On March 14–16, 2019, the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) and SUNY Plattsburgh’s Institute on Québec Studies, in partnership with Fulbright Canada, the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur les relations internationales du Canada et du Québec (CIRRICQ), the Groupe d’études et de recherche sur l’international et le Québec (GERIQ) at École nationale d’adminstration publique (ÉNAP), the Chaire Raoul-Dandurand and l’Observatoire sur les États-Unis at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), and the Quebec Studies Program at McGill University convened a three-day scholarly colloquium in Montreal that explored current trends in Quebec society and how these developments—political, social, cultural, economic, and others—are likely to impact the province in the future.
The colloquium, entitled “Québec Society in 2019: Current State and Future Prospects,” was held on the campus of ÉNAP, featuring single discipline, multidisciplinary, and comparative scholarly inquiries, in English and French, dedicated to defining, examining, and evaluating contemporary Quebec society. We asked participants to identify fundamental forces that propel current societal trends, and to consider whether these trends are fleeting or long lasting (even permanent), and whether they will have a significant impact on the fabric of life in Quebec. In addition to presentations, the colloquium featured a special roundtable forum, organized by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal (CIRM) at McGill University, entitled “Comment accroȋtre et favoriser la participation citoyenne à Montréal,” that examined contemporary issues confronting Montrealers in 2019. “Québec Society in 2019: Current State and Future Prospects” featured 45 participants from across the United States and Canada, including junior and senior scholars from 18 institutions of higher education.
From the outset, the intent of the colloquium organizers was to publish the very best contributions in a special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies. We are therefore enormously pleased to bring you eight scholarly articles that illuminate the values and dynamism of Quebec society. Ted Rutland’s contribution carefully chronicles efforts in Montreal to combat racial profiling. Current initiatives, Rutland argues forcefully, are fundamentally shortsighted and unlikely to succeed. The city will continue to struggle with racial profiling as long as significant, persistent societal fissures remain. Most important in this regard, Rutland notes, is the gulf that exists between the episodic pursuit of select initiatives championed by the City of Montreal, and the ongoing demands of progressive activists. Peter Graefe and X. Hubert Rioux consider new economic and budgetary directions that the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government of François Legault has undertaken. Those directions, in a fundamentally re-aligned Quebec political landscape (in which neither the Liberals nor the Parti Québécois are in power for the first time in some 50 years), are evaluated according to parameters of change and continuity. In short, has the CAQ opted to pursue budgetary policies that are consistent with past governments, or have they instead promoted fundamental change? Graefe and Rioux further explore a range of incentives and constraints on the CAQ that, as they suggest, might result in new avenues for public spending and a new shape for economic life in Quebec. Natural gas well fracking is the focus of Todd Potts and David Yerger’s timely inquiry. Focusing on 2007–2019, which witnessed a policy shift from exploration to a moratorium and finally a prohibition on fracking, the authors use comparative data to argue compellingly that Quebec’s pursuit of natural gas fracking would not be a profound generator of new employment, and that the province’s Utica Shale gas reserves will most likely remain indefinitely undeveloped given the “large declines in natural gas prices.” Reexamining and re-positioning Quebec’s constitutional engagement, as outlined in the Liberal government’s 2017 document, Policy on Quebec Affirmation and Canadian Relations, is the focus of Raffaele Iacovino’s work. Quebec’s policy statement advances “a vision of federalism premised on the assumption of shared normative commitments to national pluralism.” Iacovino argues persuasively that “the actual practice of federalism in Canada” has, over the past 35 years, gone in a dramatically different direction, one best characterized as a “territorial conception of the federation, which implies the absence of a recognition for collective national identities.” Quebec’s most significant recent effort (since abandoned) to redefine the Canadian federal landscape was, Iacovino suggests, unlikely to meet with any fundamental success.
Les autrices Jessica Tornare et Natalie Rinfret, de l’ÉNAP, s’interrogent quant à elles au comment, face aux départs à la retraite massifs et aux réalités actuelles en matière de santé physique et mentale, il est possible de relever le plus efficacement possible les défis importants auxquels le secteur public du Québec est confronté (c’est-à-dire “la performance, l’attraction, la rétention et la mobilisation de son capital humain”). Pour relever efficacement ces défis, des organisations publiques québécoises décident d’opter pour l’élaboration d’une politique stratégique de qualité de vie au travail (QVT). Ainsi, Tornare et Rinfret, mobilisent une approche systémique qualitative pour faire une analyse exploratoire des politiques stratégiques de qualité de vie au travail (QVT) au niveau de trois organisations publiques du Québec. Elles osent poser la question suivante: «Pourquoi ne pas imaginer que le gouvernement du Québec soit chef de file d’une meilleure qualité de vie au travail et un employeur exemplaire?» En se concentrant sur l’un des enjeux de politique sociale les plus impérieux du Québec—c’est-à-dire les implications découlant d’une société qui vieillit rapidement—Pierre-Luc Lupien braque son analyse sur une région particulièrement confrontée à cet enjeu à savoir la Gaspésie et les Îles-de-la-Madeleine (GÎM). En effet, il s’agit de la région administrative québécoise qui connait le plus haut taux de vieillissement démographique. La manifestation du vieillissement de la ruralité, écrit Lupien, est sans équivoque, et si son étude présente des réalités macroscopiques de la GÎM qui nous permettent de mieux saisir cette «nouvelle ère démographique» du Québec, c’est un véritable appel à la recherche de terrain pour «rencontrer les gens du coin» et ainsi enrichir et mieux documenter les réalités des périphéries.
Gabriel Lévesque and Maude Benoit advance the argument that a range of scientific evidence has informed the crafting of Quebec’s legislative process and subsequent regulatory policies overseeing the cultivation, distribution, sale, and use of cannabis. According to the authors, science was purposely employed to advance and support singularly restrictive “pre-existing beliefs” about the use and place of cannabis in Quebec society. Le dernier article, écrit par Isabelle Fournier, pose une analyse littéraire de trois romans de science-fiction québécoise qui explorent le thème de la destruction de l’environnement par une surconsommation des ressources. Face à cette crise écologique, l’autrice propose de comparer les réactions des personnages de ces récits aux discours du premier ministre Legault. Ainsi, face aux enjeux environnementaux comment réagissent les personnages des œuvres des trois auteurs sélectionnés et sont-ils en opposition ou au diapason du discours du gouvernement de la Coalition avenir Québec ?
All of these contributions, showcased together in this special issue of the journal, demonstrate how contemporary societal issues and forces intimately influence and shape the vibrancy of life in Quebec. We are especially grateful for the generous support of the Ministère des relations internationales et de la Francophonie Québec, ACSUS, SUNY Plattsburgh’s Institute on Québec Studies, Fulbright Canada, the Centre interuniversitaire des relations internationales du Canada et du Québec, and Groupe d’étude et de recherche sur l’international et le Québec at ÉNAP, the Chaire Raoul-Dandurand, and l’Observatoire sur les États-Unis at UQÀM, the Quebec Studies Program at McGill University, and the United States Consulate General in Montreal.