian politicians as confused weirdos).
There are so so many western countries with provinces that want to split off.
@@Azurethewolf168 Of the five members of the United Nations Security Council, I can only see France recognizing Quebec just to indirectly spite the British. Who else, Russia?
As a Quebecer im not offended about this video. I'm actually surprised this was an interesting subject outside our province. Thank you !
Same.
Why would it not be interesting? Independence for Quebec would NOT just effect Quebec and Canada, it would also significantly impact the US and the rest of the world. I've always found this idea fascinating!
Bruh independent Quebec is in every other alternate history map that has Canada in it.
say something french
As someone from Ontario, I'm happy you guys didn't succeeded
Fun fact: technically, Quebec is not part of Canada as they haven’t signed the constitution. Every province agreed on the terms on the constitution, but the other provinces had a second meeting without Quebec during the night and changed the terms without the knowledge of Quebec. Double-crossed and betrayed, Quebec refused to sign. This event was called “the night of long knives”
Ok yeah, we didn’t sing the Constitution Act of 1982, but we still signed the British North America Act of 1867 which is the founding base of the Constitution Act, so it doesn’t matter, since the older one is still just as valid. The Constitution Act is just an amendment to the Constitution, not entirely a new version of it.
Well THAT's a little tidbit of melodrama I didn't need.
The "Night of Long Knives" was a purge of political opponents by Nazis in June & July of 1934.
Quebec feeling like the rest of (English speaking) Canada 'doesn't understand them' and then deciding to petulantly not play along is nowhere CLOSE to the same thing.
"La nuit des longs couteaux" à l'accord du lac Meech
@@Tsusday
Sorry friend, but they are correct:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
Fun Fact: you’re wrong from a legal standpoint. Ethically I won’t comment.
Legally Quebec joined Canada in 1867 when they were referred to as the Province of Canada (later broken into Canada West and Canada East before becoming Ontario and Quebec).
The constitution is much older than the document from 1982. The constitution goes back to the founding documents signed in 1867. Those documents only allowed for the British Parliament to change the constitution (up until 1949 when Canada gained the ability to make small changes but nothing as significant as what was signed in 1982). This means that the only party that mattered legally in terms of changing the constitution was the British Parliament. Whether Quebec signed the Canada Act of 1982 does not matter because the British Parliament passed the changes and those changes apply to all province whether they signed on or not. Zero provinces could have signed the document and it still could have passed if the British Parliament wanted it to (which at that time they were basically rubber stamping yes on all our requests).
So yes Quebec is part of Canada and yes the constitution act of 1982 and all other documents in the constitutional history of Canada dating back to 1867 apply to Quebec whether they like it or not.
As a Quebecer I enjoy to hear you trying to prononce french world
✨Qouuueeeebec✨
'Kay, Beck.
I'm guilty of saying "kwuh-bek" even though I know it should be "keh-bek".
Worth noting that the Catalonian referendum only had a 43% turnout, and the remaining percent would likely have voted to stay as much of that was protesting the referendum
Quebec’s, meanwhile, had the largest voting turnout in the provinces’ history
Agreed. I think anyone who doesn't care enough to vote in a referendum is effectively supporting the status quo. People like to tout 90% result in Catalonia but you can just as easily look at it as only 38% of registered voters voting for independence.
You'd really have to run it with an actual guarantee from the Spanish government to consider the results.
What’s ironic is if the populace was motivated enough to have a larger turnout it would have been harder for Spain to ignore the catalonian vote. When I went to Spain one theme that I was aware of was the apathy a lot of young people have towards the government and economy. I wonder if that played a role in turnout.
This is very important and overlooked by people when they hear 90% voted yes.
It's like when 93% of Puerto Rico's voters said it was time to join the United States a few years ago. Cool, but would people care when the turnout was around 15% or something like that. I could be misremembering the numbers, but people are quick to forget when the results seem irrelevant.
One thing that most of the world doesn't know is that the Constitution of Canada wasn't signed by Quebec in 1982. The Prime Ministers of all other provinces actually met behind Quebec Premier's back at the time and decided to ratify the document anyway. So the the idea that Canada would have to vote to allow Quebec to leave isn't really legitimate either.
La nuit des longs couteaux lol
@@terryvallis1436me when I spread misinformation
Privileged one? You mean being assimilated into your enemy's nation and made to abide their laws is a privilege?
@@terryvallis1436 Not true! René-Lévesque was attending and completely opened to discussion and compromise. Trudeau and the provincial premiers organized a secret meeting during the night and chose not to invite Lévesque.
@@terryvallis1436Excerpt from English Wikipedia: "At the end of this period of negotiations, René Lévesque left to sleep at Hull, a city on the other side of the Ottawa river, before leaving he asked the other premiers (who were all lodged in Ottawa) to call him if anything happened.[51] Lévesque and his people, all in Quebec, remained ignorant of the agreement until Lévesque walked into the premiers' breakfast and was told the agreement had been reached."
Regarding international acceptance of Quebec's Independamce, Parizeau had talked with France's president to have them acknlowledge the result and support Quebec's independence. So Parizeau had already planned this.
Quebec is very different from rest of Canada(by language, Culture, food, society is completely different)
The problem with the Catalonia example is that referendum only had like 30% turnout which is how Spain was able to justify going “Nuh-uh”
Yeah and the no voters didn't show up not out of laziness, but because the referendum itself was already declared illegal to hold (by both Spanish AND Catalonian courts).
@@gregoryfenn1462 You forgot to mention that in the true colonial spirit, the Spanish law simply does not allow to hold an independence referendum for a region. So one could argue that the Spanish law itself is wrong. And in fact it is correct by international law to hold a so-called "illegal" referendum so that the nation's right to self-determination could be realised.
I have never heard that an independence referendum needs to have a minimal required turnout. Please provide some sources to back this claim.
Yes that mean those who didnt turn out simply dont give a shit. Same thing with Quebec
@@bagelsecelle9308 Wrong. Anti-independence Catalonians -- who were/are the majority -- boycotted the vote because they believed with good reason it would be rigged. It's not uncommon for opposition to boycott an election to deny it legitimacy, we've seen it happen in many countries, but it's pretty rare in the West
My alternate history scenarios for future ideas
1. What if Andrew Jackson lost the 1828 presidential election?
2. What if France won the Franco Prussian war?
3. What if The Troubles escalated?
4. What if the 1933 Business Plot succeeded?
5. What if the Sino-Soviet split escalated into a war?
6. What if the Mexican American War never happened?
7. What if the 1993 World Trade C€enter b0mbing succeeded?
8. What if John F Kennedy lost the 1960 presidential election?
9. What if the Spartacist uprising succeeded?
10. What if the Mexican Revolution never happened?
What if the Soviet Union survived past 1991?
You could split it into 3 sections:
* Stalinist Route with Grigory Romanov
* Democratic route with Mikhail Gorbachev
* Dengist route with Mikhail Gorbachev at the start, but then a coup sees someone like Yazov come to power who continues with the economic reforms, but scales back his governmental reforms
You could explore what would happen with the eastern block in this timeline.
11. What if you got some bitches
@@manny022 A majority of the foundning fathers, everyone from the north and a few from the south, weren't planters. Washington didn't have the power to free his own personal slaves, much less all slaves in the country. The federal government was still young, and such an action would have simply caused southern succession.
It's worth remembering that slavery was on its way out in the 1780s. The economics just weren't making sense anymore, as the prices of indigo, rice, and tobacco dropped declined as the British Empire opened up more foreign trade. People assumed that slavery was a dying institution with only a generation left; that's why the constitution allows the federal government to regulate the slave trade 20 years after ratification. It was figured that slavery could be ended by then.
All of that changed when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. It made chattel slavery more profitable than ever, thus the causing the south to dig its heels in on the issue.
@@thehardwallbreaker3134If the USSR survived it'll go one of three ways. Either it's a poor military state like North Korea, a diverse economy like China, or just a bigger resource economy like Russia is today.
Even if everything went perfectly, it'll maybe be a top 4 economy and the only way it could even try to rival the US is through rebuilding it's relationships with China and other growing nations. So basically what we already have today, but more tense.
+ What if the US Senate ratified the annexation of Santo Domingo during the Grant administration?
Not only we didn't signed the constitution (Google: Kitchen accord, AKA La nuit des longs couteaux), but I'm very happy to see that people in the comment don't do Quebec Bashing.
Lol i checked comments for this reason, i'm tired of getting discriminated for being quebecois.
you didn't sign the 1982 act, you did sign the 1867 act.
8:51 ever heard of the October crisis of 1970? This independence movement started way before 1995. And the FLQ (Front de libération du Québec) were so disruptive that martial law had to be declared. A few people were even killed... and many more injured.
Obviously not an all out civil war, but to say they were completely pacific is a major understatement.
The response to the so-called October "crisis" was completely and utterly overblown and Trudeau used it as a pretext to try to crush the independence movement in Québec by any means. Behind the scenes, his deputies misrepresented the situation and eventually got Robert Bourassa and Jean Drapeau to send formal requests to Trudeau asking him to intervene. Without the War Measures Act, the municipal police, the provincial police as well as the Mounties had all the powers they needed to continue their pursuit of the hard-line FLQ cells responsible for the kidnappings. The FLQ members were not very smart and would eventually have made a fatal mistake. After the declaraion of Martial Law, about 500 people were arrested without warrant and were held in communicado. Artists, writers, public figures, all sorts of law-abiding individuals were rounded up, just the scare tactic Trudeau wanted. In the end, way fewer than 10 people were ever charged. (The father of a good friend of mine was a lawyer and he went to see one of his clients held unlawfully in prison. This _lawyer_ was held in the same prison overnight by the police without justification. This lawyer was no firebrand and later in his career he became a provincial magistrate).
So, stop spreading your English Canada one-sided bullshit interpretation of Québec history.
Reference:
Insurrection appréhendée: le grand mensonge d'octobre 1970
Jean-François Lisée
www.leslibraires.ca/livres/insurrection-apprehendee-le-grand-mensonge-d-jean-francois-lisee-9782895904052.html
The only time the measure of war was called was for that, and it was against our own popuplation, against french canadian wanting to be reckonized
@@sotch2271 Honnêtement je ne m'y connais pas trop à ce sujet. Tout ce que j'ai appris provient de mon prof d'histoire de secondaire 3 qui était un Québécois extrêmement anti-souverainiste. Typique d'un bourgeois d'Outremont lol.
C'était l'année des carrés rouges et j'me souviens qu'il avait fait enlever le carré rouge à un élève qui le portait. Le seul élève qui le portait en fait.
When dust settle: trials or deportation for FLQ members there was only 12 people in that group
Well, Spain didn't exactly ignore the Catalonian referendum. They declared it illegal and filed charges against the main people organizing it. They just had a kerfuffle over an amnesty deal for the people that have been in exile in Belgium over it since then.
Videos like this really hit home that we Canadians really do not matter to anyone in the grand scheme of things. I thought of writing out 6 or so comments with small corrections to some things that were said or clarifying things but I stop short everytime and ask "wait, nobody gives a crap about the complexities of Canadian politics!"
We have a massive economy but the world could really care less about Canada, we're America-lite in just about every sense, except for Quebecers, all of which are the ones who felt the need to point out that "Actually Quebec never signed confederation anyways."
Finally someone who has an idea what he's talking about or simply not doing Quebec bashing.
As a Canadian, I was actually surprised how thorough this was. Usually when Americans make videos about Canada, they clearly don’t do their research and miss a ton of stuff. But I was surprised at just how well informed you were in putting this together.
Technically, Quebec is allowed to leave in Canadian law per the Secession Reference Supreme Court Case, but it can only happen after a good faith dialogue where no reasonable compromise can be reached. At least that’s what I remember the Court saying.
Not exactly it stated that they could not do it unilaterally or through self determination alone, but need the agreement of the country as a whole either through a nationwide referendum or through negotiations with the Federal government. There actually is no recourse according to the courts if "no reasonable compromise can be reached" in the negotiations.
Yep, and the question at the time was not really a good-faith question either, as it was very ambiguously worded - it literally asked if the voter supported a mandate for the Quebec nationalists to enter into negotiations with the rest of Canada to reconcile the constitutional differences and to support separation should no agreement be reached. The nationalists wanted to a very short period of dialog followed by a swift exit, while more moderate nationalists tried to sell the idea that it was just a mandate to negotiate and that real separation would have had another discrete leave/stay vote beforehand. Worse, what Parizeau said to English-speaking Quebec and what he said to French-speaking Quebec differed significantly - which was in part a backfire, since many Anglophones (and Francophones) are sufficiently bilingual to catch his speaking out both sides of his mouth. Lucien Bouchard was by far more direct and explicit, but also a much better quality diplomat (former Foreign Affairs minister) and politician in his strategic choice of words.
Yeah but that ruling only came out in 1998. It would probably not even exist in an alternate world where the Yes side won in 1995.
Two avenues would present themselves:
1- There are negociations and they come to an agreement and Canada recognizes Québec as a new Country.
2- The negociations fail and Québec tries the diplomatic route, having no other legal option. Therefore it unilaterally declares its independance and tries to have either France, the US or another influencial country to recognize them.
Any province leaving Canada would require a constitutional amendment and an open dialogue with every province. I'd assume the only province who wouldn't have a problem with them leaving (because it would open the door for them leaving) would probably be Alberta
After the 1995 referendum, the Parliament of Canada passed the Clarity Act which states that provinces do have the right to leave if the majority wants it.
That majority is also defined as 60%.
That particular detail is important.
Didn't know that, interesting!
The Clarity Act didn't recognize that provinces have the right to leave on a majority vote; the Supreme Court decided that in 1998-with the proviso that it is done in negotiations with the federal government and the other provinces. What the Clarity Act-which was passed in 2000, not 1995-said was that the federal government had a direct interest in the wording of any question on the matter of the secession of any province (e.g., Quebec) and that in order to be bound to negotiation on such a matter, it had the right to insist on *_a clear question being asked..._* (hence, "clarity"). To wit, something like "Do you want Quebec to be an independent country; yes or no?" If you go back and look at the twisted, convoluted questions the Parti Quebecois put on the ballots in 1980 and 1995, questions that oblige the federal government in ways it never agreed to, you'll see why.
@@AChapstickOrange You're inncorrect about the Supreme Court's 1998 ruling. They only defined a legal framework for evaluating the legality of a province leaving. Part of the ruling was that it had to involve constitutional amendments, and negotiation/consent from both the federal and provincial governments and said that a province leaving unilateral would be unconstitutional.
@@ChaoticAphrodite nice argument, now how about you back it up with a source.
If Quebec had voted for independence, it would be much richer because it wouldn't have English Canada working against it anymore.
First, it would behave like all the other normal transit countries of the world by imposing transit fees, both ways, on all foreign vehicles crossing its strategic territory (cars, buses, trucks, trains, boats, pipelines, etc.) Every transit country of the world does that: Panama, Egypt, all the countries with foreign pipelines, etc.
Second, English Canada and its Supreme Court couldn't force Quebec to give 20%+ of its taxes to its English minority which, with only 7.5% of the population, controls 3 universities, six large colleges, half of the hospitals on the Island of Montreal, 30%+ of its economy, etc. (In an independent Quebec, the Montreal Anglophones would receive 7.5% of the budgets.)
Third, French would be the real official language of Quebec and would assimilate all its immigrants. That would save a lot of money.
Fourth, Montreal would slowly replace Toronto as the financial hub of Quebec. (All financial institutions have been artificially transfered to Toronto in the last decades). N.B. In USA, the largest financial and industrial companies are moving towards the Atlantic coast (because of the globalization) while, in Canada, those industries are moving towards the interior of the continent. And this is despite the fact that the US and the Canadian economies are largely integrated!!! Why is it like that, hein?
Fifth, Quebec would have hundreds of embassies and consulates on its territory and would be able to defend its interests all over the world.
Etc. etc.
I forgot: stop dreaming that a tiny little military power like English Canada could have won a long and painful war on Quebec territory, which is a transit country. This is ridiculous. You are no longer the British Empire and we are no longer 60,000 like in 1760...
sure buddy. whatever you say
@@SuperMaxf1 Thank you for your support. It's rare that people listen till the end truths they never heard before.
Quebec would be a 3rd world country without Alberta
@@DoubleCrack You must be kidding! You clearly didn't read my commentary. English Canada has always been mean with Quebec. You always discriminated against us. That's why we have been poor for 250 years. We were rich before the invasion of 1760.
For instance, an independent Quebec would be rich because it would do what all the other transit countries of the world are doing (Panama, Egypt, etc.); we would tax all the crossing of our territory, both ways, by all your cars, trucks, buses, trains, boats, planes, pipelines, etc.
@@DoubleCrack You cannot be saying that, we give billions to your oil companies in Alberta so you can get rich of our work, this is insane
Quebec is an amazing place. And yes, they are a different country in general. Once you have been there, you understand how different it is from Ontario. I love Quebec, and will continue to return. They get a bad rap, as Americans think they aren't freiendly to them. The reality is that I find them very friendly, especially if you at least make an attempt to speak French. (I speak like a ten year old at best)
And the food....wow. I highly recommend visiting Quebec City, one of the jewels of North America. Don't miss the rest of this amazing Provence.
From my experience, i worked in Quebec at a small restaurant near the Ontario border, so i got English speaking customers all the time. And when they tried speaking French even if it wasn’t always perfect the fact that they tried was enough to lighten my day! I also got to practice my English speaking skills with them lol
And most of the Americans that came to the restaurant were truckers lol. They were always super nice!
So… I need to speak French to be treated as a person? How hospitable!
@@mx2000 Well, going to the US and expecting everyone to speak to you in perfect french isn't realistic nor is it respectful. It's the same thing.
It's an important detail to the Catalonia story that the anti-independence people largely boycotted the referendum.
Yeah, it only had a 43% turnout
You can safely assume the other 57% did not want it, specially considering the referendum was illegal and supposed to be non-binding
One more proof that BOYCOTTS DON’T WORK
Why did they do that?
god i hate whenever people boycott referendums, its so lame just let the vote decided stop being a p*ssy about it
@@heisenbachofficial9437 because the referendum was illegal and basically a stunt pulled by the seperatists. If a vote is illegal, executed by someone with a vested interest in a particular outcome, and without any oversight to prevent meddling, wouldn't you also stay home to further lessen it's impact?
I think that it's very impressing how quebec handled this. When the votes came out, a bunch of countries like France were shocked that there wasn't a civil war due to the results. You need to know that first of all, the constitution was signed behind the back of quebec. Second of all, some of the votes were ignored for reasons they did not explain. Third of all, and this is more recent research, the prime minister brought in a bunch of immigrants last minute and made the immigration process for them way faster so that they would vote no. This might be confusing, but his strategy was that the new immigrants in quebec would feel more attached to canada, the country that just accepted them, instead of quebec, simply the province they were put into. And though it was really simple, it worked, a lot of them voted no. Fourth of all, the percentage of votes was really close. So with all of these points, it was very shocking that quebec had minimal violence and there was no civil war. Though still i have to say that after this event, there was an incredible cold between Canada and Quebec.
the thing is that the rights of the people of Québec were being amended before and followed after the referendum, the biggest problems were actually corrected and Canada was now listening to that part of the population.
If they simply ignored, or walked back, on those things, then there would have been a lot more problems with the Québécois and might have turned violent.
@@Mishotaki That is a great point, i agree with that. I also think that in general, Canada and Québec didn't want for a civil war to start so Quebec and Canada tried to calm down after the votes. There are many things that helped for Québec to not get violent and i'm just happy that it ended up not being violent.
Yes of course very different from the killing carried out by an Anglos after a simple re-election of the Parti Québécois led by the first woman to the post of prime minister in Qc
Let's be real, it was rigged.
Oh poor crybaby Quebecers and their woe is me I am the perpetual victim in this country propaganda
For your information, Quebec never signed the constitution
Am from Québec and i wish we where a contry we dont realy like canadian trying to kill our french culture
9:00 I think whether or not the countries of the world would have recognized Quebec would have been mostly dependent on whether Canada recognized Quebec. If the country the minority secedes from is okay with it, they would most likely go "Sure, why not, but don't expect me to do the same!"
Also, Jacques Parizeau had secretly made a deal with France that if the referendum passed, France would immediately recognize Quebec, so that's that.
He was working on a deal with the US too, leveraging his deal with France to gain US commitment as they would not want to be left behind.
Let's not forget La Francophone (which is the French equivalent to the Commonwealth); those are a lot of countries which would have made great initial trade prospects for an independent Quebec.
and France was told by the usa the uk canada to not do this, the assumption that france would make any declaration is crazy most nations would see it as a threat to them. if quebec votes yes in 95 it would have been an instant economic collapse after all they still wanted to use the canadian dollar and use the canadian passport. the blowback from the rest of canada and through extention the usa and uk. it would have gone like this quebec: "we want to seperate" Canada: "okay" revokes passports and stop transfer payments from ottawa Quebec: "Umm we still want to seperate" Canada: "okay" All international and multinational companies leave quebec economy collapses people lose jobs and life savings Quebec: "we still want to...hello?" Canada:... Crickets Quebec: "no one from ottawa will take our calls" Quebec people to the seperatists: "You said we could seperate from canada and keep everything we had before" Seperatists: "We will just as soon as the canadian government will meet with us" meanwhile somewhere in ottawa "So liberals after we lose our 20 seats in quebec we will still have a majority government" "Hey reform party how about we pass a law saying quebec cant seperate and inturn we will give the west more voting power in parliment" Reform: "YES!" law passed back in quebec city seperatists: "we cant get canada to negotiate and the new law might make our referendum void" Quebecois: "so lemme get this right you said we could leave we voted to leave our economy collapsed we lost formal travel documents 2 million non french professionals leave we cant get access to basic services and those power stations that we built might lose access to the grid" seperatists: "it appears so" Quebecois: "we want a new vote"
@@JFrehley That entire argument is refuted by the fact that France and the most of the Francophonie openly supported Québec’s independence. “Vive le Québec Libre” was said by the president of France.
Also, considering the fact that Québec is a large part of Canada’s GDP, and one of it’s biggest accès to international trade by the sea, they would not intentionally tank Québec’s economy, because that would mean tanking it’s own in the process.
Seems you are just ignorant, so I won’t hold it against you, but try to be better
@@Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmiam what you dont understand is it wouldnt happen quebec has more to lose of course canada would suffer thats obvious and in the case of quebec independance inevitable why wouldnt you tank quebecs economy also they take more from the federal system than they pay in quebec would lose services lastly there is no means of opting out of the confederation no framework where the federal government wouldnt have to agree it wouldnt happen
Ontarian with french Quebec heritage. My knowledge about the reasons why Quebec wanted to split off is a little skewed and incomplete but from what I've been told from family a lot of it had to do with unequal treatment due to the majority English speakers in government. For a long time many of the better paying jobs in Quebec were given to English speakers, even if the majority population only spoke french. And in Ontario the government tried to outright ban french education in 1912. There's probably a lot of influencing factors like religion and culture but the active attempts to suppress the usage of french for the longest time probably has something to do with it.
Québécoise
You kinda have the gist of it, from what we've been teached here, it is definitely because of how french Canadians were treated since day one. French colonizers put in place a lot of things that were seen as inferior from the English, they thought our way to divise the land was dumb and old, our language inferior and our religion more of the same. When they enforced the "English ways" the Quebecois fought back, so instead of being completely banned from speaking French, they made it "inconvenient" to do so by giving Better opportunities to English speaking people, they tried taking away all of the priests but ended up settling to keep one in hopes that by the time he died people would naturally convert, but obviously they just demanded another one. The french Canadians were poorer and poorer and the English richer and richer. In the end those actions made Quebec VERY protective over the french language, creating the law 101 (i'm an immigrant, we were prohibited to speak anything other than french in the school property) and older Quebecois are still very insistent outsider at least trying to speak french before shifting to english. (Wich also leads to racism but that's another conversation)
@@shireri452that language prohibition in schools has entered Ontario too. Throughout my entire elementary schooling it was prohibited to speak English even during recess
It's interesting seeing the opposite happening now. Legault banning everything English. There will be a brain leak of what he is trying to do with universities goes through.
Most of our prime ministers have been from Quebec tho lol
Now the English institutions are being underfunded, slowly legislated out of existence, being used as an excuse to implement irrational language laws, and the fracturing of our small community, for the sake of these french supremacists. My family has lived here for 4 generations, yet our rights are being slowly, but surely diminished. No federal politician is saying anything in fear of not getting voted in. They need Quebec in order to win elections. If they keep this up, eventually, our small community (10% of Quebec), will cease to exist. I wouldn't mind Quebec separating from Canada, but the English community here needs some guarantees that you will not legislate against our rights in the name of "protecting french." Nobody's going to take your language from you. French is the majority we all know that.
Quebecois here. I learned about this topic in-depth from my family and school, but there are still some things that I did not know that you talked about in your video, it was very interesting! What I find funny is how you used french stereotypes to depict us, which is wrong, obvisouly, the cap you used on the canadian is actually more representative to us, but I understand the confusion about our culture, it's very different from both Canada and France, which is why we have this whole identity crisis to begin with! Even if the separatist movement is getting slower and slower because of the economy and immigration, the fact still remains that "quebec-bashing" is a real term and happens very often online, which creates a lot more frustrations, and from the outside can make us look like we're angry at nothing.
I'm a Canuck born in Québec, lived in six provinces, three countries, and now live in France. There would be no Canada without Québec and no Québec without the rest of Canada. It's a stale topic.
Here's my advice: grow a thick skin, ignore idiots, and be happy.
stop representing us with a beret and a baguette
It is every American’s duty to at least consider annexing Canada once in their lifetimes. But annexing two provinces somewhere in the Midwest of Canada is just wrong. That poor map.
It would be the ugliest timeline ever for the map of North America.
Idk what you're talking about. It would be hysterical.
You tried that in 1812...🙄
And LOST 😏
No thanks, I don't want more left wing voters joining. Alberta wouldn't be so bad though
Wouldn't go the way they think it would; albertans make a big stink about how conservative they are, but their policies are far closer to the Dems than to the Republicans, and the Albertan cities are practically NDP strongholds these days. America is not remotely prepared for a socialist party as effective as the New Democrats; they make the DSA look like amateur children.
I was 12 years old and living in Western Canada during the referendum. I didn't realise how close and intense things got for some people.
As an Anglo who lived through it in Montreal....it was not fun to say the least.
Thank you for this video, we need more recognition! Vive le Québec libre! ⚜
If you’re gonna give us a beret and a baguette you should give the rest of Canada British stuff like plain toast or something to even it out
Or a top hat and a monocle
This is why Canadians don’t like you
@@happyjoe613then its a pretty idiotic reason, isnt it ? THIS is why Québecois dislike being in Canada.
one thing for sure is that I can definitely see France and Belgium and other French speaking nations immediately recognize Quebec upon independence. Also that map you showed at the end with Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec as part of the US, I personally don't see Quebec ever wanting to join a majority English-speaking nation just after leaving another, like that wouldn't make any sense. Also I can see Quebec being stuck in political limbo for way longer than you predicted, knowing Canadian politics it could take decades
In the 70’s Flemish and Quebecois politicians openly courted each other and Flemish separatists loved Lucien Bouchard’s rhetoric around the time of the referendum. Go ask Belgium’s socialist-voting French-speakers how they feel about separatist movements and being cut off from that sweet cash flowing from Flanders.
You're a brave man calling Belgium a French-speaking nation. The majority of Belgians speak (Southern) Dutch/Flemish. Not even all Walloons speak French, German is an official language. It's kind of a thing here.
@@seamonster936The money used to flow the other way. There's usually more to seperatism, though it can be exaggerated terribly.
That being said, I concur that nationalism/seperatism creates a stronger political bond than a language.
Back during the referendum France was very open that they would not recognize the results and wanted nothing to do with an independent Quebec.
@@FakeSchrodingersCat this is hilarious considering De Gaulle is partially responsible for starting the whole mess in the first place
8:44 it's really funny you mention that. my parents immigrated to Canada in 1995 after fleeing Bosnia during the war. and they were actually terrified of the referendum going through because they thought a similar thing that happened in Bosnia would happen in Canada
Yes the immigrants where ignored by the Oui camp, what a mistake... maybe more some woulda vote for us ?
@@simongloutnez589 well my parents also lived in Vancouver and not Quebec. Though if they had the choice to vote it would've been then option that wouldn't lead to a civil war
@@themanwiththegoldengooch9811 I feel that is an option that most people share coast to coast 😅 and I'm glad thats the case
@@simongloutnez589 That's the imperialist option. There wouldn't be civil war, it's just getting what others have already.
@@themanwiththegoldengooch9811 What civil war? Québec is not the balkans, it'd be a peaceful one, very much against violence, hence why the FLQ never went further than fringe-level.
I'm surprised by the blatant omissions and lack of understanding about Quebec in this video.
I love seeing my province mentioned in videos!
So, a few notes: Lucien Bouchard wasn't a Premier yet he was a federal MP, Parizeau was the provincial Premier at the time, Mario Dumond was a kid with little impact. The Bloc Québécois was a federal party (founded by Bouchard) with no direct role in the issue, the Parti Québécois is the actual provincial party that presented the referendum. Amending the Constitution in such a manner would not require a majority of the provinces: it would require ALL of them. This was all settled when the question was brought in front of the supreme court in a 1998 ruling confirming that the Federal government would be forced to negociate an honest exit with Québec.
Exactement!
Although it was pretty clear that Parizeau was not exactly going to ask the other provinces for permission. I don’t think it would have mattered in the end - something would have been negotiated.
Avec une question plus claire que celle de 1995 !
Indeed, Lucien Bouchard did eventually become Premier when he left the federal representation of the Bloc Québécois to replace Parizeau as the leader of the provincial Parti Québécois. But for an outsider, that can be confusing, an entirely excusable mistake.
@@maxlarivee3663 I laugh when I heard Mario Dumont. A couple mistakes this early in the video and the absence of counterweights to the 50,000 votes (like excessive federal spending, accelerated citizenship etc.) could lead viewers away as it doesn't look serious yet, what follows is interesting. There's an eternal ban on the Grenier commission that the actual provincial government and oppositions (but Liberals, of course) voted to undo but the DGE is still upholding it, preventing light on what happened in 1995.
Important note: over 95% of Canadian maple syrup is made in Quebec. That fact would make things pretty complicated
Well Canada could finally get their own culture instead of appropriating everything quebec has. The national anthem, the name Canada, Tuques, poutine... they don't really have anything else.
@@SgtLogOfWood Perfectly on brand for you to claim shit like Toques as Quebecois even though they were invented long before Quebec and far away from it. Wonderful example of Quebecois nationalism. No notes. The only better expression of QC nationalism is when something has Canada/Canadian in the name and you guys change it to Quebec for some reason. Like Pizza with Pepperoni, Bacon and Mushrooms, which you have inexplicably named Quebec Pizza.
@hellssatansfc I'm not saying the concept itself, but the word Tuque. And I've never heard of Québec Pizza so pick an exemple that's more applicable to our national identity next time.
@SgtLogOfWood the word isn't Quebecois either. It's a French loan word from Spanish, which is itself a loan word from Arabic.
@@hellssatansfcThat’s projecting! Tha national anthem is from Quebec. The name Canada is the true name of the French nation in North-America. Before there were Canadiens and Anglos, but in the sixties that definition disappeared. In the ROC, of course, the inhabitants called themselves Canadians since 1867 at least.
You could make the argument Quebec isn’t the only “French” province. New Brunswick actually tries to do the bilingualism thing with a degree of sincerity. The rest of the provinces don’t, and I would know, Canadian born and raised
Yep. Newfoundlander here. Our French education is garbage.
Newfoundlander here in 9th grade my French teacher does not know any French and just puts on movies
@rileypower5779 Ours taught us words, but no real conversational. I didn't do French in high school since the learning curve was far higher than then.
Ontario 'tries' in the cities but not outside of them
Saint-Boniface in Winnipeg is a French quarter with a francophone university. In fact, there's a lot of francophone culture in the south of Manitoba. the Métis are also an integral part of Manitoban history. Is the public education of French in anglophone schools great? Not particularly.
There are sections of northern Ontario that are completely francophone.
Please be more thorough in your research.
Hearing Cody just break character because of laughing is just a nice treat
12:56 I love how you animated Quebec to just waddle on out of there
3:39 This is a bit different as the referendum was vetoed by the opposition, so there was only a 43% turnout, making the 90% figure misleading. Whereas the Quebec vote with 51% had a 93% turnout, making it much more legitimate if it had been successful. (Not that Spain probably would've accepted it if the turnout was that high)
Since that referendum spain has gone completly downhill.
Spain has a problem, basques (basque country, navarre and trebiño) and catalonia are the only reason why spain is considered a power in eu economically but the amount autonomy they have mixed with heavy nationalism makes it imposible for the country to move forward since they always are kingmakers after elections.
@@jonC1208yeah Spain just keeps going down in a bottomless hole of economic decline and national chaos
Was going to say, didn't the opposition boycott it?
@@whitezombie10 spain needs to do something because you cant deny a ethnic group the right to choose while calling them a nationality but not recognizating them as separate to spanish.
Basque are keot as a defacto vassal state since it was imposibke to control them and catalonia has been plundered until the just got fed up and began creating more chaos, and while basque where 3 million max catalans are 7.5 millions and combined ina 48 million country can basically held all the nation hostage and demand the catalans 15 Billion euris, separate trains, amnesty for the referendum leaders plus discussions for a referendum with an international mediator while basques got the independent trains, an independent social security sistem and niw are discussing the recognition of basques as a different people, also adding galician and canarian regionalist movements makes the spanush pm live REALLY complicated
@@jonC1208 Most Catalans identify as Spanish too. They are not "separate to Spanish". Your ideas on this issue are very simplistic.
Fun fact during the referendum, part of the fighter jet fleet that was based in Quebec was flown to other provinces, so they couldn't be a bargaining chip if it passed.
o_0
Ha ha a few outdated and worn out F18s as a bargaining chip?Sad!
Count on Canada to doublecross Quebec any which way it can. Business as usual.
@@bp2352 do you know how much is a f18😂 you are a clown if tou think it’s cheap
@@lucasviens2713 What generation are they ? How many does Canada have. ? The strongest part of the Canadian Airforce is the Snowbirds. Just like B.C Ferries has more ships than the Canadian Navy. Two diesel subs? Yes our F-18 are a POS. A clown ??sure call me that… but don’t sit there defending a military that won’t step up to the government to get them to spend money on new equipment that our military personnel desperately needs.
You must be Liberal Québécois eh?
WE EAT POUTINE NOT FUCKING BAGUETTES
Le Québec n'a jamais signé la constitution.
3:38 A major difference between Canada and Spain is that Spain had declared Catalonia's referendum illegal before it even happened. That contributed to the inflated pourcentage: only the most ardent and militant separatists actually went to vote. But in Canada, the federal government went along with it, heavily sponsoring the No camp, making political promises in exchange for a No result. Québec had also secured the public backing and support of other countries (mostly french-speaking countries) like France. Catalonian independance's international support was limited to other regions hoping to become independant, like Québec and Scotland.
But your speculations of the result is very accurate. Québec's independance was mostly cultural (although not entirely void of typical political or economical reasons such as wanted to decide how its taxmoney is spent). They would likely keep borders entirely opened and keep everything as as-was as possible. Heck, if I remember right, creating a separate currency wasn't even in the plan, instead intending to continue using the Canadian dollar to keep things simple.
So 43% of Catalans are ardent and militant? That says a lot right there.
I’m guessing our forebears would consider this form of “revolution” quite humorous and yet incredibly civilized.
I love how lighthearted this video is. Hearing Cody’s laugh is a nice change. I hope to see some more joking in videos in the future
I truly think that if Québec were to leave, other provinces would want their own sovereignty too and the Canadian federation we know today would re-emerge as a european union type trade bloc.
The first part genuinely felt like the story of the kurds. Under occupation by 4 different countries without getting a say in any of it.
Edit: Oh wow, he actually mentioned the Kurds. Did not see that coming 😂
What if the coalition made Iraqi Kurdistan independent
Careful, now all the Turkish nationalists will be flooding the replies.
Kurds deserve more sovereignty than the so-called "Palestinians". They're actually an ethnic group.
The difference is that the Kurds don't deserve what's happening to them, while the Quebeckers absolutely do.
@@lordedmundblackadder9321 why?
I'm curious.
I can imagine France trying to pull Quebec into its sphere of influence, starting with allowing them to join the Francophonie, then making various economic ties, then allowing French bases on Quebecer soil and Quebec electing various pro-French presidents. Maybe they'll end up seeing themselves as brotherly allies a bit like the US and the UK.
Seeing how France is part of the European Union, having very close ties between France and Quebec could lead to Québécois membership within the EU…
@@NorseGraphic Quebec is not even in Europe and is quit far away from it
@@Punker85_CZcamsFrench Guyana actually is😅
Québec is already part of the Francophonie. Yes really, even if we're not independent. And I don't mean we're an observer state or anything, we're just a full member. So is New-Brunswick for that matter.
Also louisiana is an observer state and has applied to become a full member of the francophonie
A few months ago I was on instagram and I saw this dude cooking meals from across the world, and in one video he was making food from Canada and he made poutine. The comments were flooded with angry Quebecois saying "It's funny how he said he was gonna make Canadian food but made a dish from Quebec"
To all the people saying “Quebec didn’t even sign the constitution so the constitution does not apply to Quebec and they are technically not part of Canada,” you are wrong.
The constitution is composed of the Constitution Act of 1982 (which yes Quebec didn’t sign but they didn’t need to sign it for it to be valid), the Constitution Act of 1867 (British North American Act) and all other BNA and other amendments. Quebec was an original member of the 1867 constitution when Ontario and Quebec were one under the Province of Canada so yes Quebec is part of Canada legally and have been since 1867.
Up until 1982, Canada had very limited capability to amend there constitution and had to request constitutional amendments from the British Parliament. What this means is that the only party that needed to approve the constitutional amendment of 1982 was the British Parliament. Quebec not signing the document does not matter because Canada did not require there authority to do so. They only needed the British Parliament to approve the constitutional change which they did. This constitutional change bound all provinces to the amendments whether they signed or not.
I am not arguing if this fair or not. I am just stating a fact that the 1982 constitution did not require Quebec’s signature or the signature of any province in general for it to be valid and applicable to all provinces. The 1982 constitution could have had zero province’s signing off on it and it could still have passed. The only authority that mattered from a legal standpoint for 1982 constitutional amendment was the British Parliament.
Ooh the irony... Meech and Charlestown means nothing then ?
@@JoeBine77 from legal standpoint, yes they mean absolutely nothing because they didn’t go through. Did you even read my comment? As I stated I am not arguing if it was fair or not, only that Quebec is legally bound by the 1982 constitutional amendment. The only party with power to change the constitution to that significant of a degree in 1982 was the British Parliament. They enacted the 1982 constitutional change which legally bound all provinces whether they signed or not. As I stated, zero provinces could have signed the agreement and if the British Parliament passed it anyways, all provinces would have been bound by the 1982 constitutional amendment.
An argument you really seem to have missed concerning the legality of independence and the Canadian constitution is that Québec never signed the current Canadian constitution anyway. Since he technically only needed two-thirds of the provinces to sign the constitution to change it, Pierre Elliot Trudeau (Justin's father) held a meeting with all the premiers from all the provinces except Québec in 1981 to change the constitution to add things in the constitution that Québec really didn't approve of in what is often called in Québec the Night of Long Knives and the Kitchen Accord in the rest of Canada.
This is why every independentist leader since then have said that the legality of Québec independence regarding the Canadian constitution doesn't matter because Québec is not bound by the Canadian constitution anyway since we never signed it. And, believe it or not, there is now legal precedents saying that that argument works. The same argument was used by Québec lawmakers regarding a law in Québec called Law 21 which the rest of Canada said was unconstitutional but the Canadian supreme court actually sided with Québec's argument that the constitution just doesn't apply to us.
And by the way, I'm not an independantist but the question of the legality of the referendum has never been a problem. Canada doesn't have the political capital to stop independence if a clear majority of Québecois want it. But the thing is, there never was a clear majority of Québécois who wanted it.
There was never indeed a clear majority that wanted it, and in big parts, that was due to the part which Cody mentioned about all those independence leaders having a different idea of what it meant. You can't easily win people over with an unclear goal.
A clear goal in mind…
@@Za11oy the support for sovereignty peaked in 1994 at 60% according to the surveys at the time but it was not put into effect because that the leading party in Quebec was not separatist.
never signed the constitution, but happy to abuse the charter and S.33 since it was signed!
'Night of the long knives' is the most hilarious over dramatization of what happened ever. Everyone went to bed, the premiers that had to wait to talk to their provinces did so, and then signed. Quebec went back to their side of the river and hotel after not signing and everyone else did. Never mind the PM and AG were both from Quebec.
@@Tarathiel123 Of course we're using the Charter. We signed it. As you said yourself. So we're bound by it. Do you not realize that you're contradicting your own point by bringing the Charter into this? Or do you just not care because you want to mindlessly bash Québec regardless of how little sense it makes?
One thing you don't mention is how much a free Quebec would be a big deal for France. France would see Quebec as their most important ally inside Nato, and a way to counterbalance the US/UK leadership on western world. For exemple, if Quebec was already independent by 2003, France would do EVERYTHING so that Quebec do like them and don't go to war in Iraq.
I mean Canada had a Quebecers prime minister and he also told the US to get lost. Then Stephen Harper wrote a letter apologizing about Canada not being part of the war in Iraq lol.
That's provided Quebec wanted to join NATO _and_ their application was accepted by all the other member countries, including Canada.
New nato members are prohibited outside europe
Seems a bit of a stretch, Quebec is what 9 million people. With only commonality being a shared language. If you follow Frances white paper on defence and how they see nato it doesn't really align with what an independent Quebec would want. Far from a counter balance it would likely just cause the same kind of diplomatic fragmentation we saw post British Secession from Europe,
That's really interesting considering the French today see French speaking Canadians as prude degenerates speaking in old aristocratic french, instead of being heard as fancy, it's heard as trashy now.
Hey! You know, it's pretty much considered. Right know, the leading party in polls is the Parti Québécois.
I was one of those Albertans who supported Quebec independence if they voted for it. It would have dramatically swung political power to the right and given Western Canada a voice in Canadian governance. But after the referendum it was revealed that half of those who voted Yes were voting this way on the belief they would remain Canadians. Yes, the referendum was presented to the Quebecois as "Sovereignty - Association" where after a Yes vote some sort of a working relationship with Canada would continue. This video doesn't discuss this important distinction at all.
Today's Fact: In 2021, a team of researchers successfully grew human liver tissue inside of a pig, a major step forward for organ transplantation research.
Nice
Random but nice
Why
@henrywilson2136 probably a bot or a cloat chaser
You popped up out of nowhere and in several comment sections the top comment.
I know one outcome of Québec splitting from the rest of Canada. We’d never win another gold medal at the Winter Olympic ever again. Every time I turned on the tv it was like Jacques de Quebecois winning the gold.
🤣
LMFAO
Vive le Québec libre !! ⚜️⚜️⚜️
Haha I wasn’t sure at first, but I like your take on the question.
I live in Alberta, and to be honest, if Quebec left then I think much of the animosity fueling the separatist forces in the West would fall apart. If the Constitution was reopened to negotiation, and Quebec was no longer a factor in decisionmaking, then perhaps Western Canada and Ontario would compromise to achieve a better balance of power between East and West.
The french requirements in the federal government and outsized power is a major part of why people from the west tell me they don't like the system. So without quebec those requirements go away and power shifts a bit more to the west.
Totally agree. As someone who lives outside of Quebec, I would happily vote “yes” to allow them to leave. Then Ottawa wouldn’t be so fixated on Quebec appeasement and relations between the remaining provinces would improve
It could also go the either way with almost exclusively pandering to Alberta and/or BC that left everyone else dissatisfied. I live in Manitoba and can attest most people here DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT OIL PIPELINES. Or oil in general.
@@Eosinophyllis absolutely agree. Ideally it would be a more balanced situation across the provinces and territories, so everyone's priorities would be addressed. But we don't live in an ideal world, so yeah it could just be BC/Ontario prioritized over everyone else.
@@TheCoolCucumberWhat does Quebec do to prop up the Canadian economy?
I think you are correct that it would in the long run lead to problems in Canadian federalism. Ontario is already the dominant province economically and politically and without the ballast of Quebec, that trend would only likely increase. Over time I wouldn't be surprised to see resentment build and have people looking to the Quebec example as a way to 'free' themselves from the political and economic domination of Ontario.
As someone from Ontario who does not live in Toronto.... there is resentment inside Ontario already. I can see Ontario getting cut into 3 provinces.... easily. Draw a line between Hamilton and Brantford... carve it north until you hit???just east of Collingwood. from that N-S border... cut underneath Barrie and ALL 3 of the lakes on the way to Lake Ontario.... Lakes Simcoe, Scugog, and Rice Lake. after Rice Lake, cut down to Lake Ontario somewhere east of Cobourg. DONE!
The Province of York. Holding Toronto and all that stuff.
The Province of Hudson (?)/ maybe Province of Ontario still.... Northern Ontario hasn't been called anything but Ontario since it became Canada.
The Province of Talbot (hear me out! this is not a vanity thing... but a Colonel Talbot (no relation) who is a historical figure locally in this part.) should be an old map of The Talbot Settlement kicking around somewhere?
should help restore a bit of political balance between Conservatives and Liberals.
As some one from Northern Ontario. I would say your north south border needs to move north to around hwy 12 if not all the way to 169@@derricktalbot8846
Someone's delusional. Ontario is taking Equalization. You're not dominant economically.
There's 4 "have" provinces, in alphabetical order: Alberta, British Colombia, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Saskatchewan.
Better luck next year.
@corystarkiller and as every Economist will tell you, the only measure of economic strength and resilience is the structure of a specific federal program.
Here's a fun experiment though, let's add up all the GDPs of all the provinces you mentioned and see if they're as big as the GDP of Ontario.
As somebody who lives in Alberta trust me that it's already a not uncommon sentiment (except it's usually Ontario and Quebec)
As a Quebecois myself. I can officially say that we do not wear berets or even care about croissants or bread. Those are french sterotypes
I love "Kwebekwah". In French "QU" is just another "K" sound, not a "Kwuh" like in English. So, what you're looking for is "KAY-bek-wah"
The Canadian federal government would have had a very difficult time ignoring the results of the referendum. Unlike with Catalonia in Spain where it’s my understanding the Spanish national government opposed the referendum being held at all, the Canadian government legitimized the Quebec referendum by participating in it. The Canadian government formally participated in the “Non” coalition during the vote, and the Canadian Prime Minister of the day actively campaigned for the No side (the stay in Canada side, in other words). I don’t think it would have been politically possible to do all that, and then ignore the results.
It’s also just not very Canadian to ignore something that like, even more so back then than now perhaps.
Spain was a NAZI allied during WW2
@@ScrapKing73Times have definitely changed. Now the federal government routinely (instead of sporadically) looks at the constitution and says, "lol. lmao, even."
@@phantomkate6 It seems to me the provinces are the worst offenders, with their increasingly heavy use of the Notwithstanding Clause, not the federal government.
Quebecois speaking here: great video Cody! I think it actually is a good take on the subject, and also a very unexpected one.
To those wondering how strong is the support for indepedence in Quebec, for the last 30ish years there's been a continuing trend: The "staunch" pro-independence and anti-independence parts of the electorate each represent roughly a third of the population and the last 33% are either undecided or don't really care.
I didn't know this was the current sentiment, thanks for sharing! (I'm from Ontario)
@@juliacoves5873 Pleasure! Take it as a general overview at the provincial scale. Because of course you'll find local variations: For example, support for independence is a lot less present in urban regions south-west of the province than it is in rural areas east of Quebec city.
@@juliacoves5873 Yeah, the independent movement relaxed a lot. Even amongst the pro-independence, the idea seems to be "Lets put out the fire we have first before doing that thing." And, given that there are a LOT of things to fix, a serious talk about independence would not be realistic in the foreseeable future.
@@gunterthekaiser6190 the budget of a sovereign Quebec just came out last month and in the last survey published the leading party is a separatist one (Parti Québécois).
Really hope those Numbers go down still, We all as Canadians are stronger together; Economically, Militarily, Territorially and culturally!💙🇨🇦❤️
Hearing you pronounce Lucien Bouchard's name was funny ngl
As a quebecer at 8:40 I was insulting you lol. Great vid I'm subbing ! :)
The Quebec representation is this video triggers my inner québécois 😂 don’t compare us to France
C'est tellement mauvais de voir ce que les anglais pensent de nous 😂
@@Fantax92 vous ne faites que recolter ce que vous avez semmer jai plusieur amis au quebec mais aucun dentre eu sont des stupides de separatiste mais au dessus de 90% de la population francophone veulent se separer de nous et vous penser que sa vas recolter des fleures ahhhh que non meme que si vous vous separer plusieur dentre nous son pres a se battre pour notre pays, on verra ce qui reste apres
@@rayrayray7494 ton commentaire ne fait aucun sens. Tu ne fais que prouver mon point. Au lieu de tendre la main tu nous antagonise. Tu ne fais que me renforcer dans ma position que de me séparer de gens qui me déteste serait préférable à rester. C'est aussi très loin de 90%, au dernier sondage c'était encore aux alentour de 40%. Tu antagonise donc aussi environ 60% des gens qui veulent actuellement rester dans le Canada, penses-tu que tu les encourage à rester de ton côté? Aussi je ne veux pas détruire le Canada, je suis pour le libre-échange et la libre-frontière. Je veux seulement un Québec qui peut décider comment gérer son trésor public.
@@rayrayray7494jappeur professionel
Why not? You try to remove natives and replace it with your own, same as the rest. Quebec culture is fabricated and colonial and full of nazi-esque control
17:04 "Today, Quebec independence is not really considered anymore, especially among the younger generation."
I'd argue it's the complete opposite. A large part of this generation of Quebecois is separatist. The idea is becoming pretty popular again, with the two most left-leaning parties being loudly pro-independence. Quebec Solidaire especially is gaining a lot of support from this generation, their co-spokespersons being pretty young themselves (Gabriel is 33 and Émilise just turned 32)
Most people I know share the opinion that Quebec should be a country. This group includes a lot of new voters.
Most people I know don't want to split. Quebec Solidaire is still popular among those people for the values of the party, not necessarily the splitting part. When asked about splitting Gabriel said he wants to split, but it's not the priority and that they'd listen to what the population actually wants. Meaning personally wants to split but it's not the party's goal.
@@zheoferyth Yeah I think opinion on splitting varies a lot between regions
And the separatists I know also agree that it's not a priority. We have a lot to fix first.
It really isn't, based on actual polling.
@@Blakbox92 26% of voters in the 18-24 age bracket. That's a pretty large portion. At least too large to say it isn't considered anymore.
The way it was asked also probably affected the results, since it was specifically if a referendum was held in 2020. As I said, many separatists don't think we're ready just yet. I am myself a separatist and if a referendum was held in 2024 I don't think I would vote 'oui'. Mostly because dear god do we need to get rid of Legault and fix the damage he's done first.
@@zheoferythQuébec solidaire is out of the run for election.
Great video that brings back some memories. I grew up in the Nations Capital during this time and knew the Grand Chief of the Cree Nation. Just before the election i asked him about his thoughts on the referendum. He just smiled and pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to me. The paper showed what the First Nations People would be requesting land wise if the split happened. If I remember correctly, the sliver of land left for Quebec went from Hull to Montreal. The rest would go back to the original people of the land. I’m rather confident the First Nations would not have been just “amalgamated.” 😊
Imagine a state become independent like we have is going on in us right now.
I love how at 14:01 the focus just completely changes from Quebec to western Canada, and then to American politics
Fun fact : Canada was named for the first time in 1535 by Jaques Cartier , a french navigator who went trought Quebec's territory .
Comes from the Iroquois Kanata, means village. Iroquois chief Donnacona (also a city name in Québec) pointed towards his village saying Kanata, named stuck. Québec means « Where the rivers narrows » and if you look at the map, Quebec city is where the St-Lawrence river narrows. Iroquois where descriptive yet poetic folks. Weirdly they were gone when Champlain came back in 1608. No one knows why.
@@charlesbaril9638 i live next to Quebec and I learned all of that
Québecois are the "real" Canadians! lol!
@charlesbaril9638 Iroquois, and many Native Americans, died out in huge percentages around those times, likely due to direct causes such as fighting with the Europeans and other native nations, and mainly the indirect cause of European diseases
@@ericturcotte3131 Yeah, after the annexation of New-France by the Brits, the francophone population were called Canadians as the anglophones identified more as Englishmen (many of them were loyalists who fled the American revolution). And that's also why the Montreal hockey team is the Canadiens (french for "Canadians").
That intro was hilarious XD
I love all of your videos
"I hope I pronounced any of those correctly."
It was a valiant effort 🤣
A fun fact about Québec is how we (I'm from here) never signed the Canadian constitution (La nuit des longs couteaux/the kitchen accord). I don't really know the implications of this fact but, for all intents and purposes, I've been told in my classes that we just act as if we did.
I've been watching your videos for a long time and It's fun that our province gets some attention as it is indeed not thought of as very important by the rest of the world. Love your videos, keep up the good work.
Yeah well I don't understand the implications of it but I know us from Québec we where not happy about the constitution not being signed.
That was my thought as well… like could we have just said “sike, I never signed that constitution to begin with” and act as if excluding Quebec amounted to it being kicked out of Canada 😂 talking out of my ass here ofc
We never signed the constitution because they promised us more rights, but during the night they rewrote the constitution while the Quebec PM was sleeping. When he woke up and saw this, he left and did not sign.
That’s why a second referendum happened.
btw for the reccord im pretty sure if we were to vote yes with 50%+1 for independence there's none Canada could do (theoretically) since we never sign the constitution... they left us out of it (litteraly) I might be confused but I believe it's refered to what we call "La nuit des long couteaux" in which basically all canada signed something behind our back >->
btw for the record, i don't need to pay child support because i refused to recognize it as mine.
@@Colon-D... That's not the same thing at all lol we didn't refuse, it was done behind our back
When they were negotiating the constitution, all the premiers were staying at a hotel in Ottawa, except for Levesque who stayed in Gatineau. The premiers at the hotel in Ottawa got together one night and came up with the draft constitution.
The next day, Levesque had the opportunity to sign, but declined as he wasn't involved in the planning. So, Quebec had the opportunity to sign the constitution, but turned it down.
@@jonleibow3604 still done it behind our back lmao "hey you wanna sign the thing we did behind your back without telling you and without you having any chance to give your opinion on"
That is a badass name! « The night of the long knifes »
Actually way before 1995, in 1967 when french president Charles de Gaulle visited Québec, he was laying the groundwork for trying to push it to first independance and then rejoining France itself. From the reactions at the time I get the feeling the locals were supportive of the idea.
He was supposed to go back there over time to kickstart the whole process but then in 1968 he lost a confidence vote/referendum and resigned as he promised he would if he lost (imagine modern politicians keeping their word on.. anything really) so the whole Québec thing never got further than that. And since we have mostly got incompetent and weak leadership since then, nobody even thought about this idea again.
It's probably been mentioned, but the FLQ did engage with police and soldiers. They took hostages. Canada has seen its share of violence.
When you randomly outlaw a political party, shit happen.
It happened a little over a decade before I was born but when my parents talk about it, they mention that the army was called.
Based FLQ
Well, it was subtle, but he did say that if the vote went "yes", "there could have been riots, and b0mbings.....again..."
Not idea if he meant the FLQ but I found it funny
@@strangedivine they put bombs in many mailbox in westmount, this city was predominantly English speaking
While I do love it when you do videos on Canada, you're missing a couple massive points here. If Quebec actually managed to gain independence, that would be a massive chunk of Canada's resources AND Liberal voters gone. AB and SK would have significantly more representation than they did with Quebec, so there's less reason for them to leave. If anything this would make Canada trend to become more politically conservative as we'd have to rely more on the prairie provinces for resources and our economy as a whole. There's actually a really good chance Trudeau wouldn't even come to power as he has a huge fan-base in Quebec.
Not sure if the logic follows considering Ontario still has more seats in parliament than all the prairies combined, I think the most likely case scenario if Quebec really did leave is for (at least) AB and SK leaving as well, as they already contribute disproportionately to federal programs compared to what they receive and will continue to be outvoted by the Toronto-Windsor belt alone
The mind-boggling thing for me is the idea that Trudeau would be a force in Canadian politics with separatist Quebec, since the dude is Quebecois himself. Maybe he'd immigrate to Ontario and pull a Hillary Clinton like when she moved to New York to be anointed senator. The thing is, Clinton had been a prominent national figure for a decade when she went shopping for a constituency; Trudeau seemed more of a footnote before he became prime minister; this is only exacerbated if the split is committed to (as much as anything can be committed to in politics) a couple decades before he became prime minister.
It just seems more likely that the man becomes a force in Quebec politics, rather than Canadian.
Trudeau is utterly despised in Québec. We already called his father the Traitor and now we do so with the son. Francophones in Québec despise him, in the overwhelming majority of cases.
@@nathanc939 if you think Trudeau and his father were traitors to Quebec I would HATE to see who you consider allies
@@nathanc939 there isnt much politician that isnt despised in quebec, especially after being elected
Love the video! As a Québécois, I've seen a lot of media minimizing our movement and lowkey insulting our culture, but I love your take on it. It's respectful and fairly accurate. Personally, I see the separation as a movement of cultural reappropriation since there were many injustices from the federal government on a cultural and political basis. Thank you for your accuracy and interest in our issue!
I encourage it! As an Albertan I would love for you deadbeats to get off my provinces money.
You didn’t talk about how the rest of Canada didn’t listen Quebec in many political controversies
Lol, BS.
Quebec has had more than it's fair share of PMs, opposition leaders, finance ministers and other top teir political seats. The federal government only ever cares about Ontario and Quebec.
Plus, every time a Quebecer whines, it makes national news. People upset in Nunavut ... who cares?
Quebec is the "Karen" of Canada. Definitely a "distinct society". Which the rest of Canada uses as code for "Whiney A** B*tches".
But, you're our your WABs, and we love and tolerate you.😊
Being a Quebecer I feel like we still talk alot about independency, both referendums are taught in school and a lot of people still want Quebec as its own country. But like in 1995 it is still 50/50 most people living in regions that fought in the patriot war of 1837-1838 want independancy but with the amount of immigrants and English Quebecers I think it balances out.
There's a big difference between Montreal and Quebec City - there's more mixing in Montreal and speaking English is more common.
@@kiraleaf Yes that's partially why Montreal is largely against independency but Quebec city is. Also most battles fought in the patriot war weren't on the actual island of Montreal but more on the north coast which is now suburbans.
@@rojinalt Quebec city voted no in the last referendum, and the result being so close, they tiped the balance against the oui side.
@@alaingadbois2276 I know, its still the same mentality today, most of my friends living in and around Quebec city say that they don’t see the point of gaining independence but inversely the ones living on the outskirts of montreal say they are pro independence
Absolutely! I just made a huge post about it, but I do still think it's absolutely relevant! I remember in High School just how many talks or debates were related to the issue. Saying our youth doesn't feel concerned, in my opinion, misses the mark completely. It's a very good idea to reflect on how immigration now influences overall separation views! :)
Nova Scotian here. My dad was 18 when the vote happened and since he told me about it ive always wondered what would happen in it went through
Thanks for the video Cody! LOVE your work
"One of those provinces is French." Um, I think a number of people in New Brunswick would like to have a word with you.
Officially French. What's to discuss?
yes NB is half french but the last election did not have a debate in french so idk man
An independent Québec would be independent more so politically than economically. In the referendum regarding Québec’s independence, the question was to make Québec a sovereign country while still maintaining economic links with the rest of Canada. The Canadian dollar would still be used in Québec, Québec would maintain their deals with other Canadian provinces and so on. Québec’s independence is more of a recognition thing rather than a complete separation, much like a move to protect and preserve its French identity, which is unique throughout all of North America.
"Québec’s independence is more of a recognition thing". Good try but no it's definitely not. It's about having full sovereing powers to do its own thing. Canada has shown its cards and its sometimes overt intentions, sometime unconscious direction over the past couple of hundred years has been to make French disappear. Outside of Québec, French is destined to die out. In the past few decades, immigration has reached crazy levels and it almost completely out of Québec's control.
The choice to use the Canadian dollar was for short-term pragmatic reasons. Québec and Ontario are each others largest traiding partner and there is an explicit desire not to disrupt this trade. In the medium term (maybe 5-10 years after independence) Québec would have the option of floating its own currency, and maybe have it tied to the USD (or even to the Euro?).
As a Québécois, I really enjoyed this video. Could've gone into the reasons why Quebec wanted to separate a bit more, but since this is aimed more at the alternate timeline this would've have given us, I found it quite entertaining!
I'm also québécois and I gotta say, I really enjoyed it as well !
Réunion de Québécois!! B)
Oye la gang Osti tabarnak de cawliss mdrrr ptdr
Salut les amis ;)
Vive le Québec libre !! (as a quebecois ahah)
This situation somehow domino effecting its way to make Puerto Rico a state would be an amazing outcome after the relatively mundane situation you described for Quebec independence
Ok first many say it but, only hipsters from the 90's ever wore berets around here. Also, we had a decent opportunity to leave Canada while the United States had their war for independence: during this time those loyal to the British were who would found Canada afterwards, and we fought with them instead of fighting with the independentists from the South. Actually, France even helped the Independance war, and this was not enough to make us change sides back then.
As time went by, we also lost a great deal of our french population. Early with the conflicts with the English, a lot of french from the eastern provinces were deported to Louisiana, and during the industrial revolution we lost a significant more people going to New-England states for work.
A lot could be even more different than it is, but it is what it is. We could have become a 25 million people country with a vast majority of french heritage, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.
The NHL is now among three countries, if ever. Leafs and Habs rivalries are gonna be fun.