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Debating separation

Broadcast Date: March 30, 1980

The Parti Québécois is living up to its election promise and has called a referendum on Quebec sovereignty for May 20, 1980. Robert Bourassa is back in the spotlight campaigning for the "No" side. He and Pierre Bourgault, a vocal separatist, debate the topic for CBC radio's Sunday Morning. Bourgault describes Quebecers' historic fight for their rights, and Bourassa asks: "When will you talk about the future and stop talking about the past?"

Moderator Terence McKenna asks whether Canada can benefit from sovereignty-association, and Bourgault replies: "I believe that English Canada would have a much better chance… if Quebec was not there all the time to play the bad boy and try to get all kinds of things that are not in the interests of English Canada."

Debating separation

• Pierre Bourgault was a television host and actor who became leader of the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale (RIN) in 1964. The party merged with the Parti Québécois in 1968. At the time of this clip he was a professor of communications at Université de Québéc à Montreal. He left the PQ after the referendum, and died in June 2003.
• The debate was a restaged English-language version of an earlier French debate between the pair at the Université de Montreal.

• Under sovereignty-association, Quebec would be politically independent from Canada but maintain economic ties. An independent Quebec would continue to share Canada's monetary system and would establish a mutual free trade zone. Goods and people would pass freely across Quebec's borders and Quebec and Canada would negotiate employment, immigration and defense issues. Each of the sovereign partners would handle its own debts but share a single exchange rate.

• The 1980 referendum question read: "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 exclusive power to make its laws, levy 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." continued…

(continued from previous page) "No change in political status resulting from these negotiations will be effected without approval by the people through another referendum. On these terms, do you agree to give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?"

• With the referendum question, the PQ asked Quebecers for a mandate to begin negotiating Quebec's transition to sovereignty and an economic association with Canada.
• A majority of Quebecers, 59.4 per cent, voted "No."
• After the results came out, Réne Lévesque told a crowd it was "far worse than any electoral defeat." He departed with the words "Till the next time."

• According to Concordia University professor Guy LaChapelle, Bourassa and Lévesque worked together to draft a proposal for sovereignty-association in the basement of Bourassa's house in 1967. But, according to Maclean's, they differed on the matter of a separate Quebec currency — as an economist, Bourassa felt it wouldn't work. Bourassa changed his mind about sovereignty before they could present the proposal at a Liberal convention, and Lévesque quit the party to form the Parti Québécois.

Debating separation

Medium: Radio

Program: Sunday Morning

Broadcast Date: March 30, 1980

Guest(s): Robert Bourassa, Pierre Bourgault

Moderator: Terence McKenna

Duration: 4:51

Last updated:
Sept. 12, 2003