Word: quebecers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Canada's multiplying miseries are as much political as economic. Power sharing between the ten provinces and the central government in Ottawa has often been difficult, and separatist pressures in French-speaking Quebec have been especially troublesome. The most recent difficulty involves the burgeoning oil wealth of Alberta and other energy-rich western provinces, which have been waging a tug-of-war with Ottawa over energy pricing, taxes and revenues...
Along Montreal's bohemian Rue St. Denis, amid a joyous cacophony of automobile horns, youthful Quebecois shouted, "Quebec for the Quebeckers!" and "We want a country!" Inside the cavernous Paul Sauvé Arena, a blue and white sea of waving Quebec flags hailed the stunning victory of Premier René Lévesque over his Liberal Party challenger Claude Ryan in last week's provincial-assembly election...
...since Lévesque's Parti Quebecois first swept to power 4½ years ago had there been such a spontaneous outpouring of French-Canadian nationalism. Coming only eleven months after voters delivered a resounding non in a referendum on the issue of Quebec separatism, the election amounted to political rebirth for Lévesque. It seemed to establish his party's vision of an independent Quebec as a driving force in national as well as provincial politics. Said the victor: "We are no longer an accident of history...
...vesque's victory could not have come at a worse time for Trudeau. His controversial constitutional reform package, initiated after the Quebec referendum to strengthen Canada's federal government, has been tied up for six months Ottawa's Parliament. Six of the nation's ten provinces have challenged Trudeau's bill in provincial courts on the grounds that it would illegally curtail the traditional rights of the provincial governments. Moreover, Trudeau's efforts to bring provincial energy resources under greater federal control have sparked bitter separatist demonstrations in the oil-and gas-rich western provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British...
...unanimous consent of provincial governments for some federal initiatives and allow provinces to opt out of others altogether. Both measures, of course, would ensure continued provincial leverage over the federal government?precisely what Trudeau is trying to avoid. Ironically, the premiers' initiative had been undercut the day before, when Quebec's supreme court became the second to approve the legality of Trudeau's proposed reforms. With a measure of renewed confidence, Trudeau went on television to denounce the whole provincial plan as "a victory for those who want to move Canada slowly toward disintegration...