Secession: Canada and the Quebecois

A secessionist terrorist movement, Front de liberation du Quebec, began with the aim of having Quebec Province secede from Canada. The group operated from 1963-1970, detonating more than 200 bombs.

The government has pledged that it will introduce legislation which deals not only with the symptoms but with the social causes which often underlie or serve as an excuse for crime and disorder -- Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, CBC interview

Following the recommendations of the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1969), Parliament passed Canada's first Official Languages Act (1969). The result of that was the Canadian federal government was bilingual. This was the first time since the French and Indian War, when Britain had taken Canada from France, that the Canadian government had spoken French.

The Parti Quebecois (PQ), representatives of Francophone Canada in Quebec, once gaining a majority in the Quebec government in 1976, put secession to the people of Quebec Province in the form of a referendum. The measure failed, but the PQ stayed in power. Almost twenty years later, PQ put the question again to the people, who again favored continued union with Canada.

Interestingly, in 1998, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that if the referendum had passed, the rest of Canada would have no legal basis for denying the request.