October 1995 Referendum.

QUEBEC--30 October 1995

That was close, very close. In 1994, the Parti Quebecois returned to power in Quebec City under the leadership of Jacques Parizeau. The new premier campaigned on a promise to hold another referendum on sovereignty. Crafty politicians were able to persuade Quebeckers that the rest of Canada had rejected them in the Charlottetown referendum. This fed a new appetite for separatism.

The date was set for the next referendum--30 October 1995--but again, the question was to be fuzzy.

"Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign, after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership, within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?"

The unofficial point man in the fight to win the referendum was Lucien Bouchard, former Canadian Ambassador to France, former federal cabinet minister, and former close friend of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The very same Mr. Bouchard who, as Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in Ottawa, has taken a pledge of loyalty to the Queen and the country.

Premier Parizeau, personally unpopular in Quebec, promised that if the pro-sovereignty forces won the vote, it would be Mr. Bouchard who negotiated the deal with Canada.

For months, the federal government seemed to be fast asleep.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien became involved in the campaign late. He promised recognition of the province as a distinct society as well as increased power for the provinces if Quebec chose to remain within Confederation. But, Mr. Chretien is not well liked in Quebec; everybody remembers that he opposed the Meech Lake Accord.

With a week to go, the polls showed a neck-and-neck race; with the Yes side just ahead and gaining strength. The separatists have played a clever game; first, the fuzzy question and then a whole bunch of misinformation. A poll released on the day of the referendum shows how little Yes voters understand about what they might be getting into. A quarter of those planning to vote Yes expect they will continue to send MPs to Ottawa. The Leger & Leger poll found that almost all of the Yes voters believe the province will keep its economic ties with Canada. Four out of five Yes voters expect to keep the Canadian dollar and half expect to keep their Canadian passports.

The No forces seem to have fumbled their strategy badly. They allowed the separatists to convince Quebeckers they can enjoy all the benefits of being Canadian after sovereignty. The No side spent most of its time assuring Canadians elsewhere that everything was under control and the separatist threat was going to be defeated again. Inside Quebec, Liberal leader Daniel Johnson ran a very negative campaign. He kept warning Quebeckers of the dire consequences of separation, while Lucien Bouchard was offering them hope for a brighter future.

Some last-minute heroics were going to be needed. They came from ordinary Canadians--more than 150,000 of them.

On Friday, 27 October, a huge crowd gathered in Montreal for a No rally. An estimated 10,000 people from outside Quebec joined the "We love you Quebec" celebration. They came by bus, train, car, and plane, and included delegations from every province. Canadian and Quebec flags snapped in the stiff October wind as francophones, anglophones, and allophones chanted "CA-NA-DA," united in a word that's the same in all languages. There was passion here, the passion that had been missing from the No side all along.

It was federal Conservative Party leader Jean Charest who whipped up the crowd into a patriotic frenzy. In a fiery speech he shouted, "Your adversaries say that the rest of Canada rejects you." Then, he waved at the vast crowd and said, "Here's the proof that they don't."

Those battling the separatists needed some passion; they had become demoralized as the Yes forces gained momentum throughout the campaign.

In the end, the results were nail-bitingly close: 49.4% of Quebeckers voted Yes and 50.6% voted No, with an astounding 93.52% of Quebeckers turning out to vote on the future of the province and Canada.

The difference between victory and defeat is just 55,000 out of 4.8 million votes cast. Sixty percent of French-speaking Quebeckers, who make up 82% of the province's seven million people, voted to leave Canada. However, a few days earlier, the northern Cree held there own referendum and 96.3% voted to stay with Canada.

Premier Jacques Parizeau blamed the defeat on "money and the ethnic vote," a remark interpreted as racist and later blamed on too much whisky going down the premier's throat.

Lucien Bouchard vows to continue to fight for sovereignty, arguing that Quebec's refusal to sign the Canadian Constitution guarantees it the right to self-determination.

NO DOESN'T MEAN NO (13 September 1995)

Yes means Yes; that's clear. However, Bloc Quebecois Leader Lucien Bouchard says No doesn't mean No. If the sovereignists lose the upcoming referendum, they'll just hold another one. And, keep holding them until they get a Yes. This is what the media are calling "The Neverendum Campaign."

Here's how Mr. Bouchard puts it: "If people say Yes, that means Yes, and then it'll be the duty of the government of Quebec to execute that mandate. If they say No, well, it might be that at some point the resurgence of the sovereignty movement will be such that the people will decide to elect another government to have another go."

A CLOSE PREDICTION

Who would have thought it: the National Hockey League almost predicting the outcome of the referendum?

The league schedule had the Toronto Maple Leaf playing the Montreal Canadiens on the Saturday before the vote. The score was tied right to the very end. Then, with just 0.8 seconds left in the game, the Canadiens scored. Even then, it took a video replay to decide that the goal counted.

MEDIA BIAS

A familiar complaint of federalists is that the French-language media in Quebec favours separatism. The federalists say this makes it easy for separatists to spread half-truths and even lies that mislead francophones into believing sovereignty will be painless. Is there a bias against federalism? RDI, the French-language counterpart of CBC Newsworld reported that the crowd at the Montreal rally on 27 October was only 35,000 strong. The RDI report said little about the pro-federalist speeches and concentrated on the traffic congestion caused by the event.

"Oui .... et ca devient possible" (Yes ... and it all becomes possible) Sovereignist slogan

1995 Referendum Links http://www3.sympatico.ca/hdoran/refer.htm

Immediately following the October 1995 Referendum, Jacques Parizeau resigned as Premier of Quebec