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"Quebec remained British because it was French."
George M. Wrong, Canada and the American Revolution
"There are two miracles of Canadian history. The first is the survival of French Canada, and the second is the survival of Canada."
F. R. Scott
"Nos institutions, notre langue, nos droits."
Slogan of the Société St-Jean-Baptiste, 1834
"In what country under the sun could you find a similar monument [to Wolfe and Montcalm], erected to the memory of the conqueror and the conquered? In what country under the sun could you find the names of the victor and vanquished honoured in the same degree, occupying the same place in the sentiment of the population."
Wilfrid Laurier, 26 June 1877
OUR STRONGMEN JOHNNY AND BLAKE
No matter how hard you try, you'll never lift that weight. It's tricky.
Le violon, Montréal, 5 February 1887
Quebec is asking and will have its rights. Neither The Globe, neither The Mail, nor The World will succeed in suffocating my voice! Fanaticism is powerless against justice and common sense. Ontario demagogues will not take Quebec "God and rights."
Bonnie Prince Chapleau
The champion of provincial autonomy
Le samedi, Montréal, 14 November 1891
The Debauchery of Sir Wilfred G.C.M.G.
I would never have believed it of you. I never would have believed it.
Le canard, Montréal, 3 July 1897
"I am branded in Quebec as a traitor to the French, and in Ontario as a traitor to the English. In Quebec I am branded as a Jingo, and in Ontario as a Separatist. In Quebec I am attacked as an Imperialist, and Ontario as an anti-Imperialist. I am neither, I am a Canadian."
Sir Wilfrid Laurier
Henri Julien 1900
The Moon, Toronto, 1 November 1902
"The nation that we wish to see develop is the Canadian nation, composed of French Canadians and English Canadians, that is of two elements separated by language and religion . . . but united in a feeling of brotherhood, in a common attachment to this common fatherland."
Henri Bourassa, 1904
"Je me souviens
Que né sous le lys
Je crois sous la rose."
"I remember
That while under the fleur de lys [of France]
I grow under the rose [of England]"
Motto of the Province of Quebec
"The Manitoba schools question was an elaborate conundrum that set everyone arguing – Church versus State, provincial rights versus federal rights, Catholic versus Protestant, French versus English."
Gordon Donaldson
300th Anniversary.
The Canadian Courier, Toronto, 1 August 1908,
"Three hundred years of isolation have given our people a distinct soul and character. Do we resemble anyone else on this continent? We differ from them in every way, in our faith, our language, our customs, and our history."
Abbé Groulx, speech, 10 April 1915
"The next generation will no longer find it natural . . .that the external appearance of our own streets and highways is English; that everyone who is rich speaks English and everyone who is poor speaks French; that four French Canadians speak English to please one Englishman who does not deign to learn their language; that large industries and businesses are English and that the little shops devoted to small businesses or to ruin are French, or rather bilingual; that the big firms exploiting our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our waterfalls, etc. provide profits and influential positions to foreigners while they leave to our own people the lowliest jobs and pitiful wages; that we earn five dollars more per week when we go to the United States, deserting our fighting role here and almost certainly anglicizing our family."
Joseph Bruchard, "Le Canada français et les étrangers" in Notre avenir polique Montreal, 1923
"The soul of Canada is a dual personality, and must remain only half revealed to those who know only one language."
Frank Oliver, 1926
"Thanks to Confederation, thanks to our union with the sister provinces, our province has progressed in a marvelous manner, and it cannot be denied that it is Confederation that has made Montreal the fourth city of North America in importance."
Sir Lomer Gouin
"We are a tiny people confronting the American monster: we do not have the option of being French in a soft dilettante sort of way . . . we have to be French through and through, intransigently, energetically, audaciously – otherwise we shall cease to be."
Abbé Groulx
"Whether one likes it or not we shall have our French state! We shall have a young, strong, beautiful, radiant home, a spiritual, dynamic centre for the whole of French America. We shall have a country with its French nature stamped upon its visible features."
Abbé Groulx, 16 September 1937
"Two old races and religions meet here [Montreal] and live their separate legends, side by side. If this sprawling half-continent has a heart, it is here."
Hugh MacLennan, Two Solitudes, 1945
"That is why our nationalism, to oppose a surrounding world that was English-speaking, Protestant, democratic, materialistic, commercial, and later industrial, created a system of defence which put a premium on the contrary forces: the French language, Catholicism, authoritarianism, idealism, rural life, and later a return to the land."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
Petition re naming of the new CNR hotel in Montreal
Whereas the Canadian National Railway has decided to give the name “Queen Elizabeth” to the hotel it is building in Montreal;
Whereas the name does not suit the majority of the citizens of Montreal and the province of Quebec;
Whereas an English name for such an edifice is contrary to the advice of the majority of tourism specialists;
Whereas the Canadian National Railway held no referendum and organized no competition for the choice of a name;
Whereas it is opportune to find a name which would be acceptable to the majority in Quebec, which highlights the magnificent history of Canada’s major city, and which respects the interests of tourism;
It is resolved to ask the federal government:
1. to take the necessary steps to enable a change of name
2. to instruct the CNR:
(a) to withdraw the name “Queen Elizabeth” for its Montreal hotel;
(b) to replace it with that of “Chateau Maissoneuve” [tr.]
La Presse, 31 March 1955
McGill Daily, Montreal, 24 March 1960
"C'est le temps que ça change." (Its time for a change.)
Jean Lesage, 1960
"Maître chez nous (masters in our own house). "
Jean Lesage or Errol Bouchette, 1962
The Northern Star, Fort Chimo, 28 September 1963
"I can't see Quebec outside of Canada, nor can I see the Canada I dream about without Quebec."
John Diefenbaker, 22 August 1965
"All that we have seen and heard has led us to the conviction that Canada is in the most critical period of its history since Confederation. We believe that there is a crisis, in the sense that Canada has come to a time when decisions must be taken and developments must occur leading either to its break-up, or to a new set of conditions for its future existence. We do not know whether the crisis will be short or long. We are convinced that it is here. The signs of danger are many and serious."
Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 1965
"Égalité or independence". (Equality or Independence)
Daniel Johnson
Nègres blanc d'Amérique. (White Niggers of America)
Pierre Vallieres
"If Quebec separates from Canada, it will be because we will have been forced to do so. Deep down, no French Canadians want to shut themselves into a ghetto."
Daniel Johnson
"Cent ans d'injustice (One hundred years of injustice)."
Separatist slogan, 1967
"This province is a country within a country. Québec the original heart. The hardest and deepest kernel. The core of first time. All around, nine other provinces form the flesh of this still bitter fruit called Canada."
Anne Hébert, 1967
Queen's Journal, Kingston, 19 January 1967
Queen's Journal, Kingston, 19 January 1967
"Vive Montréal! Vive le Québec! Vive le Québec libre!"
Charles de Gaulle
"Charles de Gaulle understood the profound aspirations of the Quebec people desirous of liberation and emancipation. He grasped the depth of the drama lived by our countrymen, poor in a rich country, second-class citizens in their own city, forced to work in the language of their masters, foreigners on the soil of their own land, torn between what they are and what they want to be. At th cry of 'vive le Québec libre,' the soul of an oppressed and bullied people rose up in unison with triumphal cheers on July 24."
François Aquin, 3 August 1967
"The Rockies are my Rockies. They were discovered by the voyageurs Radisson, des Groseilliers and La Verendrye. I want them for my children and grandchildren."
Jean Chrétien
"Canada will be a strong country when Canadians of all provinces feel at home in all parts of the country, and when they feel that all Canada belongs to them."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
"A policy of bilingualism does not mean that everyone must speak two languages. It means that a citizen can use either French or English when dealing with the State, and that, whenever numbers make it practical, he can educate his children in either language. Of course a bilingual state is more expensive than a unilingual one, but it is a richer state. The alternative is to confine French-speaking Canadians to Quebec, and then we cannot afford the incalculable price of the resulting separation."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, 5 April 1968
"Never in our history have French-Canadians played such an important role in the federal government as they do today."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, 20 November 1968
"I am a Quebecer. I am a French Canadian with all my heart. However, I am also deeply and irrevocably a Canadian. I am convinced that one does not prevent the other."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
"French Canada can survive not by turning in on itself, but by reaching out to claim its full share of every aspect of Canadian life."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, 1969
Varsity, Toronto, 24 November 1969
Jan Kamienski, The Winnipeg Tribune, 9 October 1970
Trudeau: "Yes, well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed, but it is more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of..."
Interviewer: "At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that?"
Trudeau: "Well, just watch me... Yes, I think the society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power in this country and I think that goes at any distance."
Pierre E. Trudeau, 1970 interview
"But, Mr. Speaker, we are not prepared to use the preservation of law and order as a smoke screen to destroy the liberties and freedom of the people of Canada... The government, I submit, is using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. This is overkill on a gargantuan scale... the government has panicked."
Tommy Douglas, House of Commons debates, October 16, 1970.
"This criticism doesn't take the facts into account. First, peanuts don't make bombs, don't take hostages, and don't assassinate prisoners. And as for the sledgehammer, it was the only tool at our disposal."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, In His Own Words.
Assasinations, terrorism, feast of pigs
Le franco-albertan, Edmonton, 21 October 1970
"The Minister of Employment and Immigration... was strangled by the Félquist [FLQ] revolutionaries on Saturday night [October 17]."
Coroner's report, La Presse, 22 October 1970
"Therefore, His Excellency the Governor-General-in-Council, on the recommendation of the prime minister, is pleased to direct that a proclamation be issued proclaiming that apprehended insurrection exists and has existed as and from the fifteenth day of October, one thousand nine hundred and seventy."
War Measures Act, 17 October 1970
"In recent years our American friends experienced three assassinations that shocked the conscience of mankind - first, President John F. Kennedy, then Rev. Martin Luther King and, finally, Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Let it be said to the credit of the American people that they did not allow their feelings of revulsion to stampede them into eroding the fundamental liberties of their citizens."
Tommy Douglas, NDP Leader, 1970
"We in Canada do not have a tradition of civil liberties like the United States, but a tradition of trusting the government."
Clayton Ruby, civil rights lawyer, 1970
"There was no secret knowledge that explained the imposition of War Measures . . . It was Tommy Douglas of the NDP who stood in the House, day after day, and hammered the government for suspending civil liberties . . . Tommy Douglas showed courage of the highest order."
Eric Kierans
"We want to make it necessary to speak French to live in Quebec."
Fernand Lalonde, 1975
"French Canada can survive not by turning in on itself, but by reaching out to claim its full share of every aspect of Canadian life."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
"The answer to separatism is making French-speaking Canadians at home…in Vancouver and Toronto as well as Montreal."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
"We want to make Quebec as French as Ontario is English."
Camille Laurin, 1978
"[Levesque] appealed to the emotion of the Quebec people while I was trying to appeal to their reason."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Memoirs
"Of all the European groups who settled in America in the seventeenth century – French, Spanish, Portuguese and British – only the French have not yet attained full political autonomy."
Rene Lévesque, 1977
"Like an adolescent, it wants to be independent. But, my God, it also wants to be paid an allowance by its father."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, interview, La Monde, 13 May 1977
"All we want is an independent Quebec, within a strong and united Canada."
Yvon Deschamps, Maclean's, 13 November 1978
"The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations.
This agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, administer its taxes and establish relations abroad–in other words sovereignty–and at the same time maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency.
Any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will be submitted to the people through a referendum.
ON THESE TERMS, DO YOU AGREE TO GIVE THE GOVERNMENT OF QUEBEC THE MANDATE TO NEGOTIATE THE PROPOSED AGREEMENT BETWEEN QUEBEC AND CANADA?"
20 May 1980
Raoul Hunter, Le Soleil, 17 August 1987, NAQ
"If Quebec had been an American state, it would have gone the way of Louisiana. So it is with many thanks to English Canada that this culture has survived."
Mordecai Richler, Jerusalem Post Magazine, 6 November 1992
"If Canada is divisible then Quebec is too."
Stephane Dion, 1994
"Québec was not defeated on the Plains of Abraham, France was."
Louis Dudek, 1998
"Never in the history of colonial wars has the victor treated the vanquished so generously."
Henry Steele Commager, 1998
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