Canada: The Quiet Revolution in Quebec

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Canada: The Quiet Revolution in Quebec

The English-French relations have not always been easy. Each is

always arguing and accusing the other of wrong doings. All this hatred

and differences started in the past, and this Quiet revolution, right

after a new Liberal government led by Jean Lesage came in 1960. Thus was

the beginning of the Quiet Revolution.

Lesage had an excellent team of cabinet ministers which included

Rene Levesque. The Liberals promised to do two things during the Quiet

Revolution; one was to improve economic and social standards for the

people of Quebec, and the other was to win greater respect and recognition

for all the French people of Canada. The Liberals started a program to

take control of hydro-electric power companies. French-Canadian engineers

from all over Canada returned to Quebec to work on the project. Slogans

during these times were "we can do it" and "masters in our own homes".

The government also started to replace programs the Church previously ran,

which included hospital insurance, pension schemes and the beginning of

Medi-Care. For these programs, the Quebec Liberals had to struggle with

Ottawa for a larger share of the tax dollars.

One of the greatest reforms was the modernization of the entire

school system. The Church used to own the schools of Quebec. Most of the

teachers were Priests, Nuns and Brothers. They provided a good education

but Quebec needed more in business and technology. Lesage wanted a

government-run school system that would provide Quebec with people in

engineering, science, business and commerce.

With the new freedom of expression, lots of books, plays and music

about French culture were all developed in Quebec. French contemporary

playwrights were very famous during that time. However, not all was going

well in Quebec. The French-English relation was going bad. Many studies

showed that French-Canadian Quebecers were earning the lowest wage in all

of the ethnic groups in Canada. Other complaints were that the top jobs

in Quebec were given to English speaking Canadians. Canada was going

through the worst crisis in its history, and unless equal partnership was

found a break-up would likely happen. Some Quebecers thought that

separation was the only solution. They thought that as long as Quebec was

associated with the rest of Canada, French-Canadians would never be

treated equal.

The FLQ (Front De Libération Du Québec) was founded in 1963.

It was a smaller, more forceful group of separatists. They were a

collection of groups of young people whose idea was to use terrorism to

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