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Discusses the preparations & aftermath of the narrowly failed referendum to grant Quebec independent status from the rest of Canada. It is argued that Canada's huge debt, deteriorating social programs, & high unemployment have sparked a movement for consititutional renewal that has been made more urgent by Quebec's requests for special status. Although the 1995 attempt failed, the 1997 referendum seems likely to pass & requires careful consideration of the cultural & economic impacts of this separation. Canada will lose its identity as a bilingual & bicultural community, while Quebec must face its share of the Canadian national debt in addition to the unknown costs & risks of secession. Further, the predominant political power in Quebec, the Parti quebecois (PQ), has lost sight of broader goals & policies during the hostile debate over secession. It is concluded that once Quebec achieves special status, the PQ will be split between nationalists & separatists, & that care must be taken to ensure that the diversity & tolerance celebrated by the nationalists will not be lost in the separated state. T. Sevier

By Oct 1992, voters in Canada's French-speaking province will respond to a referendum on sovereignty, the second such vote in twelve years. Among the developments accounting for this unforeseen revival of nationalism is francophone dissatisfaction with the Charter of Rights & Freedoms in Canada's Constitutional Act of 1982, an innovation that threatens Quebec's ability to protect its linguistic heritage. An even more significant ingredient is the transformation of the Quebec economy under the nationalist Parti Quebecois government of Rene Levesque, which, after losing the referendum of 1980, abandoned its labor orientation to become Canada's most probusiness government in the 1980s. It is because of the success of this transition to market nationalism that Quebec holds such a strong bargaining position in the current round of constitutional negotiations. It also explains the province's enthusiastic backing of the North American Free Trade Agreement recently concluded between the US & Canada, an arrangement that has created much anti-Quebec sentiment elsewhere in Canada, especially on the left. 10 References. AA