Oldal 202 [202]
MARIE-CLAUDE GILL-LACROIX
QUEBEC’S CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY FOLLOWING THE QUIET REVOLUTION
‘New’ cultural geographers like Cosgrove and Jackson understand geography
as a “construction” able to mold the meanings individuals attach to certain
locations." Considering the manner in which the Quiet Revolution has come
to be, as Wong describes, “mythologized” in Québec, it is not far fetched
to claim that the discourses promoted by Lévesque and his party may have
constructed a particular vision of Québec as a territory.” Furthermore, as
Lévesque was recognized as one of the Quiet Revolution’s “folk heroes,”
it is likely that this vision was widely embraced by the province’s French¬
speakers, especially in the 1980s.*° Indeed, it was in 1981 — following a
failed referendum — that Lévesque and the PQ won their bid for re-election,
effectively demonstrating the continued popularity of his ideas.*' These ideas,
as described in the above sections, portrayed French-Québécois as colonized
and Indigenous peoples as nonexistent, would naturally come to construct
a cultural geography unable to reconcile the idea of territorial sovereignty
for people who did not exist and — in this discourse — were not colonized.
It should therefore come as no surprise that individuals like Lucien Lessard,”
who supported the PQ’s endeavors, would perceive Québec’s Indigenous
communities as undeserving of sovereignty within Québec’s own territory.
The interpretive flexibility of cultural geography makes it difficult, if not
impossible, to prove the above claims. However, research performed by others
can be used to substantiate the notion that the PQ andits leader shaped Québec’s
cultural geography. For example, Amaris Rose and Anne Gilbert’s 2005 review
of cultural geography in Québec and Canada makes it clear that many of the
province’s French-speakers directly correlate their “heritage” with the territory
on which they reside.*? This is because territory is typically associated with
the cultural “permanence” of those who occupy it.** The territory of Québec
has therefore come to be understood as the space where “a certain way of life
is articulated [and] where a precious heritage is protected.”* Though Rose
Cosgrove — Jackson, New Directions, 96.
7 Wong, The Disquieting Revolution, 146.
80 The Encyclopedia Britannica describes René Lévesque as a “folk hero for his spirited defense
of [Québec] nationalism” (“René Lévesque: Premier of Quebec,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 28
October 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Levesque [accessed 8 April 2020)].
René Lévesque, Encyclopedia Britannica.
# Lucien Lessard was the PQ’s Minister of Fisheries during the Listuguj raids described in this
paper’s introduction. His comments regarding Indigenous sovereignty are what spurred the
preceding pages.
88 Damaris Rose and Anne Gilbert, Glimpses of social and cultural geography in Canada and
Québec at the turn of the millennium, Social and Cultural Geography, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2005),
274.
84 Tbid., 273.
85 Tbid., 274.
+ 200 +