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American Review of Canadian Studies

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SOVEREIGNTY-ASSOCIATION “NON”-PARTIQUÉBÉCOIS “OUI”: TRENDS IN POLITICAL SUPPORTIN QUEBEC

Lawrence LeDuc , Harold D. Clarke , Jane Jenson & Jon H. Pammett

To cite this article: Lawrence LeDuc , Harold D. Clarke , Jane Jenson & Jon H. Pammett(1982) SOVEREIGNTY-ASSOCIATION “NON”-PARTI QUÉBÉCOIS “OUI”: TRENDS INPOLITICAL SUPPORT IN QUEBEC, American Review of Canadian Studies, 12:3, 61-71, DOI:10.1080/02722018209480758

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02722018209480758

Published online: 10 Nov 2009.

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SOVEREIGNTY -ASSOCIATION ‘“ON”-PARTI QUEBECOIS “OUI”:

TRENDS IN POLITICAL SUPPORT IN QUEBEC

Lawrence LeDuc, Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson, Jon H. Pammett

he reelection on April 13th, 1981 of Premier RenC LCvesque and his Parti T QuCbCcois government demonstrated conclusively that the PQ is far from a spent force in Quebec politics. Only eleven months earlier, in the May 1980 refer- endum, the Quebec electorate had decisively rejected (by a 6 to 4 margin) the party’s request for a mandate to negotiate sovereignty-association with the rest of Canada. When its referendum question’ was defeated, many observers expected that the PQ, clearly identified with the rejected constitutional option, would likely lose the subsequent provincial election. But less than a year later, the party won a stunning victory, taking 49% of the popular vote and 80 of the 122 seats in the Quebec National Assembly. The swift post-referendum recovery of Ptquiste electoral fortunes poses some obvious but very important questions-about the balance of long- and short-term forces in Quebec politics, the stability of the pres- ent political alignment, and the future of the PQ itself, with its vision of an inde- pendent or quasi-independent Quebec.

In this paper we will argue that both the rejection of the Parti Quebecois’ sovereignty-association proposal in the referendum and the party’s subsequent electoral victory can be understood in terms of the extent and nature of the party’s support in the Quebec electorate. Specifically, the reorientation of the Quebec party system that has occurred during the past 15 years has given the PQ a large and durable base of partisan support. This base both is a product of and is limited by the proportion of the electorate which has accepted the party’s vision of a sovereign Quebec. To date, only a minority (albeit a substantial one) has done so. Until and unless this situation changes, only in instances such as the April 1981 provincial election when the issue of sovereignty is not on the political agenda can the party expect to achieve success at the polls. In such situations, however, the party has an opportunity to build on the large and solid foundation provided by its ideologically committed partisans to construct a winning coali- tion. The size and stability of the PQ’s electoral base strongly indicates that the party will be a major force on the Quebec political scene in the coming decade. The fact that a majority of Quebecers have deeply divided and ambivalent atti- tudes toward the Canadian political community but have not accepted the consti- tutional alternative proposed by the PQ ensures that this period will be one of un- certainty-for the party, Quebec, and Canada as a whole.

Data: Analysis presented in this paper focus on trends in public opinion in Quebec during the 1976-81 period, paying particular attention to the period sur- rounding the referendum and subsequent provincial election. For this purpose we employ a series of panel studies of the Quebec electorate which we initiated in 1974, and continued with successive waves of interviewing in 1979, early 1980,

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and at the time of the referendum.’ Supplementing the above are the results of several cross-sectional surveys conducted by private polling firms in Quebec over the past d e ~ a d e . ~

Partisan Realignment and the Referendum

he PQ emerged as a major force in Quebec politics during the 1970-73 period, T only a few short years after it had been created as an electoral rallying point for several disparate groups advocating the independence of Quebec. Virtually since its inception, the party has been associated with the policy of “sovereignty- association,” meaning political independence for Quebec in conjunction with an economic association with the rest of Canada. However, the 1976 election that brought the Parti Qutbtcois to power generally is interpreted not as a popular en- dorsement of the cause of Quebec independence but rather as a decisive rejection of the incumbent Liberal regime, to which the PQ had emerged as the principal opposition.‘ While the Parti Qutbtcois was without doubt the beneficiary of powerful short-term forces acting against the Liberals in 1976, it is important to recognize that the party’s growth also reflects a major partisan and ideological realignment in Quebec politics. During its initial five-year incumbency, the party’s popular base continued to broaden, and the 1981 provincial election in- dicates that it was not permanently damaged by the referendum defeat.

Although the Parti QuCbtcois is not yet the “natural majority” party in Quebec, the 1981 election demonstrated that it possesses a large enough base to win a provincial election whenever a sufficient number of short-term factors work in its favor. Support for this proposition may be seen in data on Quebecers’ parti- san attachments in provincial politics (Table 1). These data dramatically illustrate that the province now has reverted to a two-party system, polarized between the alternative political agendas advocated by the Liberals and the Ptquistes. Identi- fication with the Union Nationale (which held power in Quebec City as late as 1970) has all but disappeared; a demise which was confirmed in the 1981 provin- cial election by the UN’s meagre 4% of the popular vote and failure to win a sin- gle Assembly seat. In all, only 8% of all respondents in our May 1980 referendum survey reported neither a PQ nor Liberal identification.

Table 1 Distributions of Provincial Party Identification in Quebec,

1974-1980

Provincial Feb. May Party Identification 1974 1979 1980 1980

Parti Quebecois 18 32 36 41 Crtditiste 9 3 1 1 Union Nationale 4 6 3 1

1 Other No Identification 10 9 5 5

Liberal 59% 51% 54% 52%

-- -- --

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Yet another indication of the polarization of the Quebec electorate is pro- vided by our repeated interviews between 1974 and 1980 with a panel of voters. These show that during the 1970s the P Q and, to a lesser extent, the Liberals had considerable success in retaining the loyalties of their identifiers, and that sub- stantial numbers of persons previously identified with other parties migrated to either the Liberals or the PQ. The 1974-79 panel data illustrate these patterns of partisan realignment (Table 2). In this panel, fully 88% of the 1974 Ptquistes and 77% of 1974 Liberals reported P Q and Liberal identifications five years later. In sharp contrast, less than half (41%) of those identifying with other parties in 1974 reported the same partisan ties in 1979. Similarly, less than one-third of 1974 non- identifiers refused a party label five years later. Large proportions of these latter two groups (34% and 63% of “other”- and non-identifiers respectively) had shifted to either the Liberals or the P Q by 1979. Similar analyses (not shown in tabular form) of the 1979-80 panels show a continuation of these patterns of realignment.’

Table 2 Changes in Provincial Party Identification as Measured

by 1974-1979 Panel Studies 1974 Party Identification

1979 Party Identification Liberal Parti Quebecois Other No Identification

Liberal 77 qo 4 To 15% 40% Parti Quebecois 13 88 19 23 Other 6 6 41 6 No Identification 4 2 15 30

w= ) (210) (62) ( 5 5 ) (37)

As a result of the partisan realignment that occurred in the past decade the PQ now has a sufficiently large group of committed adherents to make it a major force in Quebec politics for many years. In fact, our cross-sectional surveys show that the proportion of voters identifying with the P Q increased throughout the 1970s and accelerated somewhat in the year or two preceding the referendum. By the spring of 1980, slightly over two-fifths of the electorate (41 Vo) were P Q identi- fiers (Table 1). Moreover, from its inception to the present, the strongest support for the party has come from younger persons. At the time of the referendum in May 1980, no fewer than 71% of francophone respondents under the age of 30 in our survey were P Q identifiers (Figure 1). Because the party’s greatest strength al- ways has been among younger voters, it is quite possible that patterns of popula- tion replacement will continue to favor the Parti Quebtcois at the expense of other parties, and thereby further solidify and extend the realignment that has taken place in the last decade. On the other hand, it is also possible that the large influx of young Pequistes into the electorate in the 1970s represents a “period” effect linked to the political maturation of a particular generation-something that may not necessarily continue as more new voters reach the age of majority in the years ahead.6 In either case, however, the party’s strength among the present

63

generation of young QuCbCcois and the very low rates of erosion in P Q partisan- ship documented in our panel data suggest that the party will be a major presence on the provincial political scene in the foreseeable future.

70

60

30

20

1974 1979 Feb. May. 1980 1980

TIME OF SURVEY Figure 1. Percent Identifying with the Parti QuCbCcois in Four Surveys: July,

1974 to May, 1980

As for the effects of the referendum, by focusing attention on two obviously different, albeit poorly defined, visions of a new Quebec, the referendum cam- paign likely contributed to and possibly accelerated the provincial political re- alignment that had been in progress for some time. In this respect, the vast major- ity of “yes” voters in the referendum were PQ identifiers and virtually all PQ identifiers supported the “yes” side in the referendum (Table 3a). The stability of this alignment is suggested in that only 7% of those voting in the referendum shifted their position during the campaign (Table 3b). It also is undoubtedly true that an overwhelming proportion of P Q identifiers supported their party’s candi- dates in the subsequent 1981 provincial election. As the referendum clearly dem-

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onstrated, the PQ-sovereignty-association group does not yet constitute a major- ity of the Quebec electorate. As noted, however, the large minority which com- prised the “yes” vote is not likely to vanish quickly, and may well grow in the fu- ture if the P Q is able to maintain its strength among newly eligible voters and younger members of the electorate more generally. The “yes” side in the referen- dum and the Parti Quebecois therefore represent essentially the same force in Quebec politics-a highly cohesive minority which can challenge for power suc- cessfully in instances where various short-term advantages can be effectively com- bined with its already firm base of support. The referendum question was de- feated essentially because it was interpreted as presenting a choice between two political communities, Quebec and Canada, even though it was not worded in these terms, rather than as a choice between leaders, parties, or finely nuanced constitutional options.’ In situations such as the ensuing provincial election where the choice is not so perceived, a different outcome is possible, even with the pres- ent distributions of partisanship and opinion on Quebec’s constitutional options -distributions which place the P Q and its sovereignty-association proposal in the minority.

Table 3 Voting Behavior in the Quebec Referendum, May 1980

A. Party Identification and B. Referendum Vote Intention (Feb. 1980) Referendum Vote and Actual Referendum Vote (May 1980)

Yo Voting ‘YES’ (N)

Liberal 9 (147) PQ 96 (118) All other* 41 ( 12)

V = .85

Feb. Vote Intention

0 = .86 * (N = 261)*

~~~~~~~

*Includes non-identifiers *Feb. and May 1980 panel respondents

The 1981 Election

imilar to the situation in 1976, the P Q was aided in its 1981 election victory by S a number of short-term forces working in its favor. In both cases, the party apparently profited substantially from its “good government” image. For exam- ple, on the eve of the latter contest, fully two-thirds of the respondents in a SORECOM poll indicated that they were satisfied with the P Q government.* Leadership effects also operated in the party’s favor. In both the April 1981 SORECOM poll and one conducted under the same auspices a few weeks earlier, Premier Livesque was selected as the “best leader’’ by margins of approximately two to one over his Liberal rival, Claude Ryan. Additionally, the poll data show that many voters were satisfied with the PQ’s handling of important issues (Table 4). Positive evaluations of the party’s handling of the Quebec economy, satisfac-

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tion with the results of its initially controversial language legislation (Bill 101), and the aforementioned reputation for honest, efficient government were among the factors that worked in the party’s favor in 1981.

Table 4 Satisfaction With PQ Government’s Performance on Selected Issues,

A~r i l 11, 1981* ~

Negotiations Legis- Consti- Honesty With Managing Attracting

Relations (Bill 101) Problems Government Government Economy Investments Labour lation tutional in Federal the New

satisfied 50% 64% 42% 63 % 48 % 52% 47 % dissatisfied 38 28 31 23 39 37 39 undecided 12 8 21 13 12 11 15

*Source: Montreal Gazetfe-Le Soleil Poll, conducted by SORECOM Inc. between March 30-April 5, 1981 (N = 766), results reported in the Gazette, April 11, 1981.

As the referendum result testified, issues related to sovereignty-association or independence had great potential to adversely affect Pkquiste electoral for- tunes. Thus, in retrospect, the party’s campaign promise not to hold a second sovereignty-association referendum was perhaps particularly important. By de- taching itself at least temporarily from this highly-charged issue where it was in a minority position, the P Q was able to take advantage of the popularity of its leader, Mr. Levesque, and the widespread popular satisfaction with its perfor- mance on economic and other salient issues documented above. To some extent also, the P Q victory was a product of the failure of the Liberal election campaign. The Liberals did not attempt to make the election a second referendum on sover- eignty-association, and disarmed (or disarming themselves) on this issue, they failed to marshal any other issues that might have helped them to offset the gen- eral impression that the PQ had governed effe~t ively.~

Table 5 Attitudes Toward Four Constitutional Options for

Quebec, 1979 and 1980 by Language, Partisanship and Referendum Voting

Sovereignty Renewed Status Independence Association Federalism Quo

1979 1980 1979 1980 1979 1980 1979 1980

Vo favorable 18 25 38 47 60 67 36 29

% francophones favorable 19 29 42 53 58 62 34 26 % anglophones favorable 6 5 19 15 16 92 39 42

‘70 of favorable group 87 90 72 71 21 25 18 12

Yo of favorable group voting 90 76 24 13

identifying with PQ

‘Yes’ in referendum

(N = 1 (684) (322) (529) (319) (473) (309) (691) (318)

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The Future

hat then do the referendum and election tell us about the likely future of the W Parti Quebecois and its vision of a sovereign Quebec? Both PQ partisan- ship and referendum voting are related very strongly to opinions regarding possi- ble constitutional options for Quebec (Table 5 ) . At least some of the latter, in turn, are strongly correlated with basic ethno-linguistic divisions in the province -favorable attitudes toward sovereignty-association and outright independence being largely confined to francophones. In contrast, substantial majorities of an- glophones and francophones favor renewed federalism, and majorities of both of these linguistic communities reject the status quo. These patterns of opinion within and between major societal groups in Quebec have served as powerful forces shaping the contemporary party system and narrowing the choice of con- stitutional options to some variation of the sovereignty-association theme around which the referendum was framed and the renewed federalism advocated by the Liberals. In this regard, it is significant that complete independence never has had wide support in Quebec, and the proportion who favor it now is not substantially greater than it has been in the past. As Figure 2 shows, for the period August 1977 through April 1980, in several polls the maximum percentage of persons favoring independence never exceeded 28%. At the time of the 1981 election, the figure stood at 23%. But, as seen in Table 5 , the status quo is nearly as unpopular. In- deed, more detailed analyses show that less than 3 % of those interviewed in 1979 or 1980 opposed some sort of change in the province's constitutional status. Thus, the most basic division of opinion in contemporary Quebec is that concern- ing the desirability of moderate versus extreme constitutional change. This cleav- age reflects, to a considerable extent, the division between the Liberals and the Parti Qutbtcois, opinions on renewed federalism and sovereignty association, and the actual result of the referendum itself.

Relatedly, both the 1981 election and that which initially brought the PQ to power in 1976 can be interpreted as indicating that the electoral success of the party and the salience of sovereignty-association are inversely related. The PQ's two election victories have occurred in circumstances where it has explicitly ruled out the issue of constitutional change in relations between Quebec and Canada. In the one instance (i.e., the referendum) when the subject was voted on, the party was defeated decisively.I0 It would appear, then, that the PQ will do no bet- ter in a future constitutional referendum unless it can generate significant new support for its sovereignty-association option. More generally, unless that sup- port is forthcoming, the party will risk the prospect of defeat at the polls whenever the province's constitutional status becomes an important issue.

This battle between competing visions of a future Quebec will likely continue in various forms in the foreseeable future, despite the referendum result and Mr. Lkvesque's campaign commitment not to hold a second referendum during his new term of office. Neither the referendum nor the recent election have finally re- solved the matter of Quebec's future. In particular, the referendum result did not bring about, as some supposed it might, the demise of the PQ, any real decline in Quebec nationalism or a resurgence of positive affect toward Canada. Illustra- tively, feelings toward Canada among our panel respondents, as measured by a

67

a 0 > L a

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

I I I

Renewed Federalism

-

- -

- Sovereignty- Association

-

-

- Independence

-

1977 1978 (August)

1979 1980

TIME OF SURVEY Figure 2. Percentages of Quebecers Favouring Renewed Federalism, Sover-

eignty-Association and Independence, 1977-80

Source: HCltne Robillard-Frayne and Claude Gauthier, Les QuPb6cois et La Campagne RPferendaire (Montreal: Radio-Canada, Le 9 mai, 1980), section IV, p. 13.

'Actual Vote in Quebec Sovereignty-Association Referendum

100 point thermometer scale, were in fact slightly lower in mid-1980 than when the respondents were first interviewed in 1974 (Figure 3)." Among the younger, french-speaking, component of the sample, they declined more sharply. Affect

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- Total Sample

___--------- Francophones Under Age 30

I I 1 I 1974 1979 Feb. May

1980 1980

TIME OF SURVEY

Figure 3. Feelings Toward Quebec and Canada: 1974 to 1980

for Quebec, in contrast, increased significantly over the same period, and the spread between attitudes toward Quebec as a political entity and toward Canada steadily widened (Figure 3). Indicative of the “dual loyalties” that characterize the attitudes of many Quebecers, the SORECOM poll conducted in the two weeks prior to the 1981 provincial election found that three-quarters of the respondents felt a “strong attachment” to Canada but over nine-tenths felt this way about Quebec. Since a choice between sovereignty-association and a federal option is always likely to represent, in at least a symbolic sense, the need to choose between alternative political communities (Canada and Quebec), and since many Quebe- cers currently have deeply divided and ambivalent attitudes toward these commu-

69

nities, it m a y be several years before t h e fu ture o f the province is finally decided. Until it is, t h e politicaI f u t u r e o f Canada itself will cont inue t o be one o f uncer- tainty.

Lawrence LeDuc University of Windsor

Harold D. Clarke Virginia Polytechnic Institute

and State University

Jane Jenson Carleton University

Jon H, Pammett Carleton University

NOTES ‘The exact wording of the referendum question was as follows: “The government of

Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada based on the equality of nations. This agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclu- sive power to make its laws, administer its taxes, and establish relations abroad-in other words sovereignty-and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency. Any change in political status resulting from these negotia- tions will be submitted to the people through a referendum. On these terms, d o you agree to give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?”

’The data reported here are part of the Canadian National Election and Panel Studies of 1974, 1979 and 1980 which were conducted by the authors. At the time of the Quebec Referendum (May 1980), respondents in the Quebec portion of the panel were contacted again by telephone and questioned regarding referendum vote, attitudes toward parties and leaders and opinions on various constitutional issues. All four studies were funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. All analyses and interpret& tions presented here are the responsibility of the authors.

’With the exception of surveys conducted during the April 1981 provincial election campaign, the results of these polls are contained in HClene Robillard-Frayne and Claude Gauthier, Les QuPb&ois ef t o Cumpagne RPfPrendaire (Montreal: Radio-Canada, le 9 mai, 1980). The results of polls conducted during the election campaign itself are reported in the Montreal Gazeffe and Le Soleil, March 28 and April 11, 1981.

‘See Maurice Pinard and Richard Hamilton, “The Parti Quebecois Comes to Power: An Analysis of the 1976 Quebec Election,” Cunudiun Journul of Polificd Science, 11 (1978), pp. 739-776.

’A more detailed study of the dynamics of party identification in Quebec over the 1974-1980 period may be found in Harold D. Clarke, “The Parti Quebecois and Sources of Partisan Realignment in Contemporary Quebec,” Journal of folifics 45 (1983), forthcom- ing. A more general analysis of party identification in Canada is contained in Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc and Jon Pammett, Political Choice in Cunudu (To- ronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1979), ch. 5.

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”There is scattered evidence in recent polls to suggest that the PQ was not as strong among the 18-22 year old group of voters entering the electorate for the first time in this election as it was among the 23-29 year old group who cast their first provincial vote in 1976. Regarding the strength of the PQ among younger Quebecois at the time of the refer- endum see Maurice Pinard and Richard Hamilton, “Les Quebecois Votent “on:’ Les as- sises de I’appui au regime et de son rejet,” paper presented at the “Political Support in Canada: The Crisis Years” conference, Duke University, Durham, N.C., November 21-22, 1980. On the importance of support by younger, well-educated Quebecois for the growth and electoral success of the PQ more generally see Harold D. Clarke, “Partisanship and the Parti Quebecois: The Impact of the Independence Issue,” American Review of Canadian Studies 8 (1978), pp. 28-47.

’This argument is developed in Jon Pammett, Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson and Lawrence LeDuc, “Political Support and Voting Behaviour in the Quebec Referendum,” in Allan Kornberg and Harold D. Clarke, eds., Political Support in Canada: The Crisis Years (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1982), ch. 12, forthcoming.

‘Although analytically, the PQ’s “good government” image should be considered a “short-term” force, evidence suggests it is hardly ephemeral. For example, in 1980, a month prior to the referendum, a CROPIRadio-Canada poll found 67% of its respondents “very” or “fairly” satisfied with the PQ government-this despite the fact that the party’s sovereignty-association proposal was about to be soundly defeated. Also, there is evidence that the PQ’s image of probity was a factor in helping it to defeat the Liberals in 1976. See Maurice Pinard and Richard Hamilton, “The Parti Quebecois Comes to Power,” pp. 763, 772.

9Regarding the Liberals’ failure to inject the sovereignty-association issue into the 1981 campaign, it is noteworthy that the April 1 Ith Gazelle-Le Soleil pre-election poll showed that 45% of the respondents believed Prime Minister Trudeau had misled Quebecers during the referendum campaign with his promise of a “renewed federalism.” (An additional 15% were undecided.) In the face of such sentiment, the Liberals may have decided that there were substantial risks in bringing sovereignty-association into the campaign in that the issue might backfire and harm the party’s electoral prospects. Moreover, were the Liberals to lose the election for whatever reason, it was important that the PQ not be able to claim that a PCquiste electoral victory constituted its long-sought after mandate to negotiate sover- eignty-association with the federal government.

‘DAlso, the PQ was soundly defeated in the 1973 provincial election-a contest in which Quebec independence was a highly salient issue. The importance of this issue for mo- bilizing a majority of voters against the PQ in that election is argued in Maurice Pinard and Richard Hamilton, “The Independence Issue and the Polarization of the Electorate: The 1973 Quebec Election,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 10 (1977), pp. 215-60.

“Compare the 1974 patterns in Lawrence LeDuc, “Canadian Attitudes Toward Que- bec Independence,” Public Opinion Quarlerly XLI (1977-78), pp. 347-55.

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