Once a month, The duty launches into passionborn from history the challenge of deciphering a theme current affairs based on a comparison with a historical event or character.
An important, almost completely hidden event in our history occurred on June 10 and 11, 1938, the holding of the orientation conference of the Liberal Party of Quebec at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec. The resolutions adopted at this time are part of the social democratic movement and lay the foundations of a first quiet revolution which will continue with the election of the Lesage government in 1960.
The Liberal Party, which outrageously dominated political life in Quebec from 1897 to 1936, was then in opposition, having been defeated by the National Union of Maurice Duplessis. The latter was born in 1935 from a coalition between the Conservative Party of Duplessis and the National Liberal Action (ALN), a dissident wing of the Liberal Party made up of young activists wishing to reform their party by advocating progressive reforms. But once in power, the Duplessis government placed its policies within a conservative movement that listened to the teaching of the Catholic Church.
However, the “new order” simmered by Catholic intellectuals in the 1930s does not represent the only response of French-speaking elites to the desire for profound change of the population, which is suffering the effects of the economic crisis.
Decisive Congress
In June 1938, the Liberal Party held an orientation congress with an orientation very different from the policies of the National Union. The 52 resolutions adopted by the 1000 delegates coming from all regions of Quebec are clearly on the left of the political spectrum.
In terms of democratic values, the delegates spoke out in favor of the right to vote for women, the abolition of the Legislative Council (Quebec Senate) and the formation of a Civil Service Commission in order to reform civil service. On the social level, the delegates showed a lot of boldness in laying the foundations of the welfare state: they agreed to participation in the federal unemployment insurance program, a state pension plan and the establishment of a Quebec program to help mothers without a family support.
We are also recommending a Labor Code that would promote “full respect” for the right to unionization and collective bargaining, violated by the Duplessis government. To silence the critics who associate the Liberal Party with trusts and monopolies, the congress intends to energetically repress the abuses of trusts and takes up the promise of the ALN of 1934 which proposed the stateization or municipalization of hydroelectric forces.
The resolutions of the congress were part of the party program during the elections of October 25, 1939. Several other commitments were added, which were always in the same perspective. Thus, we promise important social measures managed by the Quebec government alone: health insurance, disability insurance and a family allowance program. On the economic front, the program adds the creation of an Industrial and Commercial Office intended to guide industries and commerce.
These reforms are part of social democratic regulation focusing on an expansion of democratic rights and state interventionism. Its orientations are part of the North American environment, particularly in the shift taken by the Canadian and American governments to revive the economy. They follow in the footsteps of Roosevelt’s New Deal in the United States, begun in 1933, and that of the Canadian New Deal of conservative Prime Minister RB Bennett of 1935, to which Mackenzie King’s Liberals will adhere.
This shift to the left on the North American political spectrum influenced the delegates to the Quebec Liberal Party convention, who also wanted to distinguish themselves from the directions of the Duplessis government.
The Godbout government
In the October 1939 elections, the Liberal Party defeated the Union Nationale by presenting itself as the party best able to protect Quebecers from conscription, which would force young men to do military service in Europe. Once in power, the Liberals under the leadership of Adélard Godbout worked diligently to implement their program and even went well beyond in education and the economy.
Two measures were adopted which directly clashed with Catholic teaching: the right to vote and to stand for election granted to women in 1940, then compulsory education up to the age of 14 and free education and textbooks in schools. public (1943-1944). Clerical opposition assumed that education was primarily a responsibility of parents and the Church, not that of the government.
The Liberals’ support for the construction of the protective State was reflected in their participation in the federal unemployment insurance program from 1940. The protection of provincial autonomy did not appear to them to be a sufficient reason to deprive the unemployed of an allowance. . In addition, the government worked to establish a Quebec health insurance program by forming a Commission of Inquiry into hospital problems in 1941. His report submitted in 1943 severely criticized the public assistance system and proposed its replacement by a health insurance plan.
The government is working diligently to create a Health Insurance Commission, with the mandate to put it in place. The Quebec government’s approach is thus at the forefront of the Canadian provinces; Quebec could have become the first province to implement health insurance.
Union conquest
In terms of labor laws, the Liberals also kept their promise by recalling several laws in 1940 restricting union action and passing the Labor Relations Act in 1944, which had its origins in the American Wagner Act. Regulating collective bargaining, it notably requires employers to “negotiate in good faith” with the representatives of their employees. This is the most important union achievement since the legalization of trade unionism in 1872 and it will contribute to a very significant growth in union membership. Its principles still form the basis of the Labor Code today.
The Liberal Congress of 1938 was timid in allowing the state to play an active role in economic activity. But, once in power, the Liberals will resolutely commit to the path of the Keynesian revolution by creating, in 1941, a first state enterprise, the Saint-Hilaire Sugar Refinery, and above all by nationalizing Montreal Light, Heat and Power and the Beauharnois Power Company in 1944. The government thus gave birth to Hydro-Québec. The Liberals did not stop there: they converted to the idea of economic planning by forming an Economic Orientation Council the same year.
Finally, there is a revealing measure of economic development that is worth noting, because it marks a new opening to the world. In fact, the government adopted a law in 1940 which allowed it to create delegations in Paris, London and New York to stimulate Quebec’s exports. The Prime Minister is even considering opening offices in Ottawa, the West Indies and South America. Unfortunately, only the New York office is open, due to the war.
The defeat
In the election of August 8, 1944, the Liberal Party, which campaigned on its many achievements, was defeated by the National Union even though it won a greater percentage of the vote. The Liberals are severely handicapped by the main issue of the election, which concerns conscription for overseas service that the Canadian Parliament imposed in 1942.
Prime Minister Godbout formally committed in 1939 to resign if this measure was adopted by the federal government. In addition, the National Union benefits from its roots in rural regions, which is favored by the division of the electoral map. The Liberal Party nevertheless retained its progressive orientations during the elections which it lost in 1948, 1952 and 1956.
The return of Duplessis’ National Union in 1944 sounded the death knell for the progressive measures put forward by the liberals. Steeped in conservatism, this party is resistant to state intervention and protects the role of the Church in education and social affairs. This is why, immediately after the 1944 elections, he dismantled the Health Insurance Commission, recalled the Civil Service Commission law, weakened free education and books, dissolved the Economic Orientation Council, restricts the bargaining power of unions, etc.
The victories of the National Union in 1944 and subsequent elections marked a halt in the evolution of progressive policies, which would break out with the second quiet revolution.
Amputated memory
Carried out in a single mandate, the measures adopted by the Liberals from 1939 to 1944 mark a remarkable journey towards modernity in a society supposedly mired in conservatism. Quebec thus carried out a first quiet revolution, which clearly announced that of the Lesage government from 1960 to 1966. The latter therefore had its origins in the Liberal Party congress of 1938. And it was not by accident that this political formation became the main vector of the Quiet Revolution.
Unfortunately, collective memory is still imbued with the myth of the Great Darkness before the great evening of the Quiet Revolution. This representation of the history of Quebec is ill-founded and ignores the social forces coming from the economic and political world which represent a significant counterweight to the clerical-conservative movement since the beginning of the 20th century.e century.
French-speaking Quebec before 1960 was not a folkloric society, closed in on itself and genetically connected to clerical traditionalism. Its genesis does not make it the dunce of New World societies. Yesterday as today, Quebec is a diverse society sensitive to the influences of the continent it inhabits.
To suggest a text or to make comments and suggestions, write to Dave Noël at [email protected].