Dear young PQ members,
It is with admiration and an immense feeling of gratitude that we, the signatories of this letter, watch you go.
You didn’t have it easy. You face headwinds.
Independence is not on the immediate agenda. The collective dream shattered by two lost referendums has given way to the management of current affairs. Instead of being carried by the country project, as we were, you must carry it at arm’s length, against all odds.
You must now act in a context where affirming our Francophone identity, the one that creates and distinguishes us, too often and unfairly provokes accusations of withdrawal, discrimination or racism. To the affirmation of who we are, of our culture, of our history, of our values, of our specificity, of our collective needs, you are opposed to individual rights, communitarianism, triumphant multiculturalism. You are an activist in an environment where the erasure of who we are has become the norm, where we erase this collective WE, this WE OTHERS of René Lévesque, this WE who gave birth to a feeling of greatness and surpassing and which allowed us to develop a generous, confident, open and progressive society.
The taste of the day is for shy nationalism, procrastination, a policy of piecemeal demands that reassures by adopting the form of a quiet contentment that does not disturb. You are struggling in a context where Quebec is content to demand without success and then stamp your feet, sulky but harmless.
And to top it all off, a whole cohort of brilliant, competent, experienced PQ members who used to work in the parliamentary wing or in PQ bodies are now part of the government. We repeat to you, with a mischievous nod in support, that with the current Prime Minister and this cohort in cabinets and ministries, the PQ is already in power anyway. This is an illusion that is not very comforting, when the real spending power is in Ottawa, where Quebec is perceived as a recalcitrant but invariably willing “province”. Your leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, never ceases to denounce it.
Compared to this period during which you are still walking towards the country at all costs, we were carried by a great surge, animated as we were by the ever-renewed energy of a nascent country. We did not have to carry the idea of independence at arm’s length: it was this that stirred us up, so much was the growing and enthusiastic support of the French-speaking population for this radical constitutional change manifesting itself everywhere.
In this march towards the country, we took the steps of those who had, during feverish years, animated the Quiet Revolution. Our independentist political action was part of a period of spectacular social, economic and cultural changes, supported by a population engaged in a great collective project of modernization, emancipation, affirmation, democratization and liberation.
However, we did not arrive in the country. It took very little, very little.
And there you are, young PQ members, valiantly taking over, with fervor, conviction and without complexes in a very different and too often indifferent environment.
But, you are not alone.
We are still there, around two million voters, according to the latest polls, wishing for this radical constitutional change which would give us the capacity to make all our laws, to raise and administer all our taxes, to sign all our treaties.
We are always here !
* Signatories: Pierre Baillargeon, ex-delegate general of Québec and ex-secretary of Hydro-Québec; Camil Bouchard, retired professor, former PQ parliamentarian; Pierre Curzi, actor, former PQ parliamentarian; Daniel-Mercier Gouin, ex-candidate of the PQ, agro-economist; Louise Harel, former PQ parliamentarian, former president of the National Assembly; Renaud Lapierre, businessman, ex-candidate of the PQ and ex-assistant deputy minister; Robert Laplante, Director of National Action; Lisette Lapointe, former PQ parliamentarian; Tamara Lemerise, retired professor from UQAM; Marie Malavoy, former PQ parliamentarian; Gilles Renaud, actor; Guy Rocher, professor emeritus of the University of Montreal; Marie Tifo, actress.