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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 Frenchspeakers, 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 +
