Postcolonial imaginaries in the West: secular state-building and cultural defence in Québec since the Quiet Revolution

ABSTRACT

This article addresses an understudied aspect of public secularity in the Canadian province of Québec, namely how its self-perception as a postcolonial nation vis-à-vis English Canada has shaped its secular state-building since the 1960s. In so doing, it shows that postcolonial legacies and imaginaries, a key theme for studying secularity in non-Western cases, may also prove productive for the North Atlantic world. The historical account proceeds in two parts. In the first period (1960-1980), the Quiet Revolution’s disestablishment of Catholicism was intimately linked to its anticolonial spirit, where the Church was identified as impeding development and self-determination. In the subsequent period (post-1980), the consolidation of Canadian multiculturalism and the rising accommodation demands of minority religions led to a contradictory form of ‘cultural defence’: an increased emphasis on Catholic heritage as well as on laïcité (state secularism), both deployed to underscore Québec’s unique society in distinction from English Canada. Exhibiting the consistent yet evolving effect of (post)colonial identity and memory in a North Atlantic example, and nuancing the concept of cultural defence by identifying its religious and secular forms, the article contributes to building a common vocabulary for the comparative analysis of secularities in Western and non-Western contexts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Specifically, Sections 2 and 7–15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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4 L. Ravary, ‘Le colonialisme canadien’, Le Soleil, 3 March 2023, https://www.lesoleil.com/2023/03/05/le-colonialisme-canadien-af1e4f7de84ea3dd94d77c9d640956cc/.

5 Marian Burchardt, Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, and Matthias Middell (eds) Multiple Secularities Beyond the West: Religion and Modernity in the Global Age (Boston: De Gruyter, 2015); M. Künkler and S. Shankar, ‘Introduction’ in Mirjam Künkler, John Madeley and Shylashri Shankar (eds) A Secular Age Beyond the West: Religion, Law and the State in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 1-32.

6 David Martin, A General Theory of Secularization (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978), p. 107.

7 Gregory Baum, The Church in Quebec (Toronto: Novalis, 1991).

8 A. Astor and D. Mayrl ‘Culturalized Religion: A Synthetic Review and Agenda for Research’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 59:2 (2020): pp. 209-226.

9 S. Bruce, ‘Religion and Politics’ in Jeffrey Haynes (ed) Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 145-158; Daphne Halikiopoulou, Patterns of Secularization: Church, State and Nation in Greece and the Republic of Ireland (New York: Routledge, 2016); J. Haynes, ‘Religion, Secularisation, and Politics: A Postmodern Conspectus’, Third World Quarterly 18:4 (1997), pp. 709-728.

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11 S. Tremblay, and J. Cherblanc, ‘Aux frontières de la nation : les trois temps de la laïcité québécoise’, Sciences religieuses, 48:4 (2019), pp. 528-552; Geneviève Zubrzycki, Jean-Baptiste décapité : nationalisme, religion et sécularisme au Québec (Montréal: Boréal, 2020).

12 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (London: Harvard University Press, 2007).

13 Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).

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16 Asad, op. cit.

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18 Timothy Fitzgerald, ed. Religion and the Secular: Historical and Colonial Formations. New York: Routledge, 2007; Peter Van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).

19 Künkler and Shankar, op. cit., p. 26.

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38 L. Benhadjoudja, ‘Racial Secularism as Settler Colonial Sovereignty in Quebec’, Islamophobia Studies Journal, 7:2 (2022), pp. 182-199; C. Scott, ‘How French Canadians became White Folks, or Doing Things with Race in Quebec’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39:7 (2016), pp. 1280-1297.

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44 Following the Patriots’ advocacy for the separation of Church and State in the 1830s, the liberal-secular critique of the Church as impeding economic and political modernization continued in Parti rouge (1848), organizations such as the Institut canadien de Montréal (1844), newspapers like Le Pays (1852-1871), and figures like Louis Antoine Dessaulles (1818-1895), among many others. See, for instance, Yvan Lamonde, L’heure de vérité : la laïcité Québécoise à l’épreuve de l’histoire (Montréal: Del Busso, 2010).

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48 Bock, op. cit.; Sean Mills, The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010).

49 Parti libéral du Québec, Manifeste du Parti libéral du Québec (Montréal: PLQ, 1962), p. 1.

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56 David Austin, Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in Sixties Montreal (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2013).

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58 Marcel Rioux, La question du Québec (Paris: Éditions Seghers, 1969), pp. 88-100.

59 Baum, op. cit., pp. 36-38; see also Michael Gauvreau, The Catholic Origins of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 1931–1970 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005).

60 Zubrzycki, op. cit., p. 92.

61 Paul-Émile Borduas, Refus global & Projections libérantes (Montréal: Parti pris, 1948/1977), pp. 27, 29.

62 P. E. Trudeau, ‘Matériaux pour servir à une enquête sur le cléricalisme’, Cité libre, 3:7 (1953), pp. 29-37, pp. 35-36.

63 Jean-Paul Desbiens, Les insolences du Frère untel (Montréal: Les Éditions de l’Homme, 1960), p. 72.

64 Jean Bouthillette, Le Canadien français et son double (Montréal: Éditions de l’Héxagone, 1972), pp. 75-76.

65 Le Front de libération du Québec, Les manifestes du FLQ (Montréal: Vertiges éditeur, 2019).

66 J. Berque, ‘Les révoltes du Québec’, Parti pris, 1:3 (1963), pp. 48-51, p. 48.

67 P. Chamberland, ‘Exigences théoriques d’un combat politique’, Parti pris, 4:1 (1966), pp. 2-11, p. 9.

68 P. Vallières, Nègres blancs d’Amérique (Ottawa: Parti pris, 1968), p. 234.

69 ‘La répression sexuelle: ça sert à qui?’, Québécoises Deboutte!, 1:4 (1973), pp. 5-12, p. 6.

70 Lamonde, op. cit., p. 11.

71 Jacques Godbout, Le Mouvement du 8 avril (Montréal: MLF, 1966), p. 7.

72 J. Bobet, ‘Laïcité, nationalisme, sentiment national’, Liberté, 5:3 (1963), pp. 189-93, p. 189.

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74 James Mackay, Le catholicisme : un carcan (Montréal: MLF, 1967), pp. 5-6, 19-21.

75 Godbout, op. cit., p. 24.

76 M. Blain, ‘De la fin du colonialisme spirituel’, Liberté, 2:6 (1960), pp. 325-31, p. 329.

77 Martin Pâquet and Stéphane Savard, Brève histoire de la Révolution tranquille (Montréal: Boréal, 2021), p. 16.

78 ‘L’homme de l’année au Québec’, Le Petit Journal, 3 January 1965, p. 21.

79 Léon Dion, Le bill 60 et la société québécoise (Montréal: HMH, 1967).

80 Jean-Jacques Simard, La longue marche des technocrates (Montréal: Les Éditions coopératives Albert Saint-Martin, 1979), pp. 31, 129.

81 É.-M. Meunier and J. Legault-Leclair, ‘Nones and Catholics in Quebec: The Social Reconfiguration of Bill 21’, Secular Studies, 3:1 (2021), pp. 93-117.

82 José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

83 K. Dobbelaere, ‘Trend Report: Secularization: A Multi-Dimensional Concept’, Current Sociology, 29:3 (1981), pp. 3-153.

84 Gauvreau, op. cit.

85 Baum, op. cit., p. 38.

86 S. Wilkins-Laflamme, ‘The Changing Religious Cleavage in Canadians' Voting Behaviour’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 49:3 (2016), pp. 499-518.

87 D. Seljak, ‘Why the Quiet Revolution was “Quiet”: The Catholic Church’s Reaction to the Secularization of Nationalism in Quebec after 1960’, Historical Studies, 62:1 (1996), pp. 109-24, p. 111.

88 Micheline Milot, Laïcité dans le nouveau monde : le cas du Québec (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), p. 115.

89 Martin, op. cit., pp. 42-45.

90 Meunier and Legault-Leclair, op. cit.

91 D. Seljak, ‘Resisting the “No Man’s Land” of Private Religion: The Catholic Church and Public Politics in Quebec’, in David A. Lyon and Marguerite Van Die (eds) Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity: Canada Between Europe and America (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), pp. 131-149.

92 Bouchard, Les nations, op. cit., pp. 272, 276.

93 J. Maclure. ‘Récits et contre-récits identitaires au Québec’, in Alain-G. Gagnon (ed) Québec : état et société. Tome II (Montréal: Québec-Amérique, 2003), pp. 45-64, p. 47.

94 M. Labelle, ‘Les intellectuels québécois face au multiculturalisme : hétérogénéité des approches et des projets politiques’, Études ethniques au Canada, 40:1 (2008), pp. 33-56, p. 38.

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96 Marian Burchardt, Regulating Difference: Religious Diversity and Nationhood in the Secular West (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2020), p. 22.

97 Gouvernement du Québec, Les états généraux sur l’éducation : Rénover notre système d'éducation, dix chantiers prioritaires (Québec: Ministère de l'Éducation, 1996), p. 53.

98 Assemblée nationale du Québec, Journal des débats de l’Assemblée nationale, Deuxième session, Vol. 35 N° 83, 26 March 1997, https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/assemblee-nationale/35-2/journal-debats/19970326/6771.html.

99 Zubrzycki, op. cit., pp. 24-27.

100 F. Rocher, ‘Transformations in Contemporary Quebec Nationalism, 1960–2020: A Shift in the Sources of Collective Animosities’, Nations and Nationalism, 29:1 (2023), pp. 280-94, p. 287.

101 M. Bock-Côté, ‘La religion multiculturelle contre la démocratie’, Le Devoir, 6 March 2006, https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/103618/la-religion-multiculturelle-contre-la-democratie

102 S. Baillargeon, ‘Commission Bouchard-Taylor - La charte canadienne, un « outil pour détruire notre pays »’, Le Devoir, 25 October 2007, https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/161861/commission-bouchard-taylor-la-charte-canadienne-un-outil-pour-detruire-notre-pays.

103 M. Dumont, ‘Une constitution québécoise pour encadrer les accommodements raisonnables’, La vie rurale, 16 January 2007, http://www.la-vie-rurale.ca/contenu/10588/.

104 Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor, Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation (Québec: Gouvernement du Québec, 2008), pp. 266-272.

105 Ibid., pp. 18, 186, 208.

106 See, for instance, Benhadjoudja, op. cit.; D. Helly, ‘La légitimité en panne ? Immigration, sécurité, cohésion sociale, nativisme’, Cultures & Conflits, 74 (2009), pp. 11-62; Francine Pelletier, Au Québec, c’est comme ça qu'on vit. La montée du nationalisme identitaire (Montréal: Lux Éditeur, 2023).

107 The question of whether the province is more intolerant than the rest of the country is itself a recurring controversy in Québec-Canada relations. Polling data suggest that while Québec and the rest of Canada tend to have similar scores of ethnoracial acceptance, Quebecers consistently hold a more negative view of religions, Islam in particular. See, for instance, Y. Dufresne, A. Kilibarda, A. Blais, and A. Bibeau, ‘Religiosity or Racism? The Bases of Opposition to Religious Accommodation in Quebec’, Nations and Nationalism, 25:2 (2019), pp. 673-696.

108 Guillaume Lamy, Laïcité et valeurs québécoises. Les sources d’une controverse (Montréal: Québec-Amérique, 2015).

109 Tremblay and Cherblanc, op. cit., p. 536.

110 D. Béland, A. Lecours, and P. Schmeiser, ‘Nationalism, Secularism, and Ethno-Cultural Diversity in Quebec’, Journal of Canadian Studies, 55:1 (2021), pp. 177-202.

111 D. Baril and G. Rocher, ‘Déclaration des intellectuels pour la laïcité: pour un Québec laïc et pluraliste’, Le Devoir, 16 March 2010, http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/actualites-en-societe/285021/declaration-des-intellectuels-pour-la-laicite-pour-un-quebec-laique-et-pluraliste.

112 Caroline Beauchamp, Pour un Québec laïque (Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 2011).

113 Assemblée nationale du Québec, Journal des débats de l'Assemblée nationale, Première session, Vol. 41 N° 170, 9 February 2011, https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/assemblee-nationale/39-1/journal-debats/20110209/30891.html.

114 J.-F. Lisée, ‘Quebec's Latest Stand’, The New York Times, 10 January 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/opinion/quebecs-last-stand.html.Lisée.

115 Laïcité capitale nationale, ‘La laïcité oubliée’, Mémoire présenté à la Commission parlementaire sur le projet de loi n° 62, 21 October 2016, https://www.assnat.qc.ca/Media/Process.aspx?MediaId = ANQ.Vigie.Bll.DocumentGenerique_125177&process = Default&token = ZyMoxNwUn8ikQ±TRKYwPCjWrKwg±vIv9rjij7p3xLGTZDmLVSmJLoqe/vG7/YWzz, pp. 15-16, 19.

116 Assemblée nationale du Québec, Journal des débats de la Commission des institutions, Vol. 45 N° 44, 4 June 2019, http://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/commissions/ci-42-1/journal-debats/CI-190604.html.

117 Bloc Québécois, ‘Le Québec, c’est nous’, Platforme du Bloc Québécois, 2019, https://www.blocquebecois.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Plateforme_Bloc2019_web.pdf, p. 10.

118 Mouvement national des Québécoises et Québécois, ‘La laïcité : le temps d’agir’, Mémoire présenté dans le cadre des consultations particulières sur le projet de loi 21, 2019, https://www.assnat.qc.ca/Media/Process.aspx?MediaId = ANQ.Vigie.Bll.DocumentGenerique_145147&process = Default&token = ZyMoxNwUn8ikQ±TRKYwPCjWrKwg±vIv9rjij7p3xLGTZDmLVSmJLoqe/vG7/YWzz, pp. 5-6.

119 G. Bouchard, ‘M. Legault et la nationalisation de la laïcité’, Le Devoir, 18 January 2020, https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/571077/m-legault-et-la-nationalisation-de-la-laicite; see also D. Koussens, ‘Nationalistic Secularism and the Critique of Canadian Multiculturalism in Quebec’, in Ramona Mielusel and Simona Emilia Pruteanu (eds) Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America: Multicultural Perspectives on Political, Cultural and Artistic Representations of Immigration (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp. 17-32.

120 J.-F. Dupré, ‘Intercultural Citizenship, Civic Nationalism, and Nation Building in Québec: From Common Public Language to Laïcité’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 12:2 (2012), pp. 227-48, p. 227.

121 For a periodization, see François-Olivier Chené, Laïcité et nation québécoise : De la Révolution tranquille à aujourd’hui (Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2024).

122 D. Parenteau, ‘Interculturalisme, multiculturalisme: blanc bonnet, bonnet blanc’, l’Action nationale, 98:9-10 (2008), pp. 81-86, p. 83.

123 Bloc Québécois, ‘Le Québec sait ce qui est bon pour le Québec. Mémoire du Bloc Québécois à la Commission des Institutions sur le projet de loi 21.’, May 2019, http://www.assnat.qc.ca/Media/Process.aspx?MediaId = ANQ.Vigie.Bll.DocumentGenerique_145705&process = Default&token = ZyMoxNwUn8ikQ±TRKYwPCjWrKwg±vIv9rjij7p3xLGTZDmLVSmJLoqe/vG7/YWzz, pp. 2, 4.

124 L. Ferretti. ‘Derrière la défense des signes religieux, la volonté de remettre le Québec à sa place’, in Lucia Ferretti and François Rocher (eds) Les enjeux d'un Québec laïque. La loi 21 en perspective (Montréal: Del Busso Éditeur, 2020), pp. 47-74, p. 54.

125 A. Binette, ‘La laïcité est au coeur de notre nation’, L’aut’journal, 29 March 2021, https://lautjournal.info/20210329/la-laicite-est-au-coeur-de-notre-nation.

126 S. Jolin-Barrette and J.-F. Roberge, ‘Une grande victoire pour la nation québécoise’, La Presse, 4 March 2024, https://www.lapresse.ca/dialogue/opinions/2024-03-04/laicite/une-grande-victoire-pour-la-nation-quebecoise.php.

127 Astor and Mayrl, op. cit., p. 209.

128 Zubrzycki, op. cit.

129 Guy Durand, Le Québec et le laïcité : avancées et dérives (Montréal: Éditions Varia, 2004), p. 27.

130 J. Quérin, ‘Le cours Éthique et culture religieuse : transmission des connaissances ou endoctrinement ?’, l’Institut de recherche sur le Québec, 2009, http://irq.quebec/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ECR.pdf, p. 1. Coming into effect in 2022, the CAQ government replaced the Ethics and Religious Culture course with a new one, titled Québec Culture and Citizenship.

131 Mathieu Bock-Côté, ‘Exit Noël ?’, Le Devoir, 16 December 2008, https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/223537/exit-noel.

132 É. Bédard, ‘Souveraineté et hypermodernité. La trudeauisation des esprits’, Argument, 2007, http://www.revueargument.ca/article/2007-10-01/406-souverainete-et-hypermodernite-la-trudeauisation-des-esprits.html.

133 P. Bergeron, ‘Une motion adoptée pour défendre Noël’, La Presse, 29 November 2023, https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2023-11-29/assemblee-nationale/une-motion-adoptee-pour-defendre-noel.php.

134 Assemblée nationale du Québec, Journal des débats de l'Assemblée nationale, Première session, Vol. 40 N° 87, 22 May 2008, https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/assemblee-nationale/38-1/journal-debats/20080522/3183.html.

135 Assemblée nationale du Québec, Journal des débats de la Commission des institutions, Vol. 43 N° 114, 21 January 2014, https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/commissions/ci-40-1/journal-debats/CI-140121.html.

136 M. Croteau, ‘Le gouvernement libéral refuse de retirer le crucifix à l’Assemblée nationale’, La Presse, 24 October 2017, http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/politique-quebecoise/201710/24/01-5141100-le-gouvernement-liberal-refuse-de-retirer-le-crucifix-a-lassemblee-nationale.php.

137 , ‘Aide financière’, Conseil du patrimoine religieux du Québec, 2023, https://www.patrimoine-religieux.qc.ca/fr/aide-financiere.

138 ‘Saguenay (ville de) c. Mouvement laïque québécois’, CanLII, 27 May 2013, https://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qcca/doc/2013/2013qcca936/2013qcca936.html.

139 P.-O. Fortin, ‘Prière: Tremblay va respecter la décision de la Cour suprême’, Le Journal de Montréal, 16 April 2015, https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2015/04/16/point-de-presse-tremblay.

140 G. Lajoie, ‘Les Québécois veulent la laïcité … et le crucifix’, Le Journal de Québec, 1 April 2019, https://www.journaldequebec.com/2019/04/01/les-quebecois-attaches-a-lheritage-catholique.

141 J. Jedwab, ‘Restrictions on Religious Signs in Québec: Who and Why’, Association for Canadian Studies, May 2019, https://acs-aec.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Bill-21-Restrictions-on-Religious-Signs-in-Quebec-Who-and-Why-1.pdf, pp. 12, 16.

142 Meunier and Legault-Leclair, op. cit., p. 102.

143 Ibid., pp. 99-100.

144 Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000), p. 162.

145 Burchardt, Regulating Difference, op. cit., p. 10.

146 Roy, op. cit.

147 Béland et al., op. cit.; Benhadjoudja, op. cit.; Emily Laxer, Unveiling the Nation: The Politics of Secularism in France and Quebec (Montréal: McGill-Queen's Press, 2019); L. Turgeon, A. Bilodeau, S. E. White, and A. Henderson, ‘A Tale of Two Liberalisms? Attitudes toward Minority Religious Symbols in Quebec and Canada’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 52:2 (2019), pp. 247-265; Zubrzycki, op. cit.

148 B. L. Berger, ‘Faith in Sovereignty: Religion and Secularism in the Politics of Canadian Federalism’, Istituzioni del Federalismo, XXXV:4 (2014), pp. 939-961; E. Peker, ‘Situating the Reasonable Accommodation Debates in Quebec’s Contention for Sovereignty’, Arc: The Journal of the School of Religious Studies, 45 (2017), pp. 1-21.

149 F. G. Dufour. ‘Tensions générationnelles, conflits sociaux et questions nationales au Québec’, in Pierre-Alexandre Beylier, Marie-Violaine Louvet, Michel Martinez and Véronique Molinari (eds) Les nationalismes au tournant du XXIe siècle : regards croisés Amérique/Europe (Toulouse: Les Presses de l’Université Toulouse Capitole, 2023), pp. 25-53.

150 Bouchard, Les nations, op. cit.

151 Kešić and Duyvendak, op. cit., Nilsson, op. cit.

152 Brubaker, op. cit.

153 Liav Orgad and Ruud Koopmans (eds) Majorities, Minorities, and the Future of Nationhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

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Efe Peker

Efe Peker is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of Ottawa (Canada). He holds a joint-PhD in Sociology (Simon Fraser University) and in History (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), and completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017-19) in Sociology at McGill University. His research focuses on state-religion relations, secularity, and nationalist-populist politics in comparative-historical perspective, including North America, Europe, and Asia. His recent publications were featured in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Social Policy & Society, Comparative Sociology, and Ethnic and Racial Studies. He is the co-author of the book Challenging Neoliberalism at Turkey's Gezi Park: From Private Discontent to Collective Action (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), and co-editor of Populisme et sciences sociales: Perspectives québécoises, canadiennes et transatlantiques (Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2023).