Notes and references
- The non‐Francophones voted at 90–95 per cent for the ‘no’ (see the various estimates in M. Pinard ( 1997 ) Un combat inachevé ( Montréal : Presses de l'Université du Québec ), p. 308 ). Among Indian and Inuit communities, the vote was overwhelmingly for the ‘no’ (90 percent on average). Even the francophone Hurons and Abénaquis voted ‘no’ at 78 and 75 per cent (ibid, p. 312).
- It is regrettable that so many studies of electoral campaigns are defined narrowly by legal boundaries. In the referendum under review, the major tactical changes were made before the election writ was issued.
- For studies of the referendum, and of the role of personality in particular, see D. Monière and J.H. Guy ( 1996 ) La bataille du Quebec troisième épisode ( Montréal : Fides ); Pinard (1997) op. cit.
- Gouvernement du Québee (no date) A Guide to Your Participation in the Commissions on the Future of Quebec.
- Surveys show that in 1994 the scores of ’independance complète’ ‘indépendance’ and ’souveraineté’ were bunched at 38, 38 and 34 per cent of all respondents while a year earlier the scores had been 36, 38 and 45 per cent. See Pinard (1997) op. cit., p. 36.
- Moscovici , S. 1974 . “ ‘Conformity and Social Control’ ” . In Social Psychology , Edited by: Nemetz , C. 179 – 216 . Chicago : Rand MacNally . Moscovici has shown that a determined minority is more likely to rally the undecided than a larger group appearing uncertain of its own mind. See
- The appointment of Bouchard as chief negotiator between Quebec and Canada, should the ‘yes’ side win, an appointment associated with a positive recovery for the ‘yes’ in the polls, did not introduce new elements to the campaign; it reaffirmed the June agreement, and confirmed that Bouchard had, in fact, taken the leadership of the campaign.
- Festinger , L. 1957 . A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance , Evanston, IL : Row Peterson .
- It is likely that any type of preferential or alternative voting system would have been ruled to be in contradiction to Quebec's law on referendums, but, with foresight, that law could have been modified well before the referendum was called.
- That ‘next’ election was held on 30 November 1998. The federal camp had not changed tactics, the provincial Liberals, under a new leader, Jean Charest, had indicated that they did not exclude a revision of the constitution but had failed to make significant promises of constitutional change. The Parti québécois was re‐elected to office with a loss of two seats (from 77 to 75), the Liberals gained one seat (from 47 to 48), while the Action démocratique retained the seat of their leader. The changes in the share of votes was more favourable to the losing parties. The Parti québécois declined from 44.7 to 42.7 per cent, the Liberals form 44.4 to 43.7 per cent while the Action democratique more than doubled its percentage of votes from 4.4 to 12 per cent. The campaign was not centred on the next referendum although the Liberals would have liked it to be a major theme. The comparison of the election results to those of the referendum is thus somewhat hazardous. The only major change is the increase in the support given the Action démocratique that proposed putting any referendum on hold for at least eight years. That change in policy and voting support should be added reason for Premier Bouchard to try first to reform the federal system from within rather than rush to a third referendum.
- Laponce , J.A. 1987 . Language and their Territories , Toronto : Toronto University Press . For the Jura referendum, see
- The judgment of the Supreme Court was rendered in September 1998 (the Quebec government had refused to be party to the case, arguing that the Court was not qualified to decide what was in their opinion an essentially political rather than a judicial matter). As expected the decision was unfavourable to Quebec, except on one point. The Court ruled (1) that a unilateral declaration of sovereignty would be invalid in domestic and international law, (2) that, if sovereignty was to be obtained, it should be through the normal constitutional revision process and (3) that the pro‐sovereignty vote leading to any such revision would have to be obtained by a ‘clear’ majority ('clear’ was not defined by the Court but the very obscurity of ‘clear’ invites the federal government to use a definition other than 50 per cent + 1 voter). On one point the judgment was favorable to Quebec. The Court said that subject to a ‘clear’ majority, a pro‐sovereignty referendum would obligate the federal government and the other provincial governments to negotiate in good faith. That removed the argument of a ‘negotiating void’ used by the federal government during the 1995 campaign when it argued that, in the event of a ‘yes’ vote, Quebec would be confronted with the absence of a Canadian authority that could legitimately negotiate the split of the country.
- Cairns , Alan . 1992 . Charter v. Federalism , McGill‐Queen's University Press .
- Russell , Peter . 1992 . Constitutional Odyssey , Toronto : Toronto University Press .
- This view of a stage with three main actors is more frequently found on the federal side than in Quebec. The latter, being more sensitive to language, prefers a different but equally distorted picture with only two contestants labelled Québécois and English Canadians.
- Berry , J.W. and Laponce , J.A. , eds. 1994 . Ethnicity and Culture in Canada: The Research Landscape , Toronto : University of Toronto Press .
- Pinard (1997) op. cit.
- McRae , D. 1997 . ‘Contrasting Styles of Decision‐Making: Adversarial versus Consensual Polities’ . International Political Science Review , 18 (3) : 279 – 297 .
- A comparative study of Canadian students done in the mid‐1990s indicates that minorities do indeed attach more importance than dominant groups to the criteria that separate them: women attach more importance to being women than men to being men, Francophones attach more importance to their language than do Anglophones. See F.P. Gingras and J.A. Laponce (forthcoming) ‘A la recherché des représentations d'appartenance’.
- Pinard (1997) op. cit., p. 320.
- Laponce , J.A. 1996 . “ ‘The Language System and the Language Policies of Canada: Functionalities and Dysfunctionalities’ ” . In Dual Images: Multiculturalism on Two Sides of the Atlantic , Edited by: Kulksar , K. and Szabo , D. 98 – 112 . Budapest : Institute for Political Science .
- Lapierre , A. , Smart , P. and Savard , P. , eds. 1996 . “ ‘Minority Languages in Canada: Their Fate and Survival Strategies’ ” . In Language, Culture and Values in Canada at the Dawn of the 21st Century , 75 – 89 . Ottawa : Carleton University Press .
- Laponce , J.A. 1992 . ‘Canada, Switzerland, and Talcott Parsons’ . Queen's Quarterly , 99 (2) : 267 – 99 .
- Resnick , Consider, P. 1991 . Toward a Canada‐Quebec Union , McGill‐Queen's University Press .
- Laponce , J.A. 1997 . “ ‘Comment conjuguer le Québec et le Canada’ ” . In Le Canada peut‐il encore survivre? , Edited by: Hayne , David . Toronto : Toronto University Press .