For the Government of Quebec, see Politics of Quebec.

L'État québécois and l'État du Québec (in English the Quebec State) are terms used by some citizens of the Canadian Province of Quebec to refer to their government and territory, as a preferred alternative to province du Québec.

Meaning

The terms are much used by sovereigntists, but can be used by nationalists not necessarily favouring independence.

For the sovereigntists who use this term, the word État, or State, is used to signify that to their way of thinking, Quebec is a national government representing the homeland of a people, a nation, as in l'État français or l'État italien. However, France and Italy are countries whereas Quebec is a province of the country of Canada and no such legal entity as the Quebec State exists.

Origins

The term, with nationalist undertones, first became popular in Quebec during the Quiet Revolution. It was used especially by Jean Lesage and the members of his federalist nationalist Liberal government.

Reasons

Sovereigntists see the term province as less dignified, even contemptuous, for two reasons.

• The term province is used to legally describe the Provinces and territories of Canada and is also used in other regions of the world. In the view of some Quebec nationalists, federalists and all of thesovereigntist, Quebec forms a nation and should not be put on the same level as regional entities.
• The sovereigntists also see the word "province" as a legacy of the British colonial regime, and the Articles of Capitulation of Montreal. The legal description of Province of Quebec was the first denomination for the colony in British North America, after the government of France chose to keep Guadeloupe as part of the French Colonial Empire and to give its terrority north of the American colonies to Great Britain. The British would later name the area Lower Canada, Canada East, then Province du Québec) and province was the British term for colony. As such, memory of the abandonment by France and being subjected to British rule, is resented. Also, sovereigntists believe this to be consistent with their Quiet Revolution views and is presented by many sovereigntist proponents and architects as a process of decolonization from the rest of Canada (Quebec sovereigntists often sees the rest of Canada as the colonial successor of Britain for Quebec).

Modern use

The word province being increasingly unpopular and taboo for many sovereigntists in Quebec nowadays, État québécois and État du Québec are often heard in the modern Quebec French of its citizens and politicians who support the Quebec sovereignty movement.

The latter was used in the title of the symbolic law passed by the governing Parti Quebecois' majority members in the National Assembly of Quebec in 2000 titled an Act respecting the exercise of the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the Québec people and the Québec State. This symbolic document was the sovereigntists rebuttal of the Clarity Act, a Canadian Law that describes in details the conditions that need to be met before a declaration of independance can be legally valid.

See also

Modern Quebec

• National Question
• Quebec
• Quebec nationalism
• Quebec sovereigntism
• Quebec federalism
• Politics of Quebec
• Quiet Revolution

Conquest and colonialism

• Battle of the Plains of Abraham
• Articles of Capitulation of Quebec
• Articles of Capitulation of Montreal
• Quebec Act
• Treaty of Paris
• New France
• Seven Years' War
• British Empire