Every Tuesday, The duty offers a space to the creators of a periodical. This week, we offer you a text published in National Actionvolume 114, number 3 (March 2024).
Attending Sainte-Marie College in the 1960s was an intellectually and politically stimulating experience. Quebec at the time was a society in motion, where enthusiasm and optimism reigned.
Everything was changing around us. We were building highways, skyscrapers, modern buildings like Place des Arts, even islands to host Expo 67. We were preparing to inaugurate the metro. Nothing illustrated this passage between two worlds better than taking the new metro, which took us from the suburbs to the city center in 20 minutes.
Coming to the city every day changed our view of the world. Leaving the uniformity of the cocoon of the suburbs, we faced the contradictions and diversity of the metropolis. In the city, the economic and cultural balance of power was more obvious. French was in the minority in the language of commerce and billboards. We were in Quebec, but we felt like we were in a foreign country, especially west of Saint-Laurent.
THE ” speak white » was a daily reality, and you had to insist on being served in French in shops. Collective alienation was not just a theoretical concept. The contrast between legitimate expectations and the possibilities of satisfying them is always a source of desire for change, which explains why we believed that political mobilization and collective action could transform the subordination of Quebecers.
Arriving in town also meant meeting new people. From the first days, we discovered that there were many separatists in this college with a long nationalist tradition. As we didn’t know anyone, we had to reach out to others.
Another advantage of Sainte-Marie is that the courses taken, the readings and the session work fit perfectly into our political commitment. There was a symbiosis between what we learned and the political project for which we were campaigning. We felt that what we learned would be useful in furthering the cause of independence.
At the end of the fall of 1966, we decided to create a section of the Rally for National Independence (RIN) within the walls of the college. We were already active activists of the RIN, respectively in the offices of the Laval and Terrebonne constituencies. It seemed more effective to us to campaign in our educational institution.
In a circular letter addressed to “the men of tomorrow”, we defined our objectives as follows: to work on the development of the new Quebec society; allow students to take political action in their community and disseminate information on the problems of Quebec society.
We were on fertile ground since a survey carried out by the student newspaper before the 1966 elections indicated that 28% of students intended to vote for the RIN and 13% for the Socialist Party of Quebec. One of the college’s history professors, Denis Bousquet, had just been elected in Saint-Hyacinthe as a member of the National Union and declared: “Independence is certain, although the moment is uncertain. »
To make the deadline less uncertain, it was necessary to do agit-prop, that is to say distribute the newspaper Independence to our colleagues or at the doors of the Place-des-Arts metro station or even making brilliant gestures such as installing the RIN flag on the roof of Sainte-Marie college. We also organized marches on rue Sainte-Catherine at lunchtime.
The RIN of the Montreal region sought to assert its solidarity with workers and engaged in workers’ struggles. The role of a party was not only to hold elections, but also to take sides on social issues and actively support workers.
This wonderful journey ended in the fall of 1968. Having obtained our diploma, we had to leave Sainte-Marie College to go to the University of Ottawa, to Laval University, and to the University from Montreal. The wind of the revolt of May 1968 had reached the banks of the Saint Lawrence and had directed the protest towards other issues.
Changing society was the order of the day. Finally, on October 28, 1968, the RIN decided to scuttle itself in favor of the future Parti Québécois. For our generation, collective action was a source of collective progress and personal achievement. Although Sainte-Marie College did not survive the 1960s, the experience of student activism forged lasting friendships and commitments. Other times, other manners.
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