Separatists in Quebec have never been to able win enough support to achieve their goal of turning Canada’s second-most populous province into its own country. Yet their dream of independence endures. Now, with the separatist Parti Quebecois leading in public opinion polls in the province and promising a new referendum on secession if it prevails in elections next October, the topic is back on the table. That’s been enough to start worrying some bond investors.
The political engine of the movement to separate from Canada is the Parti Quebecois, co-founded in 1968 by journalist and politician Rene Levesque, who would go on to become Quebec’s premier. The movement emerged from a view that Canada’s federation disadvantages its French-speaking minority, which lives predominantly in Quebec (population: 9 million), and that its cultural distinctiveness must be better protected.