Confusion over the designation “Québécois”

In his editorial last Saturday, Robert Dutrisac comments on the very emotional statement made by Justin Trudeau during the debate in French that he is a Quebecer too, but I seem to miss the point. He underlines that Wilfrid Laurier, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chrétien having been “Quebecers”, “the fact that the Prime Minister of Canada is Quebecer is not always an advantage”. That’s right, but this observation, in my opinion, does not get to the bottom of the problem.

In fact, the head of the Bloc Quebecois, Yves-Francois Blanchet, had just put its finger in a still very vivid wound that dates back to the 1960s. It is because the project of political independence of Quebec split the French Canadians of Quebec into two distinct and antagonistic identities. Those who wished to separate from Canada to form a new country identified themselves as “Quebecers”, giving it a political meaning. Until then, Quebecers were residents of Quebec City, just as people living in Montreal are Montrealers. The other French Canadians in Quebec, wishing to remain inside Canada, legitimately continued to consider themselves Canadians, but soon realized that they had an interest in appropriating the appellation “Québécois”. However, they used it shrewdly in a geographic sense, as all Manitobans are Canadians, thus obscuring the fact that the term “Québécois” is the result of a political project.

This rupture between French Canadians in Quebec is based on a fundamental opposition between two irreconcilable conceptions of the nature of a political community. From the 1990s, a civic definition of the term developed: English speakers and immigrants residing in Quebec were now included, all of whom automatically became Anglo-Quebecers and new-Quebecers, even if they identified more with Canada. Thus, the exclusivity of this designation was emptied of its meaning and withdrawn from Quebecers. Since then, the latter have been obliged to use several expressions to designate themselves, such as “native Quebecers” or “French-speaking Quebecers of French-Canadian ancestry”, resulting in a multiplicity of possible formulations which has not been equaled since the famous movie scene where Elvis Gratton tries to explain his identity to a Frenchman from France. A complexity that Jacques Parizeau, in a moment of impatience with a journalist, had simplified by using the expression “Tabarnacos”, used by Mexicans to designate Quebec tourists.

In short, the Quebec identity comes into direct contradiction with the multicultural and civic identity of Canadians, as demonstrated by the debate in English held the next day. The independence of Quebec would deprive them of all legitimacy, and this is the reason why the reaction of Justin trudeau was so emotional.

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