Article Outline
Parti Québécois (PQ), or Québec Party, Canadian political party dedicated to political sovereignty for the province of Québec. The party’s main goal is sovereignty-association, whereby Québec would retain economic associations with the rest of Canada but be politically independent. Under sovereignty-association, Québec would share with Canada a common monetary system, free trade, and other economic agreements, but it would have the political authority to impose its own taxes, make all its own laws, and negotiate its own international treaties, conventions, and accords. The issue is highly controversial in the province and throughout Canada. In a 1995 referendum, Québec voters narrowly rejected sovereignty-association.
The PQ membership meets frequently at the local and regional levels, four times a year in a national council, and every two years in a general convention. The party program is adopted and amended at the general conventions. Meetings of the party are usually characterized by long and intense debates due to tension among various factions. Some party members see sovereignty as an end in itself, while others see it as a means for the assertion of a Québec identity. In addition, some members support social-democratic economic reforms, such as more generous social welfare and increasing the minimum wage, while others favor cutting taxes and other more conservative economic policies. Since 1985 the head of the party, who is called the president, has been elected by all registered members.
One of the founders of the party was René Lévesque, who had been a prominent and popular figure in Québec’s Liberal Party. Lévesque quit that party in 1967 and founded a group called Mouvement Souveraineté-Association (Sovereignty-Association Movement), which in 1968 became the PQ. The PQ was founded to address growing dissatisfaction with the ability of Canadian federalism to make room for Québec as a French-speaking society.
The new party immediately received support among the youth of the province and other Québeckers concerned with their collective identity as a French-speaking society. In the 1970 provincial election, the PQ won 23 percent of the vote and seated seven candidates in the 110-member Québec legislature, the National Assembly. In 1973, with 31 percent of the vote, the PQ was the second strongest party and thus became the official opposition in the assembly.
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The Lévesque Government
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In the 1976 Québec elections, the PQ received 41 percent of the vote, which was enough to enable it to form the government because the rest of the vote was split among other parties. Lévesque became premier of Québec and remained in power until 1985. His government produced legislation to reform election financing, automobile insurance practices, and labor relations. It authored the controversial Bill 101, known as the Charter of the French Language, which made French the official language of the province and, with a few exceptions, the only language for public communication.
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