https://iclfi.org/pubs/wt/4/quebec
We reprint below the presentation by G. Perrault given during a day of debates on the national question between representatives of the International Communist League and the International Bolshevik Tendency held in London in July. For all the presentations, including J. Decker’s on Quebec, see “Debates with the International Bolshevik Tendency on the National Question,” Spartacist Letters No. 2 (August 2025).
A revolutionary approach to the national question in Quebec must start with a correct understanding of the dynamics of Canadian politics.
I’ll start at the beginning: Why does Canada exist? The simple answer is the British Crown and the Quebec national question. These are the two features which historically distinguish it from the United States.
The French colony of New France was conquered by the British in 1760. The first great act of revolutionary disunity between francophones and anglophones in North America occurred during the American Revolution a few years later. After defeating the French and sensing growing discontent in the anglophone colonies, the British gave certain concessions to the newly conquered French population, playing them against the anglophone colonial population of North America. As a result, the Quebec elites overwhelmingly refused to join the struggle against the British monarchy in the 13 colonies. Because of this, the American Revolution did not extend north, and after the victory of the revolution the British loyalists migrated north, forming the province of Upper Canada, now known as Ontario.
However, the same economic and social trends of capitalist development that caused the American Revolution eventually developed in the British provinces. This eventually led to the rebellions of 1837-38; in Quebec we know it as the Patriots Rebellion. It was a bourgeois democratic revolution which united anglophone and francophone in a joint struggle against the parasitic hold of the British monarchy, which was holding back the development of the economy and society. Although the uprising in anglophone Upper Canada was much weaker, this is the great historic example of united class struggle in Canada. Key to this unity was the understanding by the anglophone revolutionaries that their own democratic emancipation was tied to that of the French population.
The physiognomy of modern Canada was directly determined by the defeat of this bourgeois revolution and was enshrined in the Act of Union of 1840. The francophones were placed in an artificial political minority and an explicitly assimilationist policy was implemented. This was in line with the report Lord Durham made after the defeat of the revolution, an infamous report taught in schools to this day in Quebec. In it he stated that:
“A plan by which it is proposed to insure the tranquil government of Lower Canada [now Quebec], must include, in itself, the means of putting an end to the agitation of national disputes in the legislature, by settling, at once and for ever, the national character of the province. I entertain no doubts as to the national character which must be given to Lower Canada; it must be that of the British Empire—that of the majority of the population of British America—that of the great race which must, in the lapse of no long period of time, be predominant over the whole North American Continent. Without effecting the change so rapidly or so roughly as to shock the feelings and trample on the welfare of the existing generation, it must henceforth be the first and steady purpose of the British government to establish an English population, with English laws and language, in this province, and to trust its government to none but a decidedly English Legislature.”
At the same time, to avoid further trouble the British enacted several top-down democratic modernizations, which laid the basis for the further capitalist development of both provinces.
The political dynamics of Canada today are directly inherited from this time. English Canadians were pitted against French Canadians, and to this day all social conflicts, whether they be over class, Native rights, or immigration (questions I cannot get into today), are shaped by the national conflict. Let me be clear: I am not denying that class struggle is the main motor force of history in Canada; I am simply saying that class struggle is warped by the national conflict.
In English Canada, the defeat of the Patriots Rebellion effectively killed off the struggles against the monarchy and the solidarity with the national-democratic aspirations of the French Canadians. This in turn shaped the Canadian workers movement, which for the most part grew organically from the United States rather than on the soil of homespun revolutionary traditions. Even in its more radical forms, whether trade-unionist, Communist or Trotskyist, the workers movement generally ignored the Quebec national question or embraced the chauvinist prejudices of the ruling class.
On the side of the francophones, this history has ingrained a deeply felt sentiment for national survival against forced assimilation and anglophone oppression. This brings a peculiar dynamic to the development of the workers movement in Quebec, where national and social aspirations are profoundly intertwined. It is this dynamic which is behind the emergence of the Quebec workers movement as the most militant and organized in North America. The IBT notes that this militancy has a strong positive influence on the English Canadian workers movement. This is true. What it misses is that this militancy is fueled by the struggle against national oppression. Of course, the other result of this national oppression is that the nationalist leaders in Quebec have historically been able to divert the class struggle by presenting themselves as the champions of national rights. And so you have the contradictory situation of a workers movement that is extremely militant and organized but does not view its political interests in class terms.
Political Conclusions
So how are we as Marxists to approach this overall picture?
The first thing to understand is that the historic struggle for the Québécois nation to emancipate itself from national oppression is a progressive cause which has fueled class struggle in Canada. This cause must be supported by Marxists no less than the struggles of other specifically oppressed groups that are not strictly class-based, whether it is the struggle of women, Native people, black people in the U.S. or any nationally oppressed people fighting for their emancipation.
The basic and fundamental mistake made by the IBT is that it places itself in opposition to the progressive and legitimate democratic struggles of the Québécois nation. It sees struggles to assert national rights as an impediment to the class struggle when in fact the whole history of Quebec and Canada demonstrates that it is a powerful accelerant to class struggle.
The mistake is just as crude as it would be to argue that fighting for the emancipation of women somehow distracts from the class struggle. Of course, the bourgeoisie exploits women’s oppression in all kinds of ways to blunt the class struggle. But to turn your back on the struggle for women’s rights is pure idiocy. This is not the IBT’s position, but on the national terrain it applies the same ultra-left methodology.
To recognize that the struggle against national oppression in Quebec is legitimate and a powerful motor force for class struggle is of course only the first step. The much more difficult task is to construct a revolutionary party which can unite not only English Canadians and Québécois workers but also all the other oppressed groups in Canada.
In Quebec this requires waging a resolute struggle against the Quebec bourgeoisie. Of course, this includes their attempts to pit Québécois workers against anglophones, immigrants, Muslims and Native people. But it is also necessary to show how Quebec nationalists undermine the very cause they claim to represent. If Quebec is not a country, it is because of the servile and treacherous nature of its ruling class, which always puts its economic interests above the fight against national oppression.
In English Canada it is necessary to struggle against the social-democratic leaders of the workers movement, who are ultimately loyal to the ruling class. A key component of that fight must be to champion the national rights of Quebec. This is the only basis on which a binational alliance can be built. Just as it would be absurd to ask black workers to unite with white workers based on continued racial oppression, so too is it absurd to expect that Québécois workers will unite with English Canadian workers based on accepting their national oppression. At bottom, it is the historic refusal of Canadian social democrats to stand for the national rights of the Québécois that is responsible for the national division within the workers movement in Canada. It is also necessary to oppose Trudeauist liberal ideology. Trudeauism and multiculturalism, the Canadian form of liberalism, was born explicitly in order to stem the wave of national liberation, deny national rights for Quebec and mobilize immigrants, Native people and other oppressed groups as a battering ram against Quebec independence.
Some Concrete Questions
From this general Marxist approach let’s get to specific questions.
If one looks at the Quebec national question with a Marxist historic lens, it is obvious that since its conquest by the British, the francophone nation of North America has fought ceaselessly against its assimilation. The natural and progressive outcome of this struggle for national existence is the formation of an independent francophone state, i.e., Quebec independence.
Short of this outcome, it is necessary to defend measures that defend the linguistic and democratic rights of the francophone minority. This includes insisting that immigrants who settle in Quebec should learn and be educated in French. This is not a privilege for French but a basic measure of self-defense against the historic policy of national assimilation by the anglophone ruling class. The Quebec language laws do not oppress the historic anglophone minority in Quebec, which remains the most privileged sector of society. Opposition to the language laws in Quebec is not a defense of the equality of languages but a defense of the privileges of English over French. The Quebec working class will never follow a party which defends this position.
Conclusion
Throughout my presentation I have sought to pedagogically explain the dynamics of the class and national struggle in Canada. I have not responded to demagogic slanders on the part of the IBT against me and other comrades from Quebec, accusing us of being unrepentant bourgeois nationalists.
If I have followed this approach, it is not because I have any doubts or illusions about the reactionary implications of the IBT’s approach to the national question, but rather because it is my internationalist duty as a Québécois communist to do the utmost to build unity across the national divide by convincing comrades from the English Canadian workers movement that it is their duty to champion the national rights of Quebec. This is a huge historic challenge which cannot be solved with epithets. Ultimately, class struggle will resolve the debate. But it is our duty now in the current preparatory period to make the political contours of this debate as clear as possible in order to build the revolutionary movement in Canada on solid foundations.
