Ten years ago, Jean-François Lisée predicted a resurgence of Quebec’s independence movement.
“It could rise again given the right circumstances,” he said in 2015. “We don’t know what will trigger it.”
Three years later, as leader of the sovereigntist Parti Québécois party, Riise was ousted when François Legault’s upstart Avenir Québécois coalition first came to power, reducing his party to 10 seats.
The 2018 election was widely seen as evidence that separatism was no longer a defining issue in Quebec politics, and pollsters had speculated that the PQ’s days were numbered. The province’s new leader is a former sovereigntist who heads a conservative-leaning nationalist party that has promised not to hold a referendum, giving him a decisive majority in Quebec.
“There are many Quebecers who have put aside the debate that has divided us for 50 years,” Legault said after his victory.
Now, 30 years after Quebec’s second independence referendum (the first was in 1980), the tide appears to be turning again. Legault, who has been in power for six years, is deeply unpopular, and the Parti Québécois, which has a young and charismatic leader, has led in opinion polls for more than a year.
But it remains to be seen whether the party, which has pledged to hold a third referendum by 2030, can breathe new life into the state’s aging independence movement.
If elections were held today, polls suggest the Parti Québécois would easily win a majority. The 47-year-old Oxford-educated leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has injected youthful energy into a party on the verge of extinction.
Emile Simard, leader of the PQ’s youth wing, believes his party’s popularity will reignite Quebec’s desire for independence. He grew up in a sovereigntist family in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region and took out his membership card when he turned 16.
Now 22, he says the reasons for independence have changed somewhat since the 1995 referendum, when the No campaign won. He specifically pointed to climate change.
“As Quebecers, it doesn’t make sense for us to contribute billions of dollars every year through our taxes and then invest heavily in fossil fuels in Alberta,” he said.
However, surveys show that despite the PQ’s dominance, support for independence has not yet increased, and has hovered around 35% for many years.
“One of the big weaknesses of the Quebec independence movement is the fact that it doesn’t resonate with younger generations,” said David Hertel, a political analyst and former Quebec Liberal minister.
“Quebec’s independence was a young, hipster thing in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and even in ’95,” he said. “You don’t see that today.”
Simard was not born until several years after the 1995 referendum. In fact, he noted, no Quebecer under the age of 47 has voted for independence. He believes young people support the status quo because they have never seriously considered alternatives.
“For them, it remains a hypothetical discussion,” he says.
Voters prepare to vote in Montreal on Sunday, October 22, 1995. Advance voting begins across Quebec for people who are unable to vote in the Oct. 30 sovereignty referendum. (Ryan Remiolts/Canadian Press)
Mr Simard said the referendum campaign would force young people to think more deeply about the issue. “For me, it’s clear that we should give ourselves the opportunity to decide on this issue,” he said.
Charles Breton, executive director of the Public Policy Institute’s Canadian Center of Excellence, said Quebec’s young people aren’t particularly sovereignist, but they’re also not particularly federalist.
“They just don’t know, and part of the reason is because it’s not an issue we’ve been talking about,” he said.
Breton worries that if a new independence movement were to take off, many Canadians might react with a shrug. In 1995, an estimated 100,000 people gathered at a solidarity rally in Montreal urging Quebecers to vote “no.”
But this time, Breton asked, “Who will lead the ‘no’ team in Quebec, and who will be the voice in other parts of Canada to keep Quebec in check?” said.
The prospect of a Conservative federal government looms large over any discussion of Quebec independence. Huertel said Ottawa’s changes could hurt the PQ’s prospects because Conservative Leader Pierre Poièvre favors a more hands-off approach to provinces.
“Mr. Poilievre is not the same type of nemesis for nationalists and sovereigntists, but Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau is a much better target,” he said.
But Simard said if the Conservative government in Ottawa works with the Trump administration south of the border, it could spread the idea that Quebec is better off on its own.
“Is this the Canada we’re interested in, a Canada where values like the environment are sidelined?” he said.
Breton said it was unlikely that Poièvre, who remains unpopular in Quebec, would be the unifying figure in a third referendum campaign. He said Trudeau is better suited for the job.
He’s not the only one who thinks so. Eddie Goldenberg, former Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s chief of staff, wrote an op-ed in October urging Prime Minister Trudeau to resign as prime minister and to “play a leading role in representing Canada in the referendum on the possibility of Quebec independence.” He asked them to prepare to fulfill their goals.
As it stands, it seems likely that this year’s federal election will see the sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois form an official opposition party for the first time since 1993, potentially crushing the Liberal Party. Add a PQ victory in 2026, and the independence movement could have more influence than it has in decades.
However, the PQ could face a challenge from the state Liberal Party, which is due to hold a leadership election this month. Pablo Rodriguez, a former cabinet minister in the Trudeau government, is seen as the frontrunner.
Hertel said the PQ is partly just a “parking lot for opposition” to the government, and that a new Quebec Liberal leader could change that. He also noted that a number of federal Liberal Party staff may be looking for work soon and could help the state party “rebuild and realign.”
For now, independence remains “not the main thing that people care about,” Brereton said. But it looks like the next Quebec election could be fought again over the same old issues that were on hold in 2018.
“The referendum is coming and I am confident that the people are ready,” Simard said. “I think it’s time to write the end of this chapter in Quebec.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 4, 2025.
