Separatism refers to the advocacy of separation or secession by a group or people of a particular subunit or section from a larger political unit to which it belongs. In modern times, separatism has frequently been identified with a desire for freedom from perceived colonial oppression. In Canada, it is a term commonly associated with various movements or parties in Québec since the 1960s, most notably the PARTI QUÉBÉCOIS and the BLOC QUÉBECOIS. These parties have also used the terms "sovereignty," "sovereignty-association" and "independence" to describe their primary goal, although each of these concepts has a somewhat different meaning.

The first full-fledged secessionist movement in Canada emerged in Nova Scotia shortly after Confederation in response to economic grievances, but it was quickly defeated. No other serious separatist force appeared in an English-speaking province for another century. In Québec the Manifesto of the PATRIOTES in the REBELLIONS OF 1837 had included a declaration that the province secede from Canada. 

After the defeat of that rebellion, separatism no longer existed as a genuine component of the conservative FRENCH CANADIAN NATIONALISM which emerged and which was dominant for over a century in Québec. There were, however, isolated advocates of the doctrine of separatism, eg, the journalist Jules-Paul TARDIVEL, and occasional flirtations with it in the early 1920s and mid-1930s by strong nationalists such as Abbé Lionel GROULX and his followers. 

The separatist movement re-emerged as a political force in modern Québec in the late 1950s and the 1960s, a time of great socioeconomic change and nationalist ferment in that province. The most important early manifestation of this rejuvenation was the left Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale (RIN). It first competed electorally in 1966, and together with other separatist groups, garnered over 9% of the Québec vote. Some violent radical fringe movements committed to independence also operated during this decade, most notably the FRONT DE LIBÉRATION DU QUÉBEC (FLQ), which attained notoriety in the OCTOBER CRISIS of 1970. 

Popular support for separatism in Québec and for the organizations which represented it rapidly increased in the province in the late 1960s and the 1970s, particularly after the Parti Québécois was formed in 1968. Its founder and leader was the dynamic and popular former broadcast journalist and Liberal cabinet minister René LÉVESQUE. The party was able to rally most of the province's nationalist political groups to its program of political independence coupled with economic association ("sovereignty-association") with English-speaking Canada. 

On 15 November, 1976 it swept to power, with 41% of the popular vote and 71 seats. It promised to delay any move toward independence until it had consulted the people of Québec in a referendum. In the QUÉBEC REFERENDUM campaign of 1980, the government of Québec asked the people for a mandate to negotiate sovereignty-association with the rest of Canada. Although this was only a mild expression of the independence option, it was decisively rejected on 20 May 1980 by about 60% of the Québec electorate, including a majority of the French-speaking population. The PQ was subsequently re-elected in 1981 on a program that included a promise to defer the independence question for at least another full term of office. But its popular support began to wane,  particularly after the resignation of Lévesque in 1985 and the defection of a several prominent cabinet ministers over its moderate independence stance. It was defeated in the provincial election of 1985 by the Liberals under the rejuvenated leadership of former premier Robert BOURASSA, and languished in the opposition for the rest of the decade. Support for full political independence remained around 40% for most of that period.

The PQ regrouped in the late 1980s under the leadership of Jacques PARIZEAU, a former PQ Finance Minister, and its more radical sovereigntist adherents. It pledged in its platform to declare Québec independence following a majority vote in a referendum on sovereignty. Immediately after the rejection of the MEECH LAKE ACCORD in 1990, support for the sovereignty option increased significantly to about 65%, but declined again to its more normal level of about 40% after the PQ won a narrow victory in the provincial election of 1994. During the same period, members of the Québec independence movement established a separatist political party at the national level, the Bloc Québecois, under the leadership of a charismatic former federal PC cabinet minister, Lucien BOUCHARD. It managed to win almost 50% of the Québec vote and 52 seats in the federal election of 1993, and became the official opposition party in Ottawa. Its primary objective was to promote the separatist cause in national politics. 

In October 1995 the PQ Government organized another referendum on sovereignty. It also modified its earlier stance to allow for negotiation of a possible economic partnership with English Canada following a majority vote in favour of sovereignty. About halfway through the campaign Premier Parizeau was forced to cede his de facto leadership of the "yes" side to the more popular Bouchard. The sovereigntists lost very narrowly in the October 30 referendum, 49.4% to 50.6%, but won a substantial majority among francophone voters. Parizeau subsequently resigned, and was replaced as premier by Bouchard. The latter has announced the deferral of another referendum vote at least until after the end of his current term of office in 1998. The final outcome of the Québec independence struggle therefore remains very much in doubt at this time (1997).

In its initial period of the 1970s, the modern form of separatism in Québec was particularly popular among the new middle classes, especially those linked to state structures and with aspirations in other expanding bureaucratic sectors of society. Its principal adherents today, both within the rank and file and the leadership, continue to be liberal professionals (eg, teachers, administrators and media specialists), white-collar workers and students. There is also considerable support from trade union members, who form the core of its more radically nationalist and socially-oriented adherents. Since the 1980s, it has also garnered somewhat greater support from the business sector, and from the traditional liberal professions, such as law and medicine, than it had managed to do previously. However, these latter groups continue to be more sympathetic to pan-Canadian political appeals, which are perceived to be more in tune with their economic interests. Thus far, the separatist cause has had very little success in its efforts to win votes among anglophones and allophones, who constitute slightly less than 20% of the Québec population.

In English Canada in the early 1980s there was also some separatist activity, particularly in Alberta, which was embodied in the Western Canada Concept Party. The objectives of this party were to try to rectify perceived injustices in western Canada concerning such matters as freight rates, tariff barriers, oil pricing, bilingualism and western representation in the federal governing party, and failing that, to promote secession from Canada. However, the party failed to win much support, and succeeded in electing only one member in an Alberta provincial by-election. Much of this support for western separatism has since dissipated. 

AUTHOR: MICHAEL B. STEIN
READING: W.D. Coleman, The Independence Movement in Quebec, 1945-1980  (1984); K. McRoberts, Quebec: Social Change and Political Crisis  (3rd ed, 1988). 

Courtesy The Canadian Encyclopedia