The Queen of Canada, seen from Quebec

Queen for 70 years, Elizabeth II does not yet hold the record for longevity of a reign over Canada. It was Louis XIV, the Sun King, who reigned the longest in the territory bearing this name: 72 years. The astonishing longevity of Elizabeth II nevertheless puts her in the lead, in terms of duration, of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, also sovereign of Canada like so many other domains of a vast Empire over which the sun never sets.

Under the reign of Elizabeth II, 17 prime ministers succeeded each other at the head of Quebec, from Maurice Duplessis to François Legault. This astonishing longevity did not prevent Queen Elizabeth II from being, at least in Quebec, one of the least popular sovereigns of all time. According to data from a Léger poll, only 12% of Quebecers support the monarchy in 2021. In fact, 74% of Quebec citizens believe that a crown simply does not have to govern them. This figure even climbs to 81% when only French-speaking Quebecers are questioned.

This deep lack of love for the monarchy has been maintained at a very high level since the 1960s, at a time when a global questioning of the government regime in place, combined with an appetite for republican principles, put the royal institution at a safe distance inherited from the colonial period.

Riot

In 1964, a visit from Queen Elizabeth II led to a riot in Quebec. Since the previous year, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) has gone from bombings to looting armories and armories to stockpile war material. The Quebec revolutionaries want to go underground, on the Cuban model put forward by Che Guevara. Symbols of British colonialism — memorials, armed forces, Her Majesty’s post — are targeted.

The visit of the queen and her husband was scheduled for October 1964. As soon as it was announced, it was denounced by young independence activists. Pierre Bourgault, the president of the Rally for National Independence (RIN), wrote to Buckingham Palace to let it be known publicly that the queen was not welcome in Quebec. The media relay the affront and maintain the tension.

At a time when the assassination of John F. Kennedy is still in everyone’s memory and the agitation of the FLQ is felt, even the new ways of looking at political protest through large demonstrations make us fear the worst. to the authorities.

Do the separatists threaten the safety of the royal couple? The president of the RIN ensures that no, while dropping that one never knows: a madman, he says, or someone malicious could, in the circumstances, pose regrettable gestures. The tension increases. The security services are on edge. People understand that unlike previous royal visits, times have changed. In other words, two choices are offered to the subjects of his Majesty on the occasion of this visit: stay at home with a shrug or join the ranks of those who oppose the monarchy.

In preparation for a major opposition demonstration, pro-independence demonstrators gather at the Durocher Center in Lower Town Quebec. A banner waved above their heads gives a precise idea of ​​the feelings that animate them: “The people, our only sovereign”. Their objective: to block the road which must lead the queen to her residence, within the walls of the Citadel, by sitting on the ground, without moving, according to the then new practice of sit-ins. However, the demonstrators are quickly surrounded by the police forces which are agitated around them. They won’t work. Those who nevertheless dare to challenge the authorities to show their disgust with the monarchy are bluntly charged by the police. Images broadcast by television show, in the middle of deserted streets, volleys of truncheons on bodies trying unsuccessfully to protect themselves.

The very symbol of the queen does not go over very well. In 1954, when the president of the Canadian National, Donald Gordon, announced that a new hotel, under construction in Montreal, would bear the name of the sovereign, demonstrations of indignation were heard. The figureheads of French-Canadian society shouted loudly to demand that this grand hotel bear a local name instead, that of Maisonneuve, for example, the city’s founder. Why name this establishment the Queen-Elizabeth-II? When the hotel was inaugurated in 1958, a whole assembly of American personalities was invited, which accentuated the idea of ​​dispossession. The queen herself will only make a very brief visit to the establishment the following year.

The triumph of 1951

In 1951, before her coronation, the Princess came to Canada for the first time, accompanied by her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, on the occasion of a visit to this Dominion of the British Commonwealth. The couple disembarked from their plane in Montreal, at Dorval airport, to immediately board a train which stopped at Anse aux Foulons. Along the way, the princess had time, reports The duty with patriotic attention to detail, to taste a “maple and nut ice cream, drizzled with maple syrup”.

In Quebec, the heiress to the throne basically follows the trajectory traveled by General Wolfe, to whom she owes the power to reign over this territory. Setting foot where the general had landed his troops on September 13, 1759, the base of his attack, she got into a convertible limousine to climb the Gilmour hill like him, before reaching the Plains of Abraham. Who cares ? The princess and her husband experienced a truly triumphant welcome from the population.

Crowds, agitated with a lot of advertisements, are massed along the streets. Individuals embark on mad races to try to follow the royal limousine. Several buildings in Quebec are decked in the colors of the United Kingdom, as on the occasion of previous royal visits. The reporter from To have totasked with following the future sovereign as much as monarchical stereotypes, notes that the princess is “an elegant young woman, prettier and slimmer than the photographs have shown her to us”.

In front of the parliament in Quebec, British flags were unfurled in quantity. On the lawns of the building, the crowd occupies all the space, enthusiastic as possible. Several are waving small Union Jacks. Under the delighted eye of Prime Minister Maurice Duplessis, the princess and future queen signs the guestbook. Photos immortalize the meeting. The future sovereign then went to Laval University, where she was welcomed, in all the trappings of a prelate of the Church, by Bishop Ferdinand Vandry. She will then go to stay inside the citadel, protected by the Royal 22e Régiment, in what is one of her two official residences in Canada.

With the exception of a fortuitous landing on November 24, 1953 in Gander, Newfoundland, for technical reasons, it was not until 1957 that the princess, who had become queen, officially set foot in Quebec. She barely does so, on the side of Hull, on the sidelines of a stay in Ottawa where she inaugurates, in October, the session of the new parliament, now controlled by the Conservative John G. Diefenbaker following the June elections.

The Queen returned in 1959, this time to inaugurate in particular the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This huge project promises to change the face of international trade. She occupies, June 26, along with US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the heart of a ceremony. The two Heads of State board the Britannia, Her Majesty’s private vessel for 44 years. The day before, in Montreal, she stayed, very briefly, at the chic hotel that bears her name.

In the days of Meech Lake

Although the figure of the Queen appeared in full view during the official ceremonies of these international events such as the Universal Exhibition of 1967 or the Olympic Games in 1976, she did not formally set foot in Quebec as such until 1987, for the first time since 1964. The Quebec independence movement was then at its lowest, in the wake of René Lévesque’s “beau risque” and the Meech Lake constitutional agreement that the sovereign publicly supported before it fell short.

The queen took advantage of this climate of calm to go to Quebec, where she was soberly received by Robert Bourassa before taking a trip to Bas-Saint-Laurent and Cap-Tourmente to observe the migration of snow geese. On the program for this stopover, the east of the territory: Quebec, Sillery, Cap-Tourmente, Rivière-du-Loup, La Pocatière. She will make another stay, very brief, the time of a reception on the occasion of the 125e anniversary of Confederation. She is invited for the occasion to a reception given by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull.

Rarely present in flesh and blood, but represented by a suite of Governors General, the symbol of the Queen is nonetheless a daily feature in the lives of Canadians. The official currency, for decades, displays variations of its image engraved on steel plates. How many postage stamps, flanked by his bust, have been printed since his arrival on the throne in 1952? In total, if we add up the different printings of these little jagged stamps, we must consider that Canadian languages ​​will have licked the backside of millions of Her Majesty’s stamps. In 1953, the first Canadian stamp printed with the effigy of the Sovereign had a face value of 1 penny. Since then, every year or so, the posts have offered one or more new representations of the Queen of Canada. 72 different stamps bearing his image have been put into circulation in Canada. The price of a stamp in domestic domestic use today is $1.07.

arm wrestling

The queen in principle derives her authority from God. His supreme authority has been evoked by the powers in place to justify political arm wrestling here and there. In 1962, to express his refusal to negotiate salary increases in the public service, Prime Minister Jean Lesage dropped a theatrical phrase: “the queen does not negotiate with her subjects”. He was immediately contradicted by René Lévesque, one of his most influential ministers. In 2014, to repel the accusations of embezzlement that rained down on her, the former lieutenant-governor Lise Thibault invoked for her part, before the courts, the untouchable nature of the monarchy that she claimed to embody.

In 2012, on the occasion of the Queen’s Jubilee, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had multiplied the tributes to Elizabeth II: ceremonies, new official portrait, commemorative stained glass installed in Ottawa. In various state buildings, works of art were replaced by representations of the Sovereign. In the foyer of Foreign Affairs in the federal capital, two paintings by the painter Alfred Pellan were thus removed from the gaze of the public, who were instead shown representations of Elizabeth II.

The death of the monarch occurs shortly after the adoption in Quebec of Bill 86 concerning the devolution of the crown by the National Assembly. The legislation assented to on June 4, 2021 by the Queen’s representative, Lieutenant-Governor J. Michel Doyon, was intended to avoid the interruption of Quebec’s legislative, executive and judicial powers upon the death, or even the abdication, of Elisabeth II. This precaution had been made necessary by the reform of the National Assembly Act of 1982 which did not specify that the legislature survived the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. In an interview with The duty in 2019, the professor at the Faculty of Law of Laval University, Patrick Taillon, spoke of a “little time bomb”. The State ended up defusing it, which will allow the slow succession to the throne of a new sovereign.

With Dave Noel

Canada’s longest reigns

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