The partition of Quebec refers to the proposed division or secession of specific regions within the province, primarily discussed as a potential scenario if Quebec were to secede from Canada. While the topic was not a primary focus during either the 1980 or 1995 referendums on Quebec sovereignty, it became a central issue in national unity debates for approximately two years following the 1995 vote. Since that period, the subject has occasionally re-emerged in political discourse, such as during the 2007 provincial election.
Legal context
Any debate or proposal regarding a future partition of Quebec must be looked at in light of the Canadian Constitution (British North America Act, 1871 3. Alteration of limits of Provinces. ― The Parliament of Canada may from time to time, with the consent of the Legislature of any Province of the said Dominion, increase, diminish, or otherwise alter the limits of such Province, upon such terms and conditions as may be agreed to by the said Legislature,), which stipulates that the limits of a province may not be increased, diminished or otherwise altered without the consent of the legislature of that province, a constitutional provision that would need the consent of the legislatures of all ten provinces to be modified.
In the event that Quebec were to legally secede from Canada, international law as it stands does not recognize the right of entities within a de jure sovereign state to unilaterally secede from that state by invoking the right to self-determination.Hurst Hannum, "Legal Aspects of Self-Determination", Encyclopedia Princetoniensis, Princeton University.
Partition proposals
Broadly speaking, partition proposals have tended to fall into three categories:
1. New borders based on a return to historical boundaries that predate the Confederation of 1867.
The logic here is that the separation of Quebec would represent an end to a constitutional deal in which Quebec was granted stewardship over certain lands which would revert to their former sovereign owners if Quebec were to leave Canada. For example, in his 1991 book Who Gets Ungava?, David Varty notes that the northern two-thirds of Quebec’s current territory had formerly been a part of the lands owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, and that it had been transferred to Quebec by means of two acts of the Canadian Parliament, in 1898 and 1912 respectively. For this reason, if Quebec were to secede, the transfer would be legally void: Quebec was a province of Canada at the time that the Ungava territory was transferred to Quebec’s jurisdiction... Had Quebec been moving to become an independent country, the transfer of jurisdiction would not have taken place. There was an implied condition that the Province of Quebec was going to remain part of Canada. Any attempt to move to independence would constitute a breach of that implied condition attached to the transfer.Varty, David L. Who Gets Ungava?. (Vancouver: Varty and Company Printers, 1991), p. 29. 2. New borders that would create a ‘land bridge’ between New Brunswick and Ontario This could be set up to prevent Canada’s remaining nine provinces from being split into two non-contiguous chunks of territory separated by about of foreign (Quebec) soil. The term sometimes used for this eventuality is "Pakistanization", in reference to the way in which East Pakistan and West Pakistan were separated by hundreds of miles of foreign soil, following independence in 1947, with East Pakistan eventually separating and becoming its own country, Bangladesh, in 1971. The fear is that Canada would be unworkable if its four Atlantic provinces were to become an exclave. 3. New borders based on the preferences of local populations. The logic of this approach is that, if Quebecers as a whole have the right to determine by majority vote whether to separate from Canada, then by extension the residents of regions within Quebec ought to be accorded the same right to separate from Quebec and to remain within Canada. The areas of Quebec that have been mentioned as likely to choose to remain in Canada include predominantly English-speaking municipalities on the western part of the Island of Montreal, Northern Quebec, the Eastern Townships and the Pontiac region in the Outaouais. In his 1992 book Canada Remapped: How the Partition of Quebec Will Reshape the Nation, Scott Reid argues in favour of partition as determined by local populations and largely dismisses the first two lines of thought on partition listed above.
History of the partition debate
The partition movement dates from May 1976, when William Shaw, a candidate for the leadership of the Union Nationale, proposed the idea in a series of interviews with journalists. Writing several years later, Shaw recounted one of these interviews: "I said to the journalist at that time, ‘I want to introduce a new word into the lexicon of Canadian politics—PARTITION. The threat of partition will prevent separation.’"Shaw, William and Lionel Albert, Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence. Montreal: Thornhill, 1980, p. 22.
In December 1976, an organization called the "Preparatory Committee for an Eleventh Province" was formed in Montreal. This group contained some individuals who believed, along with Shaw, that the threat of a partition in which some parts of Quebec would remain within Canada would weaken support for separation.
Other members of the Preparatory Committee sought to create a new province out of the linguistically mixed parts of Quebec even if Quebec were to remain in Canada, in order to create a new, bilingual province.Shaw, William and Lionel Albert, Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence. Montreal: Thornhill, 1980, pp. 27-29. This faction within the early partition movement bears some resemblance to the movements that have arisen from time to time in parts of some Canadian provinces to break away and form new provinces. For example, also in the 1970s, there was a movement, led by the Parti Acadien, to create a new Acadian province out of northern New Brunswick.
Shortly before the 1980 referendum on Quebec secession, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau remarked, "."Trudeau is quoted in Charron, Claude G., . (Montreal: vlb éditeur), 1996, p. 167. (This translates as, "If Canada is divisible, Quebec must also be divisible.") Apparently taking their inspiration from this statement,See Shaw, William and Lionel Albert, Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence. Montreal: Thornhill, 1980, p. 16. The Trudeau quote is reproduced opposite the first page of the introduction to the book. Shaw and co-author Lionel Albert published a book on the subject by the end of the year. Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence outlined a plan for the excision of three slices of territory from a newly independent Quebec republic: The northern two-thirds of the province would be retained by Canada following independence, on the basis that the territory had been assigned (not ceded) to the Province of Quebec in two steps, in 1898 and 1912;Shaw, William and Lionel Albert, Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence. Montreal: Thornhill, 1980, Chapter 4: “The Myth of Entitlement: Rupert’s Land,” pp. 55-78. All Quebec territory south of the St. Lawrence River would also be retained by Canada, on the basis of the 18th-century claim of the then-colonies of New York and Massachusetts to these lands, which had been abandoned by the British Crown only after Quebec had been captured by Britain in 1759;Shaw, William and Lionel Albert, Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence. Montreal: Thornhill, 1980, Chapter 4: “The Myth of Entitlement: South of the St. Lawrence,” pp. 79-112. The Pontiac region of west Quebec, the lower north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the western part of the island of Montreal would remain in Canada on the basis that local populations are predominantly non-Francophone, and presumably therefore would be Canadian rather than Québécois in their loyalties.Shaw, William and Lionel Albert, Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence. Montreal: Thornhill, 1980, Chapter 4: "The Myth of Entitlement: ‘Federalist’ Quebec," pp. 113-135.
Shaw and Albert calculated that the resulting independent Quebec republic would contain somewhat less than one-quarter of the province's total landmass, have a population of around 2.9 million, and would be about 97% French-speaking. The parts remaining in Canada would contain over three million residents, of whom about two-thirds would be French-speaking. But they also seem to have believed that their scenario would never play out. As they put it, "Such a country will not be proclaimed—ever. The French-Canadian people would not have it. They would rather have a large province than a small country. That is why separation will not happen."Shaw, William and Lionel Albert, Partition: The Price of Quebec’s Independence. Montreal: Thornhill, 1980, p. 135.
The Grand Council of the Crees and the Inuit of Nunavik in Northern Quebec have both said that they will keep their lands in Canada should Quebec secede, invoking international laws that guarantee their right to self-determination. In 1995, a Cree referendum voted 95% in favour of staying in Canada should Quebec secede.
Following the narrow loss by the separatist side in the October 1995 referendum on secession, there was a widespread belief that another referendum would be held in the near future. For this reason, potential players began to take actions that would strengthen their positions in the coming unity crisis.For example, the Montreal Gazettes Quebec affairs columnist, Don Macpherson, wrote "Right now, this federal election looks to be the last one before another Quebec sovereignty referendum, and also the last chance for Quebec partitionists to ensure that they have a voice in the Parliament that might be called upon to negotiate the terms of separation." Montreal Gazette, April 19, 1997, p. B5. Forty-three municipal councils in Quebec, including many on the western part of the Island of Montreal, passed resolutions expressing their will to stay in Canada.Ottawa Citizen, September 24, 1997, p. B4.
In 1997, Denzil Spence, the mayor of Allumette Island, a small west Quebec municipality on the Ontario border, approached the county councils in several nearby Ontario counties with the following pro-partition resolution which had previously been endorsed by Quebec's Equality Party:
Between March and August 1997, the resolution was endorsed by county councils in Renfrew County, Frontenac County, Lanark County, and Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry United Counties, but it was rejected by the council of Prescott-Russell County.Equality Party press release: "Come UDI, Quebecers can Expect No Help from Prescott-Russell Reeves." August 20, 1997.
A similar resolution, circulated by a group called the Quebec Committee for Canada, was endorsed by New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna in early summer 1997, and shortly afterwards by New Brunswick's Union of Municipalities, representing about 40 predominantly anglophone municipal councils. However the parallel francophone organization, the Association of New Brunswick Municipalities, rejected the partition resolution.Robert Pichette, "McKenna's faulty memory." The Globe and Mail, September 15, 1997, p. A27. Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard responded to Premier McKenna's letter of endorsement with a letter of his own, defending Quebec's right to secede with its territory intact. This in turn provoked an open letter from federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, arguing that partition was a legitimate option. Finally, on August 14, Quebec's deputy premier, Bernard Landry, responded with an open letter in Le Droit, accusing partitionists of being anti-democratic.