November 4-5 marks the 40e anniversary of events that have deeply marked the history of Quebec and its place in the Canadian federation.
It was during the night of November 4 to 5, 1981, in fact, that secret negotiations between the federal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the premiers of the nine English-speaking provinces – but in the absence and without the knowledge of the government of Quebec. – led to the acceptance by the latter of the constitutional project of the Canadian Prime Minister of the time.1
Following this 1981 agreement between the federal government and the English-speaking provinces, without Quebec, the constitutional changes that it entailed were subsequently inserted into the constitutional law of 1982. It was truly a coup against Quebec and its population.
The break-up of the Group of Eight
Indeed, after the referendum defeat of May 20, 1980, the strategy of the Quebec government of René Lévesque (to obstruct the unilateral constitutional aims of the federal government) had consisted in joining with seven other provincial governments to form the Group of Eight.
However, this interprovincial opposition front was in serious danger of collapsing when the Supreme Court of Canada, on September 28, 1981, ruled that the federal government needed only a “sufficient” number of support from the provincial governments to proceed, and not unanimity, as had been the case in the past. It then became possible that major constitutional changes could be made without the support of Quebec.
This is what led to the “Night of the Long Knives” on November 4 and 5, 1981.
Three major consequences
There are three major consequences for the people of Quebec and for the French-Canadian nation that resulted from the federal constitutional coup de force of 1981-1982.
The elected Parliament of Quebec has since been placed under the arbitrary tutelage of an unelected “government of judges” appointed by the Canadian government alone.
In this context, it has become problematic for the Quebec government to legislate in the areas of language, culture, secularism and education, all areas which in the past fell under its exclusive jurisdiction. The most obvious example was the Charter of the French language, better known as Bill 101.
Adopted in 1977, Bill 101 aims to ensure the sustainability of French as the only official language of Quebec, but it has seen whole sections cut off by the federal courts. More recently, it is also to be feared that Bills 21 and 96 on the secularism of the State and on the strengthening of Bill 101, which are in the process of being adopted by the Quebec government, will suffer the same fate. Without these laws, the people of Quebec are threatened with losing their majority in Quebec itself, in the decades to come.
The insertion of the political ideology of multiculturalism in the constitutional law of 1982, which was never signed by the government of Quebec, justified the adoption of a federal policy of super massive immigration of population replacement, overwhelmingly integrated in English Canada. Canada is the only country in the world that has constitutionalized such a political ideology. Ultimately, this policy is a threat to the relative political power and to the very survival of the French-Canadian nation as a whole.
Increased political centralization at the Canadian federal level tends de facto to make the majority home of Francophones in North America, Quebec, a kind of interior colony subject to the dictates of English Canada. The result is a major breach of democracy.
The sovereignty of the Quebec Parliament weakened
The constitutional changes on which there was agreement during the Night of the Long Knives of November 4 and 5, 1981, despite the formal opposition of the Quebec government, and which were constitutionalized in the constitutional law of 1982, considerably reduced the sovereignty of the Parliament of Quebec in the areas of its competence.
In the new Canadian constitutional context imposed on Quebec in the post-1982 period, the Quebec government encountered many pitfalls in its primary mission of preserving Quebec’s future as the only majority French-speaking society in North America.
1. This text is partly inspired by the author’s book The quiet regression of Quebec, 1980-2018, Editions Fides, 2018.
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