POG 110 Lecture Notes - Quebec French, Quebec Nationalism, Canadian Federalism
29 Mar 2018
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POG 110 - History and Confederation
Readings Weeks 1 and 2
Lecture 1
Canada’s 4 Historical Cleavages
These cleavages have ramifications for how we understand Canada. They are not always
compatible with each other.
1. Regionalism
2. Quebec (linguistic, religious)
3. Indigenous peoples
4. Multicultural minorities
4 Visions of Canada
1. Canada as a compact of provinces
a. This vision flows out of the regionalism cleavage
b. Canada is a community of provinces
c. Confederation was a deal entered into by the provinces as equals
d. Implications of this vision:
i. Decentralization
ii. Opposition to special status to Quebec (and any other province)
iii. More power to the provinces in federal lawmaking
2. Canada as a compact of two founding peoples
a. This vision flows out of the linguistic cleavage
b. This vision holds that the constitutive units of the Canadian Political community
are not provinces, but rather the French and English-Canadian “nations”
c. Two variants:
i. Territorial dualism
1. Implications: Restructuring of federal institutions and division of
powers, transfer of power from Ottawa to Quebec
ii. Linguistic dualism
1. Implications: official bilingualism, education rights
3. Canada as a multinational state
a. This vision flows from the “Indigenous peoples” cleavage
b. Canada is a community of numerous cultural nations, including the Indigenous
founding nations
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c. Implications: Recognition of Indigenous peoples as self-governing entities within
Canada
4. Canada as an overarching national community
a. Canadians belong to the nation as individual citizens
b. Also known as pan-Canadian nationalism
c. Liberalism?
d. Implications: emphasis is upon being ‘Canadian,’ maintenance/expansion of
federal powers, bilingualism at the federal level, preservation of French-Canadian
rights outside of Quebec and English-Canadian rights inside of Quebec, support
for the policy of multiculturalism, rejection of special status for Quebec
POSSIBLE ESSAY/SHORT ANSWER: Which vision should Canada embrace?
Pg. 36-48 and chapter 2
Lecture 2 - Jan. 22, 2018
● Confederation - the deal that four or three territories agree to join together to form
Canada.
● 1982 - the year Canada became completely sovereign.
Pre-Confederation
● Early settlement, the Indigenous population seriously dropped, because of diseases
● The Seven Years War (1754-1763). Winston Churchill called this the real First World
War. It was fought in Europe, India, the west, and basically everyone was involved and
was fighting everywhere.
● Worldwide conflict between Europe’s major powers
● Battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759) - it was fought in the plateau just outside of the
walls of Quebec City. The British ended the 3-month war in 15 minutes. It’s because of
this battle that Canada became overwhelmingly British.
● Treaty of Paris (1763) came at the end of the Seven Years War. This was a treaty to
decide who gets what land according to how well they did in the war. This Treaty
marks the dominance of the British Empire. France was powerful too, but not as powerful
as Britain. The British said that there are a lot of French speaking and Catholic people in
Quebec, so they let them stay in that land and keep their religion. Because Americans
were largely Protestant, and Britain took over Quebec - Catholic, this severely damaged
the relationship between the British and Americans.
● Canada’s water and commercially exploitable minerals and fish, oil, soil, made Canada
very attractive to the British
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● Quebec Act (1774) replaces Oath of Allegiance, it doesn’t include Protestantism as part
of the oath, and includes Catholicism as ‘okay’ to be practiced.
● There were no elected assemblies in government in Quebec at that time.
● Nova Scotia and PEI had elected assemblies (which means more democracy) back then,
and they were treated better than Quebec.
● American Revolution (1775-1783)
○ Thirteen colonies revolted. “No taxation without representation” which lead to
The Tea Party. Americans wanted to be better represented in Britain.
○ Why didn’t Canadian colonies participate? This predominantly Catholic nation
saw protection under the British, whereas if they were to join with America, they
might not be as protected, because America is mainly Protestant.
○ Reinforced existence of British Canada, and solidified the relationship between
the British North America and the British.
○ At the early stages, Canada was mainly French and less British, but later it was
mainly British.
● Constitutional Act (1791)
○ Representative government, after “No Taxation Without Representation.” It
splits the Canadian Colony into 2 - Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada
(Quebec) and implemented representative government in both colonies. The
governor is appointed by the British, and most government officials were going to
be anglophones, so the British still had a lot of influence in Upper and Lower
Canada. There were rebellions because even though people were able to elect
some government officials, they realized that the officials they elected had no
real power in government.
● Durham Report (1839) came after the rebellions. Lord Durham is a British Politician.
○ Responsible government - the advisors are no longer going to be appointed by
the Governor, but they will be drawn from the elected assembly (which the people
elected) which is similar to current Canadian government. Members of the
executive council not only come from the elected assembly, they also have to
please the elected assembly, or else they can lose their power.
○ Division of powers between local and imperial
○ Merge Upper and Lower Canada - reverse of the Constitutional Act, which
led to the Act of Union
○ Act of Union (1840). Why would Lord Durham want to unite them again? Upper
Canada has a big debt, but Lower Canada doesn’t, so Lower can help Upper.
Britain let Quebec keep their language and religion, so maybe by joining them
together the Upper (English, Protestant) and Lower (French, Catholic) can be
assimilated. Despite Durham’s assimilation efforts, Quebec didn’t assimilate, and
was able to protect themselves in government very well.
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