Word: quebecs
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Thanks largely to their huge majority in Quebec, the Liberals outpolled the Tories 39.9% to 36.1% in the popular vote -but the parliamentary totals were the ones that counted. Early Wednesday morning, Trudeau addressed 1,000 dejected supporters in Ottawa's Chateau Laurier hotel. "I think I will be a pretty good leader of the opposition..." he began. Interrupted by applause, he never finished the sentence...
...distribution of power between the provinces and the federal government in Ottawa. Western Canadians feel that their interests have too long been ignored or overlooked by Ottawa and want a larger say in the nation's affairs. Overriding everything, of course, is the issue of separatism in Quebec, and Premier Levesque's plan to hold a referendum on a new form of "sovereignty-association" between his province and the rest of Canada...
...Liberal strategy was to depict Trudeau as the only leader with enough depth and experience to turn the economy around, maintain the authority of the central government and keep Quebec from breaking away. "In every important area of policy, Joe Clark doesn't know what the heck he is talking about," claimed Trudeau. Putting it more bluntly, one Trudeau aide told TIME Ottawa Bureau Chief John Scott: "The Conservatives' bottom line is that it's time for a change. Our bottom line is that Joe Clark is a nerd...
Some Canadians thought of it as their country's doomsday scenario. The election of an English-speaking government in Ottawa would be seen by Quebeckers as a hostile rejection. Whereupon Premier Rene Levesque (pronounced Leh-vek) would immediately call a provincial referendum on a separate status for Quebec. After his Parti Quebecois legions stumped the province insisting that Quebeckers now had no choice but to entrust their future to their own government, the voters would give Levesque his mandate to present Ottawa with an ultimatum...
Levesque had done whatever he could to ensure the defeat of his old enemy Trudeau. To weaken the Liberals' traditional domination of federal elections in Quebec, the Parti Québecois endorsed the Social Credit Party and its bombastic leader, Fabien Roy. The strategy backfired. In the Liberal sweep of the province, five of the nine Social Credit M.P.s were defeated...