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The Political Culture of Quebec, 1840–1960*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Ralph Heintzman
Ralph Heintzman
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
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Abstract

To illuminate the debate about the traditional role of the state in Quebec, the article suggests Quebec's traditional political culture prior to the Quiet Revolution was shaped by the “dialectic of patronage.” Economic need encouraged Québécois to exploit the political process for advancement. The resulting preoccupation of the political process with patronage prompted two contradictory impulses—devotion to, yet suspicion of, the political process—and efforts to insulate “government” from “politics.” This perspective helps to reveal the thematic and chronological continuities in Quebec history, to illuminate the Quiet Revolution, and to evaluate competing theories of Quebec's social evolution.

Résumé

Pour faire avancer le débat autour du rôle de l'état, le texte examine l'hypothèse que la culture politique du Québec d'avant 1960 a été façonnée par une « dialectique du patronage ». Les impératifs économiques ont mis le patronage au coeur de la vie politique québécoise, ce qui a suscité deux tendances contradictoires: dévotion envers la politique mais aussi méfiance à son égard. On essaie alors en vain d'isoler le «gouvernement » de la « politique ». Une telle hypothèse aide à comprendre les continuités, tant thématiques que chronologiques, dans l'histoire du Québec; à éclairer la nature de la Révolution tranquille; et à évaluer certaines théories courantes sur l'évolution sociale du Québec.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 3 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1983

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References

1 Le Devoir, September 11, 1979, 5.

2 Ibid., 4. Emphasis added. See also ibid., October 18, 1980, 18.

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23 Albert Faucher, “La dualité canadienne et l'économique.” 222–23.

24 Le Canada, December 20, 1907,4. See also G. A. Nantel's similar comments in La Presse. July 22, 1902, 4.

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32 Jacques Monet gives a brilliant description of LaFontaine's partisan employment of patronage in The Last Cannon Shot, 116–17, 277–84, 257–58.

33 Le Pays, January 15, 1852, 2.

34 PAC, Macdonald Papers, Macdonald to T. W. Anglin, January 10, 1871, cited in Ward, Norman, “Responsible Government: An Introduction,” Journal of Canadian Studies 14 (1979), 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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37 Mémoire du Séminaire. January 1876, quoted in Robert Perin, “Bourget and the Dream of a Free Church in Quebec, 1862–1878” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1975), 309–10.

38 La Patrie, October 10, 1896, 1.

39 Le Canada. May 24, 1907, 4.

40 Le Journal, May 2, 1902, 4.

41 La Presse, October 11, 1902, 20.

42 See Le Journal's ironic editorial on Israel Tarte's election as honorary president of the Club des entrepreneurs libéraux, January 18, 1901, 4.

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44 Alfred Charpentier blamed both the origin and the failure of the bitter Sorel strike of 1937 on the workers' insecurity as a result of hiring on the basis of political patronage in the shipbuilding industry. See Cinquante ans d'action ouvrière: Les mèmoires d'Alfred Charpentier (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1971), 259, 279–81Google Scholar. Joseph Bilodeau estimates having personally fired some 300 employees of the Liquor Commission in Quebec City when the Union nationale returned to power in 1944, reinstating those who had themselves been fired in 1939 (Cardinal, Mario et al., Si l'Union nationale m'était contée … [Montreal: Editions du Boréal Express, 1978], 149).Google Scholar

45 Quoted in La Patrie, October 21, 1896, 1. Among countless other contemporary denunciations of the political culture of Quebec, perhaps the best known in our time, though not in his, is Nevers, Edmond de, L'avenir du peuple canadien-français (Paris: 1896; Montreal: Fides, 1964), esp. 90–108Google Scholar. For an equally interesting contemporary example, see Montigny, Gaston de, Etoffe du pays (Montreal: Deom Frères, 1901), 273–74, 277–79. The same concerns were the central preoccupation of Henri Bourassa's entire career and the recurring leitmotif of his speeches and writing.Google Scholar

46 Le Journal, June 18, 1904, 6.

47 Hamelin, Les premières années du parlementarisme québécois (1867–1878). 83–84. Perhaps the most thorough control over farmers' organizations was that exercised by J. E. Caron. See Rumitty, Robert, Histoire de la province de Québec 26 (Montreal: Editions Chantecler, 1953), 150–53, 202–03; B. L. Vigod, “Responses to Economic and Social Change in Quebec: The Provincial Administration of Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, 1920–1929” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Queen's University, 1974), 245–48.Google Scholar

48 Ibid., 95. The use of road construction for patronage and electoral purposes was developed to the state of an art by Léonide Perron during the Gouin and Taschereau regimes. See Vigod, “Responses to Economic and Social Change in Quebec,” 232–33.

49 La Patrie, January 11, 1904, 4.

50 Ibid., November 23, 1898, 5. Emphasis added.

51 La Presse, January 20, 1906, 14. Emphasis added.

52 La Patrie, July 15, 1899, 8. Emphasis added.

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59 Ibid., 253–55, 269–74. Both Jean Langevin, Bishop of Rimouski, and James William Williams, Anglican Bishop of Quebec, approved de Boucherville's plan to abolish the ministry because it offered a means to reduce the influence of political patronage in the appointment of school inspectors, an abuse they had previously deplored (Ibid., 332, 350–51).

60 Ibid., 325–29.

61 Ibid., 257–58.

62 Le Canadien, November 27, 1875, cited in Audet, Histoire du Conseil de l'instruction publique, 95.

63 Boucher de la Bruère, Le Conseil de l'instruction publique, 197–98.

64 La Presse, January 11, 1898, 3–4.

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74 Ibid., 39.

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76 Heintzman, “The Struggle for Life,” 276–78.

77 Gauvin, Michel, “The Reformer and the Machine: Montreal Civic Politics from Raymond Préfontaine to Médéric Martin,” Journal of Canadian Studies 13 (1978), 21–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78 Le Canada, May 13, 1908, 4. For Bourassa, see La Patrie, August 14, 1907, 11; Le Nationaliste, May 31, 1908, 2–3. The longevity of such proposals can be seen in the recent “Political testament” of F. A. Savard (see n. 174 below).

79 Le Devoir, April 16,1921, cited in Vigod, B. L., “Ideology and Institutions in Quebec: The Public Charities Controversy, 1921–1926,” Histoire sociale/Social History 21 (1978), 178.Google Scholar

80 Etudes et appréciations: thèmes sociaux (Quebec, 1922), 324–25, cited in Ibid.

81 Ibid., 171.1 do not mean to imply here or elsewhere that the bishops were motivated exclusively by the fear of partisan politics and politicians, or that they were not also moved by other “ideological” considerations and by institutional self-interest. Of course they were. But I do wish to emphasize that the ill-repute of politics was a far more decisive influence than has yet been recognized (except by B. L. Vigod) and that moreover it was the chief device through which the clergy and its allies could link up with the more pragmatic concerns of the general public and thereby rally support for its institutional defence.

82 Rumilly, Histoire, vol. 26, 178.

83 Copp, The Anatomy of Poverty, 184, n. 10.

84 Vigod, “Ideology and Institutions,” 178. On the public's fear of politics and patronage as an obstacle to more direct government involvement in welfare matters than the degree provided for in the Public Charities act, see also, Vigod, “Responses to Economic and Social Change in Quebec.” 290.

85 Rumilly, Hisloire, vol. 27. 77 and 80.

86 La Presse, April 20, 1910, 11.

87 See for example, Laliberté, G.-Raymond, “Dix-huit ans de corporatisme militant. L'Ecole sociale populaire de Montréal, 1933–1950,” Recherches sociographiques 21 (1980), 64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

88 This approach to the administrative challenges of the “new era” was by no means distinctively or exclusively French Canadian. On the views of Clifford Sifton, see English, The Decline of Politics, 142. The “group government” proposals put forward by English-Canadian populist leaders such as Henry Wise Wood and William Irvine were not unlike those of Quebec corporatists (see note 147 below). On the general subject of corporatism in Canada, see Leo Panitch, “Corporatism in Canada,” Studies in Political Economy 1 (1979), 43–92. As this paper has made clear, Panitch's assertion that the “labour-capital conflict” was the “sole fount” of corporatist theory in Quebec (56) is incorrect. That aspect of Quebec corporatism was a later and distinctly secondary accretion.

89 Jones, Richard, L'idéologie de l'action catlwlique (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1974), 165; Bélanger, L'apolilisme, 83, 326Google Scholar. The proposal to use the upper house of the Quebec legislature for this purpose was included in the Programme de restauration sociale in 1933 as well as in the platforms of the Action libérate nationale and of the new Union nationale. It was still espoused by Daniel Johnson and by the R.I.N. in the mid-1960s (see Orban, Edmond, Le Conseil législatif de Québec [Montreal: Bellarmin, 1967], 317–18 and n. 174 below).Google Scholar

90 Barbeau, Victor, Pour nous grandir (Montreal: Le Devoir, 1937), 242.Google Scholar

91 Bélanger, L'apolitisme, 81–88, 312–26. Future research will have to reconcile the public perception of the bureaucracy with J. I. Gow's emphasis on its relative competence and stability, at least in the nineteenth century (“L'administration québécoise de 1867 à 1900: un état en formation,” this JOURNAL 12 [1979], 555–620).

92 Compare Létourneau, 's approach in “La politique agricole,” in Minville, E. (ed.), L 'agriculwre (Montreal: Fides, 1943), 391–92Google Scholar, to those of Perrault (La Patrie, September 1, 1899, 4) and David (ibid., August 5, 1899, 8). On Rioux, see Bélanger, L'apolitisme, 77–88.

93 Minville, Esdras, Le citoyen canadien-francais (Montreal: Fides, 1946), 178.Google Scholar

94 J. A. A. Lovink, “The Politics of Quebec: Provincial Political Parties, 1897–1936” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Duke University, 1967), 350–54.

95 Heintzman, “The Struggle for Life,” 290–93. It should not be assumed, however, that Quebec was markedly different from other Canadian provinces in this regard. Nova Scotian F. B. McCurdy, minister of public works in the Meighen government, told Robert Borden in 1921 that the sort of reforms the latter had applied to the federal civil service were “certainly unsuited to Nova Scotia where the provincial government continues to care for its supporters” and that perhaps 10 per cent of the electorate drew “emoluments” or received “recognition” in some way or another from the province (English, The Decline of Politics, 226). Nova Scotia did not acquire a Civil Service Commission until 1935, New Brunswick until 1943 (the same year Adélard Godbout restored one in Quebec), Prince Edward Island until 1951. Even Taschereau's practice of preventing the Public Accounts Committee from functioning was not so very different from Ottawa where the same committee met only five times between 1921 and 1939 (Lovink, “The Politics of Quebec,” 311–13;Ward, Norman, The Public Purse: A Study in Canadian Democracy [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962], 276).Google Scholar

96 Falardeau, Jean-Charles, “Des élites traditionnelles aux élites nouvelles,” in Desrosiers, Richard (ed.), Le personnel politique quebecois (Montreal: Editions du Boréal Express, 1972), 27. See also the comments of Emilien Lafrance and Georges-Emile Lapalme in Mario Cardinal et al., Si l'Union nationale m'était contée, 193–95.Google Scholar

97 Sorauf, Frank J, “Patronage and Party,” Midwest Journal of Political Science 3 (1959), 126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

98 Vincent Lemieux and Raymond Hudon, Patronage et politique au Québec, 1944–1972, 79–102, 131–34; Boily, Robert, “Les hommes politiques du Québec, 1867–1967,” Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 21 (1967), 616–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guindon, Hubert, “The Social Evolution of Quebec Reconsidered,” in Rioux, M. and Martin, Y. (eds.), French Canadian Society (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965), 159–60.Google Scholar

99 Vigod, “Responses to Economic and Social Change in Quebec,” 47–48.

100 Femand Dumont and Guy Rocher, “An Introduction to a Sociology of French Canada,” in Rioux and Martin (eds.), French Canadian Society, 200.

101 Lovink, “The Politics of Quebec,” 355.

102 Heintzman, “The Struggle for Life,” 296–98; Lemieux and Hudon, Patronage et politique an Québec, 1944–1972, 132–33.

103 Lemieux, Le Patronage politique, 200–03.

104 “Des générations de collégiens et d'étudiants, dont les plus brillants auraient dû être encouragés à se préparer pour la vie publique, se laissèrent convaincre que la politique était essentiellement corrompue et que la collectivité canadienne-française n'avait rien de bon à attendre des groupements et des hommes engagés dans l'action politique” (Michel Brunet, “Trois dominantes de la pensée canadienne-française,” 146).

105 C. H. Cahan to Henri Bourassa, March 16, 1914, quoted in Levitt, Joseph, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf: The Social Program of the Nationalists of Quebec (1900–1914) (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1969), 69. Also, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, “Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec,” in Wade (ed.), Canadian Dualism, 256–58.Google Scholar

106 Hunte, “The Ministry of Public Instruction in Quebec, 1867–1875,” 318, 349–56.

107 Lovink, “The Politics of Quebec,” 355.

108 La Palrie, July 12, 1906, 4. The change of government in 1936 offered a dramatic example of the pressure on the politicians. Robert Rumilly estimates Union nationale MLAs received over a thousand patronage requests a week, some ministers as many as 8,000. Provincial Secretary Dr. Albiny Paquette remarked that if ministers were to attend to these demands, they would have no time for anything else. “A l'exception du cardinal Villeneuve et de son bedeau,” he said, “tout le monde demande une place” (Rumilly, Maurice Dnplessis et son temps, vol. 1, 274–76). Georges-Emile Lapalme also comments on the flood of requests received by the Liberal leadership at the change of government in 1960 (Memoires: Le vent de l'oubli [Montreal: Lemeac, 1970], 290–91).

109 La Patrie, November 29, 1906, 5. Rumilly describes the problems created for the politicians as a result of efforts to restrict patronage in the 1920s (Histoire, vol. 26, 208–09; vol. 27, 38–39, 76–77).

110 “The tone and volume of formal applications (over and above personal approaches) received by Taschereau suggest that the Premier was under considerable pressure to help individuals protect or achieve middle class respectability by finding white collar positions.” Vigod, “Responses to Economic and Social Change in Quebec,” 68. Those familiar with Laurier's correspondence know how much of his attention was taken up with such matters. Neatby, Blair, Laurier and a Liberal Quebec (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973), 144–45; Lovink, “The Politics of Quebec,” 350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

111 Le Canada, March 18,1909,4. Emphasis added. Also, Rumilly. Histoire, vol.21,38.

112 Heintzman, “The Struggle for Life,” 301–02.

113 Rumilly, Histoire, vol. 26, 208–09: vol. 27, 38–42.

114 Rapport de la Commission royale d'enqiiête sur le bilingnisme el le biciillnralisme, Vol. 3A (Ottawa: Imprimeurde la Reine, 1969), 103. The proportion had apparently been as high as 36 percent immediately prior to ConfederationGoogle Scholar. See Hodgetts, J. E.. Pioneer Public Service: An Administrative History of the United Canadas, 1841–1867 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955), 57.Google Scholar

115 Ibid., 105–10.

116 One of the chief concerns about the Taschereau government's proposal to establish a provincial radio station in 1929 was that it would be used, like the rest of the provincial administration, for partisan political ends (Rumilly, Maurice Duplessis et son temps. Vol. 1, 73).

117 Latouche, Daniel, “La vrai [sic] nature de… la Rvolution tranquille,” this JOURNAL 7 (1974), 525–36.Google Scholar

118 Copp, The Anatomy of Poverty, 144–45.

119 Sorauf, “Patronage and Party,” 119–21. See also Gosnell, Harold F., Machine Politics: Chicago Model (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), chap. 9;Google ScholarMerton, R. K., Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968), 247–48.Google Scholar

120 Brunet, “Trois dominantes,” 134, 158.

121 See the references in n. 11 above.

122 Le Devoir, March 1, 1975, 1. This incident illustrates the continuing resistance to the reforms of the Quiet Revolution and the ongoing struggle for power between the bureaucratic, intellectual, business and professional elites in Quebec. Each group wants to use the power of the state for its own purposes, yet regards the others as essentially self-serving.

123 Vigod, “Responses to Economic and Social Change in Quebec,” 47–48.

124 Scott, James C., “Corruption, Machine Politics and Political Change,” in Heidenheimer, A. J. (ed.), Political Corruption (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), 554–57;Google Scholar English, The Decline of Politics, 29–30, 33, 50, 85; Kenneth M. Gibbons, “The Political Culture of Corruption in Canada,” in Gibbons, K. M. and Rowat, D. C. (eds.), Political Corruption in Canada: Cases, Causes and Cures (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 236–37.Google Scholar

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126 Heintzman, Ralph, “Politics, Patronage, and the State of Quebec,” Journal of Canadian Studies 9 (1974), 1–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 56–59, reprinted in K. M. Gibbons and D. C. Rowat (eds.), Political Corruption in Canada, 217–24. The expression has since been applied to the nationalists of the 1920s by Trofimenkoff, Susan Mann(Action Française: French Canadian Nationalism in the Twenties [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975], 84)Google Scholar and endorsed in that context by Behiels, Michael's review of Trofimenkofrs book in Canadian Historical Review 59 (1978), 522.Google Scholar

127 La Patrie January 22, 1907, 3. See also Ui Presse, May 16, 1903. 19.

128 Lovink, “The Politics of Quebec,” 350.

129 Even Pierre Trudeau expressed coolness toward public ownership and government intervention in Quebec, barely two years before the Quiet Revolution, for the same reason as earlier generations, the danger of infection from patronage politics: “…c'est pour cela que je ne suis pas autrement pressé de réclamer les nationalisations et les contrôles dans la province de Québec: l'incompétence, la fraude et l'oppression caractérisent déjà l'administration de la chose publique à tous les degrés chez nous (provincial, municipal, scolaire et paroissial) et la population s'avère incapable d'y apporter les correctifs: serions-nous tellement mieux servis sipar hasard ce même Etat se mettait en frais de tout étatiser et diriger, plaçant ses créatures vénales et médiocres à la direction des hôpitaux, des universités, des corps professionnels, des syndicats, des services publics et de la grande industrie?” (“Un manifeste démocratique,” Cité libre 22 [1958], 20). However, he did not see how this outlook linked him to those earlier thinkers he so roundly condemned.

130 Heintzman, “The Struggle for Life,” 287–88.

131 La Patrie, December 23, 1897, 4.

132 Fournier, Jules, Mon encrier (Montreal, 1922; Montreal: Fides, 1965), 262.Google Scholar

133 Le Canada, November 2, 1906, 9.

134 The systematic expansion of the patronage system in the twentieth century, and the corresponding growth of anxiety, were both the result and the sign of the steadily increasing role of the state. Weingrod, Alex, “Patrons, Patronage, and Political Parties,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 10 (1968), 381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

135 Hodgetts, J. E., McCloskey, William, Whitaker, Reginald and Wilson, V. Seymour, The Biography of an Institution: The Civil Service Commission of Canada, 1908–1967 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1972), 8. The judgment is supported in Gibbons, “The Political Culture of Corruption in Canada,” 238.Google Scholar

136 Lemieux, Vincent, “Patronage ou bureaucratie,” in Parenté et politique, l'organisation sociale dans L'lle d'Orléans (Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1971), 225–35; “Le patronage politique dans l'lle d'Orléans,” L'Homme 10 (1970), 22–44Google Scholar; Hudon, Raymond, “Pour une analyse politique du patronage,” this JOURNAL 7 (1974), 484–501; Lemieux and Hudon, Patronage et politique au Québec, 1944–1972: and Lemieux, Le Patronage politique: une étude comparative.Google Scholar

137 See, for example, “Patronage ou bureaucratie,” 228–31; Le Patronage politique, ix, 163. By contrast, Marcel Rioux remarked in 1955 on “le profond mépris et la désaffection que le peuple témoigne aux politiciens québécois” (“Idéologic et crise de conscience au Canada français,” Cité libre 14 [1955], 15).

138 “Patronage and Party,” 121. For the more recent period the reality of cynicism and disaffection in Canada is confirmed by Simeon, Richard and Elkins, David in “Regional Political Cultures in Canada,” this JOURNAL 7 (1974), 397–437.Google Scholar

139 Lovink, “The Politics of Quebec,” 352.

140 On patronage politics and the political cultures of the Atlantic provinces, see Bellamy, David J., “The Atlantic Provinces,” in Bellamy, David J., Pammett, J. H., Rowat, D. C. (eds.), The Provincial Political Systems: Comparative Essays (Toronto: Methuen, 1976), esp. 13–15Google Scholar; Matthews, Ralph, “Perspectives on Recent Newfoundland Politics,” Journal of Canadian Studies 9 (1974), esp. 30–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perlin, George, “Patronage and Paternalism: Politics in Newfoundland,” in Davies, D. I. and Herman, Kathleen (eds.), Social Space: Canadian Perspectives (Toronto: New Press, 1971), 190–96Google Scholar; Noel, S. J. R., Politics in Newfoundland (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 151–70, 197–203, 283–84Google Scholar; Beck, J. Murray, The Government of Nova Scotia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957), esp. 96–99, 220–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Nova Scotia: Tradition and Conservatism,” in Robin, Martin (ed.). Canadian Provincial Politics (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1978), esp. 177–78Google Scholar; Thorburn, Hugh, Politics in New Brunswick (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961), esp. 161–64Google Scholar; P. J. Fitzpatrick, “New Brunswick: The Politics of Pragmatism,” in Robin (ed.), Canadian Provincial Politics, esp. 122–23; J. Murray Beck, “An Atlantic Region Political Culture: A Chimera,” in Bercuson, David J. and Buckner, Philip A., Eastern and Western Perspectives (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 147–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the ethnic basis of machine politics in the Canadian West, see Smith, David, Prairie Liberalism: The Liberal Party in Saskatchewan, 1905–1971 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 27; and Thomas Peterson, “Manitoba: Ethnic and Class Politics,” in Robin (ed.), Canadian Provincial Politics, esp. 65–72.Google Scholar

141 Richard Simeon and David Elkins' analysis of political opinion survey data confirms this hypothesis of a similarity in political cultures between francophone Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. In both cases, and in contrast to other parts of the country, they note an “interesting anomaly": high levels of political participation “seem to contradict” the evidence of low levels of conviction about political “efficacy.” of trust in governments and politicians, and of “psychological involvement.” The reason for this contradiction, they say, is “unclear” (Simeon and Elkins. “Regional Political Cultures in Canada,” 414), but the reader will recognize it as the essence of the dialectic of patronage, and at least partially if not wholly explicable thereby. Simeon and Elkins hint at a similar explanation in their conclusion: they note that “politics in the Maritimes—and Quebec before the Quiet Revolution—has been characterized as more personalistic and more patronage-oriented than politics in other areas. The pattern of distrust and lack of efficacy together with relatively high participation we found in the Maritimes and Quebec is perhaps consistent with this kind of politics” (435).

142 See n. 35 above.

143 Le Canada, June 19, 1907, 4.

144 Ibid., February 9, 1909, 10.

145 The election of Senators Dandurand and Béique to the CPR board of directors and Lomer Gouin's participation in the Bank of Montreal and Shawinigan Power are classic instances. Maurice Sauvé, Claude Castonguay and Raymond Garneau show perhaps that this route to the top of the corporations is still open. See also Clement, Wallace, The Canadian Corporate Elite (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975), 236.Google Scholar

146 Lemieux, Le patronage politique: une étude comparative, 130,173–75,184,196. The absence of reflection on the political careers of the great urban machine bosses such as Raymond Préfontaine, Médéric Martin, and Camillien Houde is a notable omission.

147 “ Anti-partyism,” hostility to politics, and low esteem for politicians were prominent features of populist movements in the Canadian and American wests, and also graced the writings of English-Canadian and American intellectuals. See Berger, Carl, The Sense of Power (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 199–207Google Scholar: Sharp, Paul F., The Agrarian Revolt in Western Canada: A Sun'ey Showing American Parallels (New York, 1948; New York: Octagon Books, 1971), 77–104, 143–48Google Scholar; Macpherson, C. B., Democracy in Alberta: The Theory and Practice of a Quasi-Party System (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 25–26Google Scholar; Irvine, William, The Farmers in Politics (Toronto, 1920; Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976) and Co-operative Government (Ottawa, 1929)Google Scholar; Good, W. C., Farmer Citizen (Toronto: Toronto Ryerson Press, 1958), 184–95Google Scholar; Hofstadter, Richard, Anti-lntellectualism in American Life (New York: Knopf, 1963), 172–96Google Scholar and The Idea of a Party System (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), esp. Chap. 1.Google Scholar

148 See n. 100 above.

149 The deliberate intention to “privilégie[r] les positions extrêmes” (as it is put in the foreword to the first volume of Dumont, Fernand's series, “Idéologies au Canada français,” Recherches sociographiqnes 10 [1969], 143) and to ignore the ideas and spokesmen of the political mainstream, which is characteristic of most work on Quebec's ideologies (with the exception of studies by Marcel Hamelin and Yves Roby) may perhaps be interpreted as a residual manifestation of the anti-political bias described in this article.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

150 Heintzman, “Patronage, Politics and the State of Quebec,” 58.

151 The same point is made in Vigod, “Responses to Economic and Social Change in Quebec,” 49. Even Fernand Dumont, who more than almost any one else has inspired the recent preoccupation with “ideologies” in Quebec historiography, seems to have begun to recognize the limits of this approach in the field of political culture: “De nos jours, on a pu s'etonner du mepris de l'Etat qui marqua cette phase (1900–1929) de nos attitudes et de nos idéologies; on n'a pas saisi, ce me semble, que l'Etat c'était alors le politicien. Or le dégoût du politicien fournit l'un des thèmes majeurs des idéologies de ce temps: Nevers, Asselin, Fournier, Bourassa, Groulx et bien d'autres nous fourniraient une anthologie copieuse et pittoresque … On aura beaucoupjoué à la politique, mais on l'aura aussi beaucoup méprisée" (“Du début du siècle à la crise de 1929: un espace idéologique,” in Dumont, Fernand, et al., Idéologies an Canada français, 1900–1929 [Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1974], 11Google Scholar. Emphasis added). The last sentence is a succinct expression of the dialectic of patronage but Dumont does not provide a convincing explanation of its source. He comes only slightly closer in “Les années 30: la première révolution tranquille,” in Dumont, et al., Idéologies au Canada français, 1930–1939 (Quebec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1978), 4–5.Google Scholar

152 Bélanger, André-J. and Lemieux, Vincent, “Le nationalisme et les partis politiques,” Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique français 22 (1969), 548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

153 Bélanger, L'apolitisme, 56.

154 Brunet. “Trois dominantes,” 140, 144. Emphasis added.

155 Ibid., 145. That he came close to doing so is suggested by the passage on the following page, quoted in n. 104 above.

156 As Fernand Dumont has pointed out (L'Actualité 2 [March, 1977], 6), it is not plausible to think that a society which welcomed the role of government after 1960 was deeply hostile to it before. The approach suggested here helps to avoid such discontinuities.

157 Gary Caldwell and B. Dan Czarnocki, “Un rattrapage raté. Le changement social dans le Québec d'après-guerre, 1950–1974: une comparaison Québec/Ontario,” Recherches sociographiques 18 (1977), 33–34.

158 Latouche, “La vrai [sic] nature de... la révolution tranquille,” esp. 534–35.

159 Posgate, Dale and McRoberts, Kenneth, Quebec: Social Change and Political Crisis (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 117.Google Scholar

160 Archibald, Clinton and Paltiel, Kayyam Z., “Du passage des corps intermédiaires aux groupes de pression: la transformation d'une idée illustrée par le mouvement coopératif Desjardins,” Recherches sociographiques 18 (1977), 59–91. See also L'Etat et les corps intermédiaires, Semaines sociales du Canada, 39e session, 1964, esp. 18–19, 53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

161 “La politique provinciale,” Marcel Rioux wrote in 1955, “est jugée avec tant de cynisme qu'une bonne partie de la population n'y voit qu'une espèce de grand divertissement à épisodes multiples” (“Idéologic et crise de conscience au Canada français,” 23).

162 “Que la politique constitue une realité fondamentalement pernicieuse, c'est la une conception encore fort répandue parmi les élites traditionnelles et probablement aussi parmi les couches populaires.” Dion, Le bill 60 et la société québécoise, 50.

163 However, they note that Quebec francophones show slightly higher levels of trust than non-Quebec francophones or Atlantic societies and suggest this may reflect political and social change in Quebec since the Quiet Revolution (Simeon and Elkins, “Regional Political Cultures in Canada,” 436).

164 Lemieux and Hudon, Patronage et politique an Québec, 1944–1972, 76. “A Prominent Memberof the (P. Q.) Government” told William Johnson that some of its difficulties in its first mandate could be attributed to the same cause (The Globe and Mail, December 24, 1979, 8).

165 Lemieux and Hudon comment perceptively on the degree to which Quebec intellectuals turned their backs on the patronage question in the 1960s, apparently wishing to believe that, as a result of the reforms of the Quiet Revolution, it could safely be ignored. They note, however, that “certains besoins exigeront, pour être satisfaits, une adaptation du phénomène du patronage des partis politiques, du moins aussi longtemps que des mécanismes compensatoires satisfaisants n'auront pas été inventés dans le cadre de ces conditions nouvelles” (Patronage et politique au Quebec, 1944–1972, 9–10, 76).

166 Ibid., September 7, 1974,5. The words are those of Jean-François Bertrand, referring to the Johnson by-election of August 28, 1974.

167 See Prime Minister Trudeau's speech in St. Hyacinthe as reported by Norman Webster in The Globe and Mail, June 26, 1974. Such an appeal may be compared with Trudeau's, earlier writings, such as Les cheminements de la politique (Montreal: Editions du Jour, 1970), 95, 106; “Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec,” 247. In Cité libre, see, for example, “Réflexions sur la politique au Canada français,” 2 (1952), 53–70; “Un manifeste démocratique,” 22 (1958), 1–31.Google Scholar

168 Jean-Claude Leclerc summed up the “fête rationale” scandal in this way: “… toute une série de foumisseurs de l'Etat auraient été, comme dans le temps de la caisse libérale, mais cette fois pour une douce extorsion nationale, réquisitionnés d'office. Et, comme sous l'ancien régime, des gens vivant aux crochets d'une société d'Etat auraient touché des ristournes pour des contrats qu'ils n'ont pas obtenus” (Le Devoir, October 6, 1981, 6).

169 Le Devoir, May 15, 1975, 5.

170 See n. 86 above.

171 Le Devoir, September 1, 1976, 2.

172 Ibid., February 28, 1935, 2, cited in Bélanger, L'apolitisme, 287.

173 Action française 16 (1926), 40, cited in Susan Mann Trofimenkoff, Action francaise, 88–89.

174 Le Devoir, January 6, 1978, 5. Emphasis added.

175 Ibid., March 13,1982,13. Emphasis added. One of the unpublished drafts of Quebec's White Paper on Culture (1978) proposed to create “des institutions qui ne … sont pas subordonnees [à l'Etat], mais qui contribuent a assurer la présence organique de la population dans les décisions qui concernent le développement culturel et qui puissent librement conseiller le gouvemement dans les définitions et les mises en oeuvre de ses politiques,” including a “Société québécoise de la culture” and regional cultural councils. The similarity to earlier proposals in the fields of agriculture and colonization, described above, is obvious. Since Fernand Dumont was reputed to be one of the architects of the White Paper, perhaps the similarity is not surprising: see his comments on the similarity between contemporary concern for “participation” and earlier corporatist theory, in “Les années 30: la première Révolution tranquille,” 10.

176 Ibid., September 18. 1980, 11.

177 Ibid., February 11, 1982, 17.

178 In his inaugural speech of November 1981, Premier Lévesque declared that the re-establishment of “confidence” in the political process had been the number one priority of the PQ' s first mandate—but, in the circumstances, he was obliged to admit that it needed to be pursued “avec la plus grande vigueur” during the second. Ibid., November 10, 1981, 9.

179 Renaud, “Quebec [sic] New Middle Class in Search of Social Hegemony,” 19,29–30.

180 Dumont, Fernand, “L'étude systématique de la société globale canadiennefrançaise,” in Dumont, Femand and Martin, Yves (eds.). Situation de la recherche sur le Canada français (Quebec: Presses de I'Université Laval, 1963), 291–92.Google Scholar

181 The recent preoccupation with “ideologies” can be readily understood in this context. Among the most explicit recent examples of the “modernization” approach is the first edition of Posgate and McRoberts, Quebec: Social Change and Political Crisis (1976). The approach is more qualified in the second edition (1980) and even more so in McRoberts, Kenneth, “Internal Colonialism: The Case of Quebec,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 2 (1979), 293–318, where the author seems to opt instead for a structural explanation.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

182 Dion, Léon, Nationalismes et politique an Québec (Montreal: Hurtubise HMH, 1975), 137, 162.Google Scholar

183 As Fernand Dumont seems now to have recognized, “on s'est bâti une représentation de notre histoire qui est très loin de la réalité et c'est pour ça qu'on a tant de difficultés à expliquer 1'évolution récente” (L'Actualité 2 (March, 1977], 8).

184 Useful analyses of the “modernization” and “dependency” approaches from the perspective of the latter may be found in Gérald Bernier, “Le cas québécois et les théories du développement politique et de la dépendance,” in Orban, et al. (eds.), La modernisation politique du Québec, 19–54; and in Caldwell and Czarnocki, “Un rattrapage raté. Le changement social dans le Québec d'après-guerre,” esp. 48–51. See also the second edition of Posgate and McRoberts, Quebec: Social Change and Political Crisis (1980), 1–22.

185 Historians ought to subscribe wholeheartedly, however, to Fernand Dumont's injunction: “Ecartons pourtant tout recours aux mécaniques faciles ou, par je ne sais quelle magie théorique, il suffirait de parler de petite ou de grande bourgeoisie pour tout expliquer. Ces théories n'en sont pas puisqu'elles savent d'avance, avant toute analyse un peu circonstanciée, ce qu'il s'agitjustemerit de trouver” (“Les années 30: la première Révolution tranquille,” 14).