Trudeau and the Flq Crisis

The Font Liberation du Québec,

The October Crisis and

Pierre Elliot Trudeau:

The ironic liberation

POLI 379

Emmanuelle Richez

1 June 2009

Long before Canada’s conception in 1867, there had been a history of struggle between two divided people within one nation. French and English Canadians have since been battling passionately for the right to define Canada’s national identity, resulting in embittered and tense relations amongst the two cultures. A constant campaign for the aforementioned rights has given rise to many activist groups, such as the well-known Front Liberation du Québec, more commonly known as the FLQ. Though the aims of the FLQ were ultimately for separation and Québec sovereignty, the reactions of the Trudeau government to the October Crisis of 1970 ironically resulted in the unification of a country in the face of calamity.

The FLQ was born in 1963[1] of the violent clash of Marxist ideologies and a deafening yearning for a Québécois nationalism. Led by Pierre Vallieres and Charles Gagnon, and comprised of angered and oppressed members of the Québec working class, the FLQ aimed to achieve sovereignty for the province of Québec; for Québeckers to be awarded “total independence…; united in a free society” that “wash[ed]…[its] hands of the British parliamentary system,”[2] They sought to achieve such aims through the use of two primary terrorist cells: the Liberation and the Chénier. Detonating upwards of 200 bombs throughout the 1960 and 1970s, the violent propaganda eventually escalated to what is commonly referred to as the October Crisis, in 1970.

Despite the importance of the October Crisis and the FLQ, they were only the tangible results of the French Canadian nationalist sentiment that had been building for years. Since the English settlement in North America in 1760 with the British Conquest of New France, ‘Canada’ found herself thrust into a fierce battle for national identity. The English brought with them a new wave of ideologies; one that focused on an identity primarily based on imperialistic ways and a devout loyalty to the British crown. The English sense of nationalism and societal beliefs clashed violently with those of the