Public opinion and the Canadian political crisis

Public opinion and the Canadian political crisis*

MICHAEL D. ORNSTEIN / York University H. MICHAEL STEVENSON / York University

A. PAUL M. WILLIAMS / York University

This paper begins from the position that our understanding of the present crisis of the Cana- dian state should be rooted in a knowledge of the contours of public opinion. The intellectual danger of failing to study public opinion is that the manoeuvering of political elites will be seen as solely responsible for the outcome. In fact, elites are subject to pressure from their constituencies. Public opinion provides a context in which political decisions are made, and without a knowledge of that context we risk a political analysis based on psychological or “voluntar- ist” explanations of the behaviour of elites, rather than on the structure of social relations which limits historical change.

Of course, elites also influence the attitudes and behaviour of their constituents, and we do not mean to suggest that there is a simple pattern of influence in one direction. Although we are not now prepared to undertake an examination of the precise nature of this causal link, we do feel that a knowledge of public opinion is an essential building block in understanding the dynamics of elite-mass influence in general, and the politics of the Quebec independence issue in particular.

There is a substantial “industry” now devoted to public-opinion polling in Quebec with a view to understanding and shaping the outcome of the expected referendum on the independence issue. There is also increasing attention to the

response of Canadians in the other provinces on this issue, although relatively little is known about the views of the general public in English Canada. The absence of good information about English-Canadian public opinion on this issue has not, however, prevented claims about the nature of such opinion from entering the current discussion. For example, Premier William Davis of Ontario has asserted that the people of his province would oppose an economic agreement between English Canada and an independent Quebec. With more circumspec- tion, the Privy Council, amongst other government agencies, has commissioned analyses of existing public-opinion information, and it can be expected that such agencies will be gathering fresh opinion data in the future. In this paper we present a survey of the current state of Cana- dian public opinion on issues concerning the relations between French and English Canadians, and between Quebec and the rest of Canada. We further examine differences of opinion on these issues within the French population of Quebec - where, obviously, attention is focused on the demographic and ideological character of support for independence - and within the non-French population outside of Quebec, where attention is focused on the demographic and ideological character of opinion that is accommodating or hostile to political developments in Quebec.

*This research is carried out with the generous support of a program grant from the Canada Council entitled “Social Change in Canada.” We wish to thank the Survey Research Centre of the Institute for Behavioural Research at York University for their excellent work in carrying out the interviews and preparing the data for analysis. Helpful comments on a draft of the manuscript were provided by Tom Atkinson, Bernard Blishen, Robert Cox, Kenneth McRoberts, Maurice Pinard, and Donald Smiley. We wish to thank Jeri Lee for her invaluable administrative assistance and Karen Barker, Linda Cohen, Rhonda Gibson, Fiona Grose, Terry Mernagh, and Rosemary Thompson for typing this paper and earlier drafts.

Public opinion and the Canadian political crisis / 159

This paper is divided into four sections. In the first we will provide a broad outline of public opinion concerning support for the independence of Quebec, a range of government responses to developments in Quebec, and the status of the English and French languages in schools, government, and business. This over- view focuses on regional differences in opinion and on the attitudinal split between people of French origin and other Canadians. In a number of cases our results will be presented in comparison to earlier findings.

The second section is devoted to an examination of the social bases of Quebec nationalism. Support for independence will be analysed in the context of the respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics and political attitudes. Initially, differences in support for independence will be examined on the basis of differences in income, occupation, age, sex, region, etc. Then we will determine the extent to which support for independence is related to a number of measures of political liberalism and conservatism, including support for social welfare measures, support for the restriction of foreign economic control, and support for labour. Mul- tiple regression will be used to examine the simultaneous effects of all these variables on attitudes to Quebec’s independence and the related language issues.

The third section provides a corresponding analysis of the response of non-French Cana- dians outside of Quebec to the independence movement. It centres on attitudes to French- language schooling outside of Quebec, concessions by the federal government to prevent separation, the use of force to prevent separation, and possible economic agreements between English Canada and an independent Quebec.

A short fourth section examines and compares the extent of political constraint in Quebec and English Canada and suggests some strategies for the future analysis of opinion data concerning the issues of Quebec’s independence.

Our data were gathered in a national sample survey in May and June 1977, as part of a larger project with the broad purpose of developing social indicators of the perceived quality of life in Canada. The project is generously supported by the Canada Council. This cross-sectional

examination of public opinion on Quebec and related issues represents only a beginning of the work we expect to carry out in the future. Two more national surveys, to be carried out in 1979 and 1981, will allow us to examine changes in public opinion over time. A parallel survey of economic, political, labour, civil service, and other elites, using many of the questionnaire items examined here, will also allow us to make systematic comparisons of public and elite opinion on this issue.

I. BASE-LINE DATA ON DIFFERENCES OF OPINION

Independence for Quebec An obvious beginning to any examination of public opinion concerning the present Canadian constitutional crisis is the distribution of attitudes to the independence of Quebec. As indicated in Table I, we asked a question that posed three alternative qualifications to the separation of Quebec from Canada - support for independence if an economic agreement could be worked out with the rest of Canada; support even if no economic agreement is worked out; and support only if no economic agreement is worked out. Respondents who did not directly choose one of these answers but who gave qualified answers or said their position depended on the circumstances were placed in one of three additional categories.

Independence coupled with an economic cooperation agreement with the rest of Canada - the closest approximation to the policy of the Parti Quebecois - is supported by 28 per cent of French Quebecers.’ Another 3 per cent view an economic agreement as desirable, but would support independence even without one, 1 per cent support independence only if there is no such agreement, and 8 per cent d o not endorse any of these options but are classified by the interviewer as giving qualified support to independence. These respondents require conditions other than, or in addition to, economic association in order to give full approval to independence. Among French Quebecers, the opponents of independence outnumber its supporters by a 4:3 ratio, disregarding the 7 per cent of French Quebecers who take no position on independence and the approximately equal proportions on both sides giving qualified answers.

1 Throughout this paper, the division of the survey respondents into the two categories, “French” and “non- French,” is based on an item taken exactly from the 1971 census which reads, “To what ethnic or cultural group did you or your ancestor (on the male side) belong on coming to this continent?”

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TABLE I I

PERCENTAGE BELIEVING THAT QUEBEC WILL SEPARATk

Likely Unlikely Undecided Total

Some people have suggested that the province of Quebec will be separated from the rest of Canada in about five years. In your opinion is this likely or unlikely?

National

Quebec

Rest of Canada

1978 26 64 10 100 1973 16 70 14 100 1969 18 70 12 100

1978 25 65 10 100 1973 25 63 12 100 1969 19 61 20 100

1978 26 64 10 100 1973 12 73 1s 100 1969 18 73 9 100

From Gallup poll information published in Toronto Star (25 January 1978:l) N ,9,8 = 1010 Non-French Quebecers provide no more sup-

port for independence than d o the people living in English Canada. Barely 10 per cent of Cana- dians other than French Quebecers support the first two independence options. What is surpris- ing is that the most radical of the independence options - independence only if there is no agreement (chosen by just 1 per cent of French Quebecers) - is supported by between 13 and 26 per cent of the people in the four other regions of Canada. Clearly the question has very different meanings in the two situations. The English Canadians who choose this option are probably strongly opposed to independence: they mean to underline their position by stating their opposition to an economic agreement between English Canada and an independent Quebec.

We can state, therefore, that in mid-1977, one-third of French Quebecers, and a slightly smaller proportion of all Quebecers, approved of independence for Quebec coupled with an economic agreement with the rest of Canada. This figure is virtually identical to that obtained by the March 1977 CBC poll conducted by SORECOM and Maurice Pinard in which 32 per cent of the sample favoured political independence coupled with an economic association. It is also the same estimate (within boundaries of sampling error) as that obtained from a survey conducted by Peter Regenstreif for Le Devoir in 1970, which found 35 per cent of respondents in Quebec in favour of political independence coupled with economic association (25 April 1970: 1).

While the likelihood of a majority of Que- becers’ supporting the political independence of Quebec is small at the present time, it would be foolhardy to maintain that a Quebec government committed to that position, and already supported by close to one-third of the provincial population, may not be able in the future to find increasing support for independence. There may be some tendency, for example, toward reconciling support for the independence of Quebec with a view that independence is in fact likely to take place as a result of the electoral victory of the PQ.

However, according to information published by the Toronto Star (25 January, 1978: 1) and obtained from identical Gallup Poll questions over eight years, there is no real evidence that perceptions of the inevitability of Quebec’s independence, within Quebec, are increasing simply as a function of time. Table 11 shows that perceptions of the likelihood of Quebec’s independence, within the province, increased from 19 to 25 per cent between 1969 and 1973, but re- mained constant between 1973 and 1978 at 25 per cent. This compares to 65 per cent in 1978 who thought that separation was “unlikely” and 10 per cent who were undecided. And if perceptions of the likelihood of separation increased over time so did the percentage of those who felt that separation was unlikely (from 61 to 65 per cent). The increase in both proportions was evidently due to a decrease in the percentage of “undecided” respondents (from 20 to 10 per cent). Interestingly, the percentage of respondents in

162 / Michael D. Ornstein, H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

English Canada who feel that separation is “likely” rises to 26 per cent between 1969 and 1978, a percentage which is slightly higher than that found in Quebec. Likewise the percentage who think separation is “unlikely” is lower than that in Quebec (64 per cent), although the percentage of undecided respondents is identical. It appears then, that expectations of independence do not increase simply as a function of time. Attitudes to language policy The movement toward independence in Quebec reflects the cultural solidarity of its French- speaking majority and the threat to the survival and development of French culture posed by the economic dominance of an English-speaking minority in Quebec and by the political encap- sulation of Quebec within a federal state with a predominantly English-speaking majority. As Dion argues (1976), Quebecers - whether independentist or not - seek a “protective institutional framework” which would assure the survival of the Quebec community. Policies designed to provide mobility and accessibility to French Canadians across Canada would not necessarily provide this protection, although they might well make more agreeable the continued partnership of French and English Cana- dians. Language policy is, in any event, crucial to securing an effective citizenship for the French-speaking population in Canada, and it is also an important tool for the construction of a protective institutional framework for French society in Quebec. We have, therefore, asked questions relating to the provision of government services in both official languages throughout the country, and to the recognition of the “special status” of French in Quebec.

As indicated in Table I I I , a majority of Cana- dians approves of the right of French Cana- dians outside Quebec and of English Canadians in Quebec to schooling in their respective languages. Even in the context of the historical denial of French-language rights outside Que- bec and the growth of the Quebec nationalist movement, 76 per cent of French Quebecers support English schooling in Quebec, compared to only 48 per cent of English Canadians who would grant the reciprocal right in English Canada. The people in those minority positions, the English in Quebec and the French in English Canada, provide overwhelming support for their own and for each other’s linguistic rights, at least 83 per cent support in each case. Within

English Canada, there are important regional differences in the levels of support for French language schooling: 58 per cent support in the Atlantic region, 50 per cent in Ontario, 48 per cent in the Prairies, 36 per cent in British Columbia. A very large proportion, about 17 per cent of the sample, takes no clear position on the issue. These differences are probably related as much to the presence or absence of significant French-speaking populations in each region as they are to antagonistic attitudes to French Canadians. In other words, where no French-speaking communities exist in a geo- graphic area, respondents might reasonably see little need for the extension of French-language rights.

Almost the same pattern of regional and ethnic variation exists for the questions dealing with the rights of French- and English-speaking minorities to communicate with their provincial governments in their respective official languages, and for the question dealing with bilingual qualifications for senior federal government jobs. The western provincial populations stand out as somewhat less agreeable to the recognition of French in schools and government. This regional difference is well estab- lished in most public opinion polls dealing with the relations between the founding nations in Canada (see Fletcher, 1977). It is, however, worth emphasizing that there is very strong support - a minimum of 88 per cent agreement - in all regions for the requirement that “many senior government jobs be filled by people who speak both French and English.” This flies in the face of Black’s (1977: 162) argument that: “Bilingualism . . . must be moved from its position as the cornerstone of Ottawa’s national unity policy. Essential as it was, and still is, its flawed implementation has caused far more dis- unity than unity in the country.” Our data in Table 111 suggest that the Canadian public does support at least one important element of the federal government’s bilingualism policy. The backlash against these policies by English- Canadian political leaders does not, in fact, reflect the views of their constituency.

The Parti Quebecois has identified two important threats to the French language in the continuing use of English in much of Quebec business and in the choice of the majority of immigrants to send their children to English schools. They have strong support for action in both areas. A substantial majority of French-

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speaking Quebecers agrees with the statement that “French should be the language of work in all medium and large size businesses in Que- bec”, and only about one-third of them feel that “people who d o not speak English and move to Quebec should be able to find schooling for their children in English.” A comparison of their views with those of other sectors of the Canadian population reveals an enormous gap: 77 per cent of French Quebecers support the statement promoting French as the language of work in Quebec, compared to 38 per cent of non-French Quebecers, 34 per cent of the French outside Quebec, and only 20 per cent of English Canadians! The difference is nearly as large for the statement about immigrant schooling.

To sum up, we find relatively little sympathy outside of Quebec for two items which are seen both by the people of Quebec and their government as natural elements of government policy to preserve French culture and prevent discrimination against French employees. English Canadians are quite sympathetic to language policies which fall within the domain of what could be understood as traditional civil rights. But there is a failure on the part of English Canadians to grasp the political reality that the struggle to maintain a viable French Quebec society cannot be understood simply in these terms.

Concessions, force, economic agreement If only a slender majority of Canadians outside Quebec approves of policies that would favour the extension of French-language facilities throughout Canada at the present time, it is possible that they may consider other concessions to Quebec as a means of luring the population of that province away from the appeals of the independence movement. As indicated in Table IV, however, the proportion of non- French Canadians outside Quebec who support making concessions to prevent the separation of Quebec is similar to that supporting the rights of French schooling outside Quebec. Between 50 and 60 per cent of the non-French in On- tario, the Prairies, and Atlantic provinces would support such concessions, but there is somewhat less than majority support for this proposition in British Columbia.

While both French- and English-speaking respondents in Quebec provide substantial support for “major” concessions, non-French

Canadians outside Quebec tend to favour only “minor” concessions. This evidence suggests that, while a majority of Canadians outside Quebec would approve some concessions from the government of Canada in order to prevent the separation of Quebec, there might be substantial opposition to negotiations between the government of Canada and the province of Quebec in which the federal government would negotiate major concessions to Quebec. Con- firmation of this point is found in the results obtained from a Gallup survey commissioned by The Canadian Magazine conducted in January 1977. Asked if the government of Can- ada should “negotiate special political and economic agreements with Quebec to try to prevent separation,” only 47 per cent of the Canadians interviewed responded positively. Over-all, opposition to special agreements with Quebec was 10 to 15 per cent higher in all regions, although the pattern of opposition parallels our own findings. This difference in the level of support, however, may be due to the restricted options of simple approval or disapproval in the Gallup Poll, as opposed to the more flexible response provided for in our question (see Fletcher, 1977).

While a majority of Canadians outside Que- bec opposes independence for Quebec, and only a bare majority supports concessions to Quebec in order to prevent that province’s separation, relatively few Canadians are prepared to approve of the use of force in order to hold Que- bec in confederation “if a majority of people in Quebec voted for independence from Canada.” In the 1968 election survey conducted by John Meisel, respondents were asked the open-ended question: “Suppose a vote were taken and most of the people in Quebec voted for separation, what do you think the government in Ottawa should d o then?” In reply, only 4 per cent of the sample explicitly suggested the use of force, although another 20 per cent indicated that the federal government should make Quebec stay, without specifying how it should d o so. Nearly 40 per cent were prepared to let Quebec go, or said that nothing could be done. Ten per cent indicated that Quebec should be persuaded to stay by non-violent means or that some com- promise should be worked out. Twenty-five per cent did not know what the government should do. This large proportion of “don’t knows” and the similarily large proportion of vague answers about keeping Quebec in confederation

166 I Michael D. Ornstein, H . Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

TABLE V

OPINIONS ON CONCMSIONS TO PREVENT SEPAKA1 ION BY KEGION

Atlantic Quebec British Canada

Ontario Prairies Columbia total

January 1977* Should the government of Canada negotiate special political and economic agreements with Quebec to try to prevent separation?

Approve (percentage) Disapprove Don’t know Total Number of cases

May I977** Do you think the government of Canada should be prepared to . . . . . . make major concessions to prevent

. . . make only minor concessions, or

. . . should not make any concessions to

separation (percentage),

prevent separation don’t know

Total Number of cases

28 69 62 21 10 10

100 100

99 299

13 58 40 14

39 19 8 9

100 100 273 878

44 40 30 47 46 5 3 65 44 10 7 5 9

100 100 100 100

358 177 110 1043

12 7 8 24 38 41 36 32

42 45 50 36 8 7 6 8

100 100 100 100 1079 5 00 346 3076

* From Gallup Poll survey conducted for Canadian Magazine, as reported in Fletcher (1977) ** Our data

indicate the difficulty respondents felt in dealing concretely with the prospect of Canada’s dissolution.

It could be argued that the very limited reference to the use of force in the 1968 survey was influenced by the open-ended character of the question, and the perceived unlikelihood of Quebec’s independence at that time. Our 1977 survey asked, “If the majority of people in Que- bec voted for independence from Canada, would you favour the use of force to stop Que- bec separating from Canada?” As reported in Table Iv, 75 per cent ofCanadians are unam- biguously opposed to the use of force. There is no significant regional variation in this response, except for the slightly more aggressive response of the two minority language groups. Our estimates of the approval of the use of force to stop the separation of Quebec range between 12 and 16 per cent of the population outside of Quebec, and between 15 and 23 per cent if we include the “depends” response. These results are similar to those obtained in a CTV poll taken immediately after the 1976 election victory of the PQ, and in a Gallup Poll in January 1977 in which the support for the use of

force was 15 and 19 per cent respectively (see Fletcher, 1977: 33). Such an estimate is also a reasonable interpolation of the Meisel 1968 results, and this attitude is probably a quite stable element in public opinion. But one caveaf is in order: in the heat of any new political crisis in Quebec of the type that witnessed the invok- ing of the War Measures Act in 1970, increased support for military action could be generated by the federal government, or some substantial portion of the population might simply acqui- esce in the use of force, notwithstanding the strong antagonism to such action reflected in the results presented here.

The final issue we deal with in the context of Quebec’s independence concerns support for an economic agreement between a separate state of Quebec and the rest of Canada. Our data in Table 1v reveal that a substantial majority (79 per cent) of Quebecers favours the negotiation of an economic agreement between Quebec and the rest of Canada if Quebec were to become independent. Outside Quebec, supporters of an agreement outnumber its opponents by between 8 and 20 per cent, depending on the region. It should be emphasized that the proportion of

Public opinion and the Canadian political crisis I 167

“don’t know” responses to this question is higher than that in answer to the other questions we have been considering. Obviously, much depends on what is to be negotiated by way of an economic agreement. It is instructive that a similar, but more emphatically worded question, asked in the Gallup Poll conducted for The Canadian Magazine in January 1977 - “If separation occurs, should Canada enter into an economic union with Quebec” - showed that 43 per cent of Canadians outside Quebec favoured an economic union between an independent Quebec and the rest of Canada (see Fletcher, 1977: Table 11). Although opposition to an economic agreement with an independent Quebec may increase in the future as it is given a more specific definition by the Quebec government - a customs union, a common market, a mone- tary union, etc. - the climate of public opinion in Canada at the present time is not generally hostile to the professed intention of the Parti Quebecois to negotiate economic association with the rest of Canada, if and when it receives a popular mandate to d o so.

Summary This survey of public opinion offers little hope of a speedy resolution to the conflict between the federal government and the government of Quebec by reference to a wider public debate than is provided for in the existing electoral machinery. In Quebec, the program of the Parti Quebecois is supported by about one-third of the population. However, the very great majority of Quebecers wants recognition of the special status of French in their province, in line with the recent language legislation of the PQ government. French Quebecers also strongly support the extension of bilingual opportunities in education and government in the rest of Canada, policies which are presently beyond the jurisdiction of the federal government and which provincial governments are not yet prepared to enact.

A clear majority of Canadians outside Que- bec opposes provisions for the special status of French within Quebec as the language of work and of schooling for non-English-speaking immigrants, and only a small majority supports the extension of educational and governmental facilities in French outside Quebec.

Differences in public opinion are equally pronounced with respect to the issues of concessions and economic agreement. The great

majority of Quebecers favours an economic agreement with the rest of Canada if the province becomes independent. Outside Quebec only a bare majority of Canadians supports any concessions to Quebec to prevent separation, and a large proportion of them draws the line at “minor” concessions. Similarly, only a slight majority of Canadians outside of Quebec is prepared to approve of the negotiation of an economic agreement should a majority of Que- becers vote for independence, and it seems likely that a majority in English Canada would oppose any concrete suggestions for economic union.

Further insights into the structure of these political attitudes can be obtained from Table V1, which shows gamma values measuring the associations between the individual items dis- cussed so far and compares these associations for the two large non-minority groups - the French in Quebec and the non-French outside Quebec. The generally stronger associations in Quebec among the responses to items A to E - measuring support for conventional policies of bilingualism - indicate that French Quebecers are more likely to view the extension of these rights in Quebec and English Canada in terms of reciprocity and that their beliefs are more coherently organized than those of English Canadians. It is interesting to examine the relationship between support for English-language schooling for Canadians who move to Quebec versus provision for this schooling for people who d o not speak English and move to Quebec. In English Canada the two policies are very strongly related; the gamma of .81 indicates that both policies are seen as part of a single dimension. But French Quebecers see these as two distinguishable issues, though they are still positively related (the gamma is .25).

In Quebec there is little relationship between support for independence and attitudes to bilingualism. Support for independence is weakly, but negatively, correlated with support for English schooling for English Canadians who move to Quebec and with recognition of the right to communicate with the Quebec government in English. Supporters of independence tend to oppose common Federalist notions of bilingualism, but not as strongly as might be expected.

What is suggested here is that “independen- tisme” is a reaction to conditions within Quebec - as indicated further by the definite association

168 I Michael D. Ornstein. H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

TABLE V I

MATRIX OF GAMMAS SHOWING THE ASSOCIATIONS AMONG ITEMS MEASURING OPINIONSON LANGUAGE RIGHTS ANDQUEBEC INDEPENDENCE

FRENCH IN QUEBEC BELOW THE DIAGONAL (N = 695) NON-FRENCH OUTSIDE QUEBEC ABOVE THE D I A G O N A L ( N = ~ I Y B )

-

A .

B.

C.

D .

E.

F .

G.

H.

A

French schools outside Quebec English schooling for Canadians who move to Quebec French communication with provincial governments outside Quebec

English communication with government of Quebec Bilingual civil servants in Ottawa

French in Quebec businesses English schooling for non-English who move to Quebec Support for Quebec’s independence

-

.44

.82

.38

.41

.40

-.06 -.I0

B C D E F G H

.39 .55 . I0 .27 .21 .20 -

- .07 .75 -.03 -.27 .81 *

.45 - .20 .39 .28 -.04 *

.63 .41 - -.05 - .35 .68 *

.40 .38 .34 - .25 -.I8 * -.02 .46 -.04 .30 - - .33 *

.25 -.09 .23 -.08 -.31 - *

.I9 -.16 .I5 -.03 -.35 .33 -

* Omitted because of uncertainty about ordering of categories for non-French

between support for independence and the measures to protect French within Quebec - rather than a reaction to conditions in Canada or a n ethnocentric response to English Canadians generally. The data in Table VI also indicate that amongst non-French-speaking Canadians outside Quebec support for the extension of opportunities for the use of French in Canada is associated with support for the recognition of the special status of French in Quebec and with approval of a more conciliatory attitude to concessions and economic agreement with Quebec. The relevant coefficients are in the order of .30, indicating a fairly consistent attitudinal structure. In English Canada, therefore, attitudes to bilingualism reflect a general orientation towards political developments in Quebec which can be seen in terms of the response of a domi- nant ethnic group to the assertion of “civil rights” by an ethnic minority. In Quebec, on the other hand, problems of civil rights in majority-minority relations within Canada have little or nothing to do with the demand for the right to self-determination. This demand reflects rather the concentration of the French population and the historical continuity of the French community in Quebec, and arguments over the right to self-determination are based upon interpretations of political and economic conditions within Quebec. Within Quebec, therefore, we expect to explain attitudes to independence and language rights in terms of con-

ventional theories of support for nationalist movements, while in the rest of Canada we con- centrate on theories of prejudice and support for civil liberties.

11.

INDEPENDENCE DETERMINANTS OF SUPPORT FOR QUEBEC’S

Perhaps the central question which has emerged from the enormous volume of literature on Quebec, and from the political debate within Quebec, concerns the political characterization of the independence movement in general, and of the Parti Quebecois in particular. Nationalist movements can occupy positions anywhere on a left-right continuum, depending on the particular historical circumstances in which they develop. This problem has been attacked both theoretically and empirically in the case of Quebec. Best known, perhaps, is Bourque and Laurin-Frenette’s (1 972: 200) characterization of the independist movement as representative of the “French-speaking technocratic petite bourgeoisie” which uses the Quebec state as a vehicle to serve its own class interests. Bourque and Laurin-Frenette hold out the possibility of a very different revolutionary nationalism of the Quebec working class, but see this only as a possibility and not as an important force within the existing nationalist movement. Though his language is less explicitly Marxist, Guindon (1968) makes a similar analysis of the nationalist


movement. Taylor (1975) also identifies the strongest support for independence in a well- educated white collar “intelligentsia.” Though there is some consensus on this structural basis of nationalism, there is little consensus on the political orientation of the nationalist movement. For example, Rioux (1969) and Vallieres (1972) see it as a progressive force; for very different reasons Bourque and Laurin-Frenette (1972) and Taylor (1975) view it as a conservative force. The theoretical debate over the nature of Quebec nationalism is well summarized by Carlos and Latouche (1976) and by Cuneo and Curtis (1974).

A number of efforts have been made to examine directly the social bases of nationalism and of support for the PQ. In most cases they focus on the sociodemographic characteristics of nationalists (e.g. Carlos and Latouche, 1976; Hamilton and Pinard, 1976; Irvine, 1972; Gzowski, 1963), though Cuneo and Curtis (1974) and Jenson and Regenstreif (1970) do consider the relationship between independence and other political attitudes. The connection between these empirical results and the larger historical and theoretical issues is not always clear. It is important analytically to separate the class character of an ideology from the identity of its supporters a t any one point in time. If this relationship is assumed to be isomorphic, we place ourselves in a functionalist trap. For example: in several elections, Quebec workers voted for Duplessis; Duplessis pursued a policy of repression of the trade union movement; therefore this repression is in the workers’ interest. The fallacy lies in assuming that social movements and political parties mechanically arise to represent the interests of all existing social groups within a society. Pinard convinc- ingly examines the way in which the historical lack of a political basis for a social democratic party within the political elite of Quebec society leads the working class to support conservative protest movements: “the Union Nationale rose during the 1930’s as an economic protest movement and the workers turned to it independently of its philosophy” (1971: 87).

Does it make any sense, then, to look at the social composition and political positions of the supporters of a political movement? We think so, for two reasons. First, we would argue that

a knowledge of who supports a social movement does provide important clues to its political character, though these clues must be analysed in the context of other evidence, including party programs and organizational structure and the background and political views of the movement’s leadership. Second, the social characteristics and political attitudes of the followers of a movement place constraints on its leadership. These constraints may not be direct, but they are transmitted through the mass media, at constituency meetings, and in direct contacts between political activists and less involved members of the general public.

In this paper, we examine the nature of support for Quebec independence and not of the PQ itself - the latter being the major focus of past research. Support for the PQ is a function both of an individual’s position on independence and of his or her evaluation of the available electoral alternatives, especially since the PQ has taken the position that the issue of independence will be settled in a referendum, independent of general elections. Support for the party has been somewhat greater than support for independence per se, and it seems reasonable to assume that there are differences between the class base of Parti Quebecois support and the class base of support for independence, although this point has not been examined in any great detail in the literature. However, in so far as the PQ is committed to independence and is the only presently available political vehicle for the achievement of independence, the influences exerted upon the leadership by the majority of their active supporters will reflect the social situation and ideological interests of those committed to independence. In this analysis we only consider support for independence although we intend our results to complement previous examinations of the nature of support for the Parti Quebecois. In the future we expect to examine the differences in support between the issue and the party.’

We shall proceed by examining the influence of demographic and political characteristics on support for independence. A finding that, for example, independentists are concentrated in some portion of the income spectrum, is of interest in itself. But such a finding raises as many questions as it answers. We must ask if the

2 For examinations of the relationship between support for independence and provincial voting, see Pinard and Hamilton (1977), who provide a good review of the research on issue voting. See also Carlos and Latouche (1976), Carlos, Cloutier, and Latouche (1976), Jensen and Regenstreif (1970), Lemieux, Gilbert, and Blais (1970).

170 I Michael D. Ornstein, H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

observed pattern arises because of the relationship between income and other political attitudes, or whether support for independence is directly related to differences in economic conditions. We therefore examine the relationship between support for Quebec independence and two large groups of variables - one measuring the sociodemographic characteristics of the individual and the other measuring his or her political attitudes.

Each of the sociodemographic variables in the analysis is treated as a set of unordered categories. For example, age is treated as six categories: 18-24,25-34, 35-44,45-54, 55-65,65 years or more. Thus no assumption is made about the nature of the relationship between age, or the other demographics, and the dependent variables. Were age in years to be used as a continuous variable in the regressions, the im- plicit assumption would be that each additional year of education produces a n equal change in the dependent variable, which effectively elimi- nates the possibility of detecting non-linear relationships in the data.

Generally, missing values were handled using a “pair-wise present” computation of the correlation matrix, which means that correlations are based on all cases for which there is valid data on both variables. Missing data for occupation was treated in a special manner, since there are large numbers of individuals who d o not work

and for whom no reasonable substitution for occupation is possible. All such respondents were placed in a residual category labelled “not in the labour force” and treated in the same fashion as the other occupational groups in the analysis. Similarily, considerable numbers of individuals either do not know their family income, or refused to state it - generally higher refusal rates are found for this variable than for other demographic measures. So, in addition to the five income quintiles, a six category called “not known” was created. Statistically it was treated just as the other five categories.

Our choice of the measures of political attitudes for this analysis was limited by the range of items in our questionnaire. Rather than building a single index t o locate respondents on a left-right political continuum, twelve different measures were constructed, each using two or more items. These smaller scales have the ad- vantage of ready interpretation since each one includes only substantively related items; the disadvantage is that the small numbers of items in each one reduce their reliabilities. However, the large number of scales in the analysis does insure against underestimating the over-all effect of left-right political differences. The construction of these measures is summarized below. A complete description of the items in each scale and their intercorrelations is available by writing to the authors of this papere4

3 Occupation was defined in an unusual manner in order to cope with the large proportion of respondents (nearly half) who reported that they were not actively engaged in any occupation outside the home - as might be expected in a representative sample of the population in which household workers, the retired, the unemployed, and the disabled were properly represented. Therefore, if the occupation variable is defined only for individuals who were actively working, about half the sample would be placed in the residual “not in the labour force” category. Our primary interest i s in the role of occupations as they define individuals’ positions within the social structure, rather than in the direct impact of a worker’s job situation on his political position. Therefore, the following substitutions were made to diminish the number of unclassifiable individuals: retired and disabled people were classified into the occupation held before retirement; unemployed workers were classified according to their usual occupation; married persons who were not in the labour force were assigned the occupations of their spouses, i f the spouse was employed. All occupations were classified into ten categories (eleven including the residual category) following Pineo, Porter, and McRoberts’ (1977) classification of the approximately five hundred census occupations into sixteen “Unit groups.” Five of our categories - supervisions, foremen, skilled clerical, skilled craft, and farmers - duplicate those “Unit group” categories exactly, but the remaining eleven “Unit groups” were collapsed into five categories as follows: (a) “self-employed professionals” and “employed professionals” are combined in the professional category; (b ) “high level management” and “middle management” into managers; (c) “semi-professionals” and “technicians” into semi-professionals; (6) “semi-skilled crafts and trades,” “unskilled labourers,” and “farm labourers” into other crafts; (e) “semi-skilled clerical-sales-service” and “unskilled clerical-sales-craft” into other clerical. 4 The measures of political attitudes can be divided into four groups. The first group includes three measures of support for reducing economic and social inequality: (1) support for redistribution measures agreement with policies to reduce the difference between rich and poor; ( 2 ) more welfare efforts measures support for additional government efforts to help the unemployed, poor people, the retired, and other groups; ( 3 ) more effort f o r rninoritygroups measures support for government efforts to protect the rights of native people and women. The second group includes four measures of opinion on specific issues; (4) restrict foreign investment measures


It should be noted that the political variables in this analysis are not measures of political views which are strongly related to the question of support for Quebec’s independence on a sub- stantive basis. Curtis and Cuneo (1974) employ a variable measuring support for special status for Quebec within confederation to predict agreement with separation. They find a very strong relationship between them. But this is to be expected - i f independence proves to be impossible, most independists would surely favour special status. The difficulty is that the two positions cannot reasonably be seen as causally related. They are better understood as measures of a single attitude. The political attitudes used in this analysis could only be related to support for independence at a more general political level.

Unfortunately, on the basis of these data it is impossible to specify the direction of the causal relationship between these political attitudes and support for independence. Once an individual takes a position on independence, his or her views on other political issues are likely to change as a result. Presumably, new supporters of independence would generally become more sympathetic to the social and economic policies of the Parti Quebecois. In truth, there is likely to be a reciprocal relationship between the variables measuring support for independence and other political attitudes. So, when a relationship is found between support for independence and some other variables, it is only possible to conclude that the two are associated. Strong claims about the direction of the causal relationship

cannot be made on this basis. To make use of multiple regression, it was

necessary to assign numerical values to the eight different responses to the question about Que- bec’s independence that reflected their relative positions on a continuum. While their ordering is clear, there is no obvious basis on which to assign them precise scores, so they were arbi- trarily given values between -3 and 4 as follows:

in favour of independence if an economic cooperation agreement can be worked out with the rest of Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + 2 in favour of independence even if no agreement is possible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + 3 in favour of independence but against working out an economic cooperation agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + 4 opposed to independence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . -3 qualified support for independence . . . . . + 1 qualified opposition to independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

don’tknow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 depends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

One method of validating this scoring of the categories is to see if some other assignment of values would increase the extent to which individual responses on this issue could be related to independent variables used in this analysis. Applying canonical correlation to the data, we find that no important improvement in the magnitude of the relationships observed is possible by changing the scores.

support for policies to reduce foreign economic and cultural influence on Canada; ( 5 ) support for labour measures attitudes to extending the rights of labour and reducing the power of management; (6) more effort against crime measures support for additional government efforts against crime and pornography; (7) legitimation ofprotest measures whether respondents feel that protest activities, including strikes, boycotts, and demonstrations are justified means of political expression. The third group includes two measures of attitudes to immigrants: (8) prejudice against immigrants measures attitudes to immigrants to Canada and to the causes of discrimination against them; (9) too many non-anglo-saxon immigrants measures whether the respondent feels there has been too much immigration to Canada from India and Pakistan, the West Indies, and Italy. The last group of three variables relates political participation and efficacy: only one of the measures is attitudinal; the two others are behavioural: (1O)political efficacy is measured using the five-part question from the 1974 federal election study of Harold Clarke, Jane Jenson, Lawrence Leduc, and Jon Pammett; ( 1 1) attention to media measures the frequency with which individuals read daily newspapers, read newspaper editorials, and watch the news on television; (12) politicalparticipation measures the level of individual involvement in political campaigns and community issues. All the scales were standardized, separately for the French in Quebec and the non-French in English Canada - so they can be assumed to have unit standard deviations. 5 A set of variables was constructed to measure support for independence, assuming arbitrary spacing among the eight responses. These variables were placed on one side of a canonical correlation analysis versus a set of 27 variables measuring the respondent’s income, occupation, education, etc. The value of the first canonical correlation was .3956. This compares to a multiple correlation coefficient of .3638, which is obtained using the set of category values from -3 to + 4. These values are quite similar, and the coefficients from the canonical correlation analysis closely match the standardized regression coefficients in the regression. Therefore we


This section of the analysis only considers individuals of French ethnicity who live in Que- bec. The differences between the French and other ethnic groups are so large as to make it in- advisable to consider them together. Also, there is little variation in the responses to the question on independence among the non-French. Table VII contains both cross-tabulations of the independence question with a number of sociodemographic variables and the regression results. The analysis of variance for the regression is in Table V I I I . In order to avoid repeti- tion, the univariate and multivariate results are considered together. We first examine the relationship between support for independence and the sociodemographic variables and then intro- duce the measures of political attitudes to see whether the demographic effects are mediated by those attitudes. It should be also noted that we make no attempt to examine interactions among the independent variables. Limitations of space prevent us from doing so here, but we do intend to pursue this matter in our future work.

The effect of urban-rural differences on support for independence is shown at the top of Table V I I . ~ The strongest support for independence is found in small urban areas and in the Montreal region; the greatest opposition comes from the larger urban areas other than Mon- treal (including Hull, Chicoutimi-Jonquiere, and Quebec city); smaller urban areas fall in between. In Montreal, 34 per cent express support for one of the three independence options and another 8 per cent express qualified support for independence, 50 per cent oppose independence, and the remaining 8 per cent of the sample were equally divided between the “depends” and “don’t know” categories.

When scores are assigned to the eight response categories, a single number averaging the response of the total sample or of any sub-

group of respondents can be computed. For the entire French Quebec sample the mean score on the independence scale is -.65, just on the negative bide of the centre (remember that the score assigned to the “opposed” category was -3 , 0 stands for “depends,” and the pro-independence options are given scores of + 2, + 3, and +4). The “deviation from the grand mean” for Montreal is .19, indicating that the mean value of the responses in Montreal is .19 above the mean of the entire sample. Similarly, “other large cities” have an average score on the scale of -.14, or .I4 below the grand mean. Applying an analysis of variance to measure the over-all differences among the four categories, urbanization is found to explain 2 per cent of the variation in support for independence.

Now, what happens when the other sociodemographic variables are held constant - making an imagined comparison of individuals in the four regions who are equal in education, occupation, income, age, and so on? The answer is given in the second column of deviations from the grand mean which are “adjusted for other demographic variables” (still in Table VII). There is almost no change in the values for Montreal and for the other large cities, for example, holding the other sociodemographic variables constant - the mean for Montreal is .22 (again above the mean for the sample as a whole) versus the original mean of .19. The mean for rural areas rises from a value of -.25 to -.09, which means that some of the opposition to independence in rural areas can be accounted for by their distinct age, income, and occupational composition. The comparison of urban and rural areas can now be repeated a third time, holding constant the twelve political attitude measures, as well as the demographic characteristics. The final set of deviations from the grand mean “adjusted for demographic variables and political attitudes” in the second

conclude that the values in the regression assigned to the categories are reasonable. The spacing of the categories obtained from the canonical correlation does suggest three interesting findings. Basing our judgment on the similarities among individuals making the responses, it appears that: (1) individuals expressing qualified opposition to independence actually have a position very close to those who simply choose the response of opposition, but persons who express qualified support for independence are weaker supporters than those choosing one of the three independence responses; (2) respondents who have no opinion are generally opposed to independence; (3) respondents who choose independence only i f there is no economic agreement are actually qualified in their support for independence. 6 Four categories of urbanization are used in this analysis: the first category includes the three largest census metropolitan areas, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver; the second includes all other census metropolitan areas; the third includes all the remaining municipalities with populations of 1000 or more; the fourth includes municipalities with populations under 1000 and rural areas. These definitions are all based on 1971 census population figures.


TABLE VII POSITION ON QUkBEC S INDEPENDENCE B Y DtMOGRAPHlC

VARIABLESAND POLITICAL A T T I T U D E FOR F R t N C H I N Q U E B L C ~ _ _ _ _ - -- - __

Position on Quebec's independence, percentage distribution

Deviation from grand mean

Urbanization Montreal .19+

-.74** .35

-.25*

.22+ -.75**

.13 -.09

.25' -.67** -.06 -.05

293 88

144 170

2 5 27 8 4 10 40 4 100 Other CMA'S Other urban Rural

Gender Male Female

Age 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65 or more Education No high school Some high school High school graduate Above & vocational Some university University graduate Family income 1st quintile 2nd quintile 3rd quintite 4th quintile 5th quintile Not known Occupation Professional Manager Semiprof. & tech. Supervisor Foreman Skilled clerical Skilled craft Other clerical Other craft Farmer Not defined Self-employed Yes No Union member Yes No

0 4 2 0 3 1 4 63 5 0 0 3 7 1 5 2 5 39 2 0 2 2 4 5 3 1 5 45 6

100 100 100

1 4 2 8 7 2 1 0 46 2 1 2 2 7 1 0 3 9 42 6

100 100

-.02+ .02

-.07+ .07

-.13+ .13

354 34 1

2 5 3 3 8 2 6 41 3 0 5 3 9 7 1 8 37 3 0 3 3 0 9 2 1 2 40 4 0 0 17 11 5 10 51 6 1 2 15 11 5 13 47 6 0 1 1 4 6 5 1 1 58 5

100 100 100 100 100 100

.14

.27 .19 .34

-.04+ -.45 -.42 -.96*

.I9

.16 -.04+ -.37 -.39 -.65

176 157 118 99 81 64

-.OY -.70 -.60 -.99*

0 1 1 8 5 4 1 4 4 9 9 1 3 23 13 1 11 45 3 1 2 2 7 5 3 8 51 3 0 7 4 5 7 5 2 34 0 0 9 4 1 8 3 6 32 1 0 4 37 15 2 10 30 2

100 100 100 100 100 100

-.so -.07 - .24'

.81*

.80*

.64*

-.26 -.06 -.26'

.58*

.53*

.37

-.25 -.02 -.16'

.64*

.36

.30

183 151 171 44 96 50

1 2 27 8 3 11 38 10 I 3 2 5 5 2 1 5 4 7 2 0 4 3 3 9 4 7 41 2 1 5 3 2 1 1 2 7 3 9 3 2 3 2 4 6 2 9 53 1 0 0 1 9 1 3 6 3 51 8

100 100 100 100 100 100

.12 -.24

.21+

.39 -.35 -.40

.57 -.15

.17+

.I1 -.64* -.47

.45 -.13

. l I '

.09 - . 55* -.26

133 123 I59 110 99 70

0 9 4 1 6 3 9 27 5 0 0 2 2 4 4 1 5 5 2 3 2 3 5 0 1 8 0 3 2 4 0 0 0 4 0 1 4 7 9 30 0 0 2 3 3 0 0 7 54 4 1 5 2 7 4 1 6 52 4 0 2 2 8 4 4 1 2 4 5 5 2 1 31 10 3 10 41 2 0 1 2 4 7 1 1 2 50 5 0 0 5 5 1 0 1 2 65 3 1 7 2 3 1 1 1 7 45 5

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

.89* -.53 1.25** .61

-.32 -.07+ -.16

.30 -.39

-1.12* .03

.63 -.35

.78

.76 -.08 -.15'

.02 -.07 -.38 -.76 .05

.48 -.22

.60

.42 -.17 -.13' -.19 -.01 -.35 -.72

.06

39 28 40 33 25 48

103 89

131 32

124

0 0 2 7 1 4 2 5 46 6 0 3 2 8 8 3 1 0 44 4

100 100

. I2 -.01+

.06 -.01'

.47 -.03'

41 65 1

1 4 2 9 9 3 1 0 41 3 1 3 2 7 8 3 9 45 4

100 100

.06 -.03

.18 -.09

.09 -.04

189 506

174 I Michael D. Ornstein. H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

Table V I I continued

Standard regression coefficient Regression coe fficien 1

Support for redistribution .09* .05 .06 .19 . I 1 .I5 More welfare efforts .04 .oo .01 .09 . 00 .03 More effort for minority groups . I ]** .05 .02 .25 .I2 .04 Restrict foreign investment .16** .11** . I ] * * .36 .26 .24 Support for labour .25** .17** .15 .57 .39 .33

Legitimation of protest .26** .19** . 1 5 * * .59 .43 .34 Prejudice against immigrants -.01 -.02 .02 -.04 .05 .04 Too many non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants .OO .01 .01 .01 .03 .02

Political efficacy .01 .02 . 00 .02 .03 .oo Attention to media .03 .02 .04 .06 .04 .I0 Political participation .13** . 1 1 * * .lo** .29 .25 .24

* Different from zero at the .05 significance level ** Different from zero at the .01 significance level +

to last column of Table VII shows these results. There is little change in the mean values when the political attitude measures are introduced, so we conclude that the urban-rural differences are not mediated by political differences.’

The second set of entries in Table VII shows the differences between men and women. The result can be easily stated - no statistically significant differences are found. Of,course, this does not prove that the difference in the population is zero, only that it cannot be very large.

7 The regression analysis is carried out by constructing a set of dummy variables to measure the effect of each of the sociodemographic variables. The number of dummy variables is, of course, one less than the number of categories. So t-tests give the significance of the difference between the mean of the values of the dependent variable for all the respondents in the omitted category (for which no dummy variable was created) and the mean for the respondents in each of the other categories. The category to which the comparisons are made is marked throughout with a plus sign (+). A single asterisk (*) beside the value of any of the other categories indicates that its mean is significantly different, at the .05 level, from that for the omitted category. A double asterisk (**) indicates significance at the .01 level. The regression coefficients for the dummy variables are converted to deviations from the grand mean for all the categories using the procedure in Multiple Classification Analysis. There are three columns of results for each variable. The first one, the unadjusted “deviation from the grand mean,” simply shows the mean value of the dependent variable for each category of the demographic variable. These values are obtained by regressing the dependent variable on each set of dummy variables separately. The next column, which contains the “deviation(s) from the grand mean” adjusted for other demographic variables, is obtained from the multiple regression which includes all the sets of dummy variables for the sociodemographic variables. In the last column, the political attitude measures are also included in the regression.

More effort against crime -.16** -.17** -.12** -.36 -.39 -.27

Category to which statistical comparisons are made

There is a fairly strong, negative relationship between age and support for independence. Be- tween the 18-to-24 and 65-or-more age groups, the total proportion favouring independence in any form falls smoothly from 48 to 21 per cent, the proportion opposed rises from 47 to 69 per cent, and the proportion making no response or saying it “depends” rises from 5 to 11 per cent. Hamilton and Pinard (1976: 9) observe a similar pattern in support for the PQ. The strongest support for independence is found in the 25-to-34 age group and not among the youngest respon-


TABLE Vlll

ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR REGRESSIONS OF SUPPORT FOR QUEBEC’S

INDEPENDENCE AND FOR ENGLISH-LANGUAGE SCHOOLING FOR NON-ENGLISH

WHO MOVE TOQUEBEC, FOR FRENCH I N Q U E B t C

Proportion of Variance explained

(adjusted for degress of freedom)

Support for English schools independence For non-English

Independent variable regression regression

Urbanization Gender Age Education Income Occupation Self-employment Union membership All socio-demographic variables Political attitudes All variables

,020’ .om .029** .039** ,008 .041** .000 ,000

.116**

.153**

.211**

.028**

.OOl

.021*

.052**

.003

.029*

.om

.ooo

.log**

.077**

.168**

* Different from zero at the .05 significance level ** Different from zero at the .01 significance level

dents, though the difference between these two groups is not large enough to be statistically significant. The decisive discontinuity is between the 35-to-44 age group, 42 per cent of whom give support or qualified support to the independence, and the 45-to-54 age group where the corresponding figure is 28 per cent.

The difference between the age groups giving the most and least support for independence is 1.26 points on a scale on which a five-point difference would indicate a complete polarization of age groups on the independence issue. But it is not realistic ever to expect to find such a huge difference. Considering the limited reliability of single opinion items, such as the one on independence, and the extremely small likelihood of the total division of opinion on any political issue, the observed difference is quite substantial. There is little change when the other demographic variables are held constant: the largest difference is 1.3 points, but when the political attitudes are entered it falls to .84. This indicates that the differences in the six age groups’ positions on independence cannot be explained by the demographic differences between them, for example by the fact that the older cohorts have lower levels of education or different jobs. But the substantial drop which occurs when the political attitudes are held con-

stant shows that the groups are differentiated in terms of these attitudes and that part of the impact of age can be explained by the fact that older people are more likely to hold political attitudes which are negatively related to support for independence.

Whether, as the last remark may suggest, there is a “maturation effect” of age such that as people become older they also become more “conservative,” or whether there is a discrete historical “socialization effect” of age cohorts cannot be determined without recourse to data collected on the same individuals over time. If the second of these approaches is true, then we must conclude that because of different socialization influences individuals hold similar political positions throughout their adult lives. Deciding between these two arguments may be critical to any determination of the likelihood of increasing support for independence in Quebec. It may be that young Quebecers who now dis- proportionately support independence will become less inclined to d o so as they become older. On the other hand, it may be that circumstances will continue to encourage the mobilization of support for independence amongst young Quebecers, and that time and mortality will increase the proportion of the Quebec population that supports independence.


However, a recent article by Richard Hamilton in theMontreal Star (8 June, 1977: All) suggests that this latter approach is “flawed.” He notes that although support for Social Credit was strong among the young in 1962, the Social Credit party has not come to power. Likewise, although young people show strong support for independence and the proportion of the young that supports independence may continue to grow, this increase might well be offset by defections among middle-aged supporters.

Education has a strong effect on support for independence. In the top three categories of education, which include individuals with at least high school graduation and some vocational training, a clear majority supports Quebec’s independence; in the lowest three categories, containing high school graduates and those with less education, a clear majority is opposed. Beyond this major division, there is little difference between the categories of education, except that the lowest group, with no high school, is clearly most opposed to independence and has a proportion of “don’t know” responses three times larger than any of the other five groups.

Using the category means, the difference between the two most extreme categories is 1.3 1 , where five points separate opposition to independence from support for independence with an economic agreement. With the other demographics held constant, the largest difference falls to .84, which shows that some of the difference between the educational groups is due to differences in their demographic compositions - highly educated individuals are both younger and more likely to be in particular occupations. Now, if we also control for political attitudes, the adjusted means do not change appreciably, so that differences in political attitudes are not responsible for the effect of education on support for independence. Hamilton and Pinard (1976: 18) argue that there are strong age-by- education interactions in their analysis of PQ support.

Family income is weakly related to support for independence - it explains only .8 per cent of the variation, which is just below statistical significance at the .05 level. Furthermore, the relationship appears to be curvilinear - the strongest support for independence is in the

third and fourth quintiles of income, the strongest opposition is among those in the second and fifth quintiles and among those whose income is not known.a When the other demographic variables are held constant, the effect of income becomes more interpretable. The adjusted means then show a fairly strong negative relationship between family income and support for independence. The strongest opposition is clearly concentrated in the highest quintile of income and among those whose income is not known; the strongest support for independence is in the lowest quintile of income. These effects are slightly reduced in magnitude, but not in direction, when the political attitudes are held constant. This result is in the same direction as Cuneo and Curtis’ (1974: 22) findings from their analysis of 1968 data, although Hamilton and Pinard conclude (1976: 10) that “nowhere do the less privileged give greater support to the Parti quebecois than do better off respondents.” Of course, differences between the samples, between the patterns of support for independence versus support for the PQ, and in the timing of the polls might account for the difference.

The occupational differences must be interpreted carefully because of the small numbers of cases in many of the categories. Table VII clearly shows large differences among the occupational groups. Support for independence is concentrated in the professional, “semi-professional and technical,” and supervisory categories, where majorities favour independence. Opposition to independence is highest among farmers, managers, foremen, and the “other craft” category (which includes all semiskilled and unskilled blue collar workers and farm labourers), where a minimum of 61 per cent oppose independence. Support for independence is thus concentrated in the higher echelons of non- managerial, white-collar workers with generally high levels of education. Opposition is concentrated among farmers and blue collar workers. When the other demographic variables are held constant, the occupational differences diminish in magnitude, though the original pattern holds. When political attitudes are held constant in addition, the occupational differences decline further, but their ordering is not affected. No

8 The quintiling of income is only approximate, since it is done for the Canadian population as a whole, not for the subgroups on which this analysis is carried out. Also, some imprecision is contributed by the fact that family income is measured in eighteen discrete categories and not as a continuous variable.


statistically significant differences are found between the self-employed and those employed by others or between union members and non- members.

Finally, we consider the effect of political attitudes on the independence issue. There is a very strong pattern which shows that support for independence is correlated with more left- wing political attitudes. Examining these variables individually, we find strong positive relationships between support for independence and support for restrictions on foreign investment, support for labour, legitimation of protest activity, political participation, and a strong negative relationship to support for more efforts against crime. All of these variables have strong effects in the multiple regressions containing all twelve political attitudes. When the sociodemographic variables are also held constant, their regression coefficients fall in value, but retain their statistical significance. There are also positive and significant simple correlations between support for independence, support for redistribution and support for more efforts to aid minority groups, but their effects vanish in the multiple regression. Thus support for independence is associated with the more direct measures of an individual’s position on a left-right continuum and only weakly associated with the three scales which measure general support for social welfare efforts. The two measures of prejudice against immigrants are com- pletely unrelated to support for independence.

Finally, an examination of the explained variance yields measures of the relative effect of the sociodemographic variables and th’e political attitudes. Together, all the sociodemographic variables explain 11.6 per cent of the variance in support for independence, compared to 15.3 per cent for the political attitudes. Altogether, they explain 21.1 per cent of the variance. So the variance can be partitioned in the following way: 9.5 per cent is due to political attitudes alone (i.e. the difference between 21.1 per cent and 11.6 per cent); 5.8 per cent can only be attri- buted to the sociodemographic variables; and 5 .8 per cent cannot be distinguished between the two groups, and can be interpreted as the effect of demographic variables which is transmitted by political attitudes, since individuals with different sociodemographic attributes tend to have different political attitudes.

What sort of picture emerges from these data as a whole? First, these results show that there

are generally strong relationships between support for independence and both the sociodemographic and attitudinal variables. A comparison of the lowest and highest levels of educational attainment shows a 32 per cent difference in support for independence: 24 per cent of those with no high school are supporters, versus 56 per cent of university graduates. This is a very large difference, yet education explains only 3.9 per cent of the variance in support for independence. So the total of about 20 per cent explained variance shows our ability to make fairly powerful predictions of an individual’s position on independence from a knowledge of his or her sociodemographic characteristics and political attitudes. These results are unusually strong for analyses where the dependent variable is a single measure with only a few discrete values - both factors serve to lower the explained variance.

Second, it can be seen that the demographic variables can provide a consistent picture of the characteristics associated with support for independence. Supporters tend to be younger, well-educated, in white collar occupations, and residents of Montreal or smaller urban centres. Political attitudes, however, play an important role in transmitting the effect of the demographic variables - approximately half of the effect of these demographics is directed to support for independence via the political attitudes in this analysis. These data lend support to the theoretical arguments, noted at the start of this section, that Quebec nationalism has a strong base of support in the middle class. This base is not, however, confined to the small proportion of the population in middle and higher level bureaucratic and teaching occupations - it broadly includes white collar occupations (except for managers) and people with technical and college education, not only university graduates.

This analysis cautions against reductionist interpretations of the character of the movement for independence in Quebec based upon demographic characteristics. The results confirm the existence of strong “middle-class” support for independence in Quebec. The independence movement in Quebec is thus distinguished from conventional social-democratic parties, like the New Democratic party, which rely heavily on the higher income sectors of the traditional working class for their support. A strong social-democratic orientation, in turn,


TABLE IX: AGREEMENTOF FRENCH QUEBECERS WITH THE STATEMENT "PEOPLE WHO DO NOT

SPEAK ENGLISH AND MOVE TOQUEBEC SHOULD BE ABLE T O FIND SCHOOLlNti IOK

THEIRCHILDREN IN ENGLISH" BY SOCIOUEMOGRAPHIC VAKIABLES __

Urbanization Montreal Other CMA'S Other urban Rural Gender Male Female

Age 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65 or more Education No high school Some high school High school graduate Above & vocational Some university University graduate Family Income 1st quintile 2nd quintile. 3rd quintile 4th quintile 5th quintile Not known Occupation Professional Manager Semiprof. &tech. Supervisor Foreman Skilled clerical Skilled craft Other clerical Other craft Farmer Not defined Self-employment Yes No Union member Yes No

Percentage distribution of responses (score of category in regression)

Deviation from grand mean

~

3 L P k 2 2 ; - 3 L $ 2 t $ g 2 3 ,% .g V) a 2 . n 21 32 9 7 24 16

26 30 9 9 32 14

15 30 12 19 32 10

21 29 15 21 34 8 14 41 7 17 17 12 14 34 9 7 24 14

8 21 14 17 35 14 15 33 10 24 32 3 28 34 9 32 32 8

12 29 13 20 25 11 17 35 14 19 36 11 18 29 5 18 28 8

27 40 7 29 32 7 44 33 5 17 23 11 11 42 8 15 24 9 19 28 14 10 35 13 14 30 8

5 21 22 15 32 12

26 20 3 17 31 11

20 30 1 1 16 31 11

3 26 8 1 100 -.11+ -.lo' 0 49 3 1 100 .40** .43** 5 22 7 1 100 -.26 -.21 2 32 9 2 100 .21** .14

3 30 8 2 100 .06+ .12+ 3 30 6 0 100 -.06 -.12*

2 25 6 2 100 -.I5 .08 1 29 6 1 100 -.I5 -.I3 4 29 3 2 100 -.14+ -.09' 2 41 11 0 100 .34** .31* 3 25 14 1 100 . I4 .26 8 34 10 3 100 .36* .27

6 38 11 2 100 .45** .36* 3 22 8 1 100 -.09 -.12

0 34 4 3 100 -.20 -.05 0 25 4 0 100 -.37 -.29 4 20 4 0 100 -.47 -.34

1 32 7 2 100 .01+ -.OI+

4 30 10 2 100 .I7 -.05 4 29 1 1 0 100 .07 .03 1 27 5 1 100 -.12+ -.08+

1 37 9 1 100 .I0 .25 9 27 6 4 100 -.06 -.03

1 29 4 0 100 -.17 -.06

1 20 5 0 100 3 18 11 0 100 0 15 3 0 100 7 40 2 0 100 0 36 0 3 100 1 47 5 0 100 0 28 10 1 100 2 26 14 0 100 3 34 10 1 100

12 28 7 5 100 5 28 5 3 100

-.47 -.41* -.80** . 00 .I3 .16'

-.02 .30 .I3 .27 . I 1

-.I2 -.35 - . 51 .01

-.24 .36'

-.08 .32 .12 .06

-.09

4 41 3 3 100 -.06 -.23 3 29 8 1 100 .OO+ .01+

1 28 8 2 100 -.08 -.13 3 31 7 1 100 .03+ .07'

~

-.13' 293 .41** 88

.06 170

.15+ 354 - . 15* * 341

-.04 144

-.09 176 -.09 156 -.07+ 118

.28* 99 -.05 81

.I8 64

.37* 183 -.12 151 -.06' 171 - . lo 44 -.20 96 -.30 50

-.04 133 -.06 123 -.05+ 159 -.01 110

.23 99

.oo 71

-.16 39 -.41* 28 -.50 40

. I2 33 -.21 25

.29' 48

.08 103

.32 89

.13 131 -.04 32 -.lo 124

-.32 41 .02+ 651

-.09 189 .03' 506


Table ix continued ~-

Standardized regression coefficient Regression coefficient

_ _ _ _ _ ~ ~ _

Support for redistribution More welfare efforts More effort for minority groups Restrict foreign investment Support for labour More effort against crime Legitimation of protest

Prejudice against immigrants Too many non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants

Political efficacy Attention of media Political participation

.06

. l l**

.oo -.11** -.06

.22** -.12** -.04 -.02 -.04 -.05 -.02

.05

.09* -.07

-.13** -.03

.20** -.lo**

-.07 -.03 -.02 -.06

.03

.03 .07

.06 .15 -.03 -.02 -.13** -.13 -.02 -.07

.17** .28 -.07 -.15

-.lo* -.05 -.02 -.03

.01 -.05 -.06 -.06

.02 -.02

-.07 .I2

-. 10

-.I6 -.04

.25 -.I3 -.08 -.04

-.02 -.07 -.03

.04

.07 -.03

-.I6 -.03

.22 -.09

-.I2 -.03

.01 -.08

.02

* Different from zero at the .05 significance level **Different from zero at the .01 significance level + Category to which statistical comparisons are made

distinguishes the independence movement from the Social Credit, which has traditionally drawn support from Quebecers suffering economic hardship (see Pinard, 1971).9 The promise of independence, therefore, should not simply be viewed as attractive to a middle class, whose hold on the state will establish their hegemony in an economy presently dominated by English- Canadian capital. More likely, if their ideological commitment is translated into public policy, there would be an increase in the support for the movement from the working class, whose members presently appear t o oppose independence.

Support for independence appears to be associated with an ideological orientation to the left rather than the right of the political spectrum, together with support for the protection of the French language in Quebec. That is to say, there is obviously a strain of “cultural nationalism”

within the independence movement, but the emphasis on cultural autonomy is not inconsistent with the social-democratic orientation we have been discussing. We can now, from the data in Tables V I I and IX, indicate the similarities id the support for the special protection of French language and culture in Quebec and the pattern of support for independence. We focus here on opposition to the proposal that “People who d o not speak English and move to Quebec should be able to find schooling for the children in English.” The approval of “freedom of choice” for these immigrants is seen by Quebec nationalists as leading to the anglicization of Quebec, and as a continuing threat to the survival of French language and culture. This variable is scored as follows: strongly agree + 2, agree + 1, disagree -1, strongly disagree -2, neither agree nor disagree 0. “Depends” re-

9 A direct attempt was made to measure the effect of perceptions of the quality of life, using a total of eight variables which measured individuals’ perception of their financial situation and of their lives in general. I f support for independence is rooted in individuals’ economic dissatisfactions and personal alienation, these variables should have an effect when the demographic variables are held constant. In fact, they had no effect at all. When these measures are examined alone, the results are inconsistent. In fact, there is a weak tendency for support for independence to be negatively related to personal alienation and dissatisfaction with one’s financial situation.

180 I Michael D. Omstein, H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

sponses were coded 0, and respondents who had no opinion were omitted from the scoring. Thus, a negative response indicates that non- English immigrants to Quebec should place their children in the French school system. There is a negative correlation, -.32, between this variable and support for Quebec’s independence. It is therefore reasonable to assume that our analysis of this variable should provide generally similar results to those obtained in the analysis of support for Quebec’s independence - but the correlation is low enough to make it worth looking for some differences in the results.

Opposition to English schooling for the children of non-anglophones is highest in Montreal and the smaller urban areas; support is strongest in the other CMA’S and rural areas. These relationships, accounting for 2.8 per cent of the variance, change very little when other variables are held constant. Women are more strongly opposed than men and younger Quebecers are more opposed than older - the largest difference being between the 25-to-44 and the 45-to-54 year age groups. As in support for independence, the relationship of age to opposition to immigrant schooling in English is unaffected by controls on the other demographic variables (indicating that the age differences do not arise from cohort differences in educational or occupational attainment) but do fall markedly when the political attitudes are introduced (indicating that a considerable part of the effect of age on language policy positions is mediated by other political attitudes).

There is a very strong relationship between opposition to English schooling for non-anglo- phone children in Quebec and education. Sup- port falls from 49 per cent for individuals with no high school to 39 per cent for high school graduates to 24 per cent for university graduates; opposition correspondingly rises from 29 per cent opposed or strongly opposed to 48 to 64 per cent. Individuals with lower education are more likely to take no clear position on the issue by choosing the “neither agree nor disagree” or “no opinion” responses, or by saying that it “depends.” The effect of education is hardly decreased when other demographic variables are held constant, but does fall considerably when the political variables are controlled, indicating that the effect of education is partly mediated by these variables. No statistically significant relationship between income and the

language policy variable is observed. The only observed difference is between respondents in the highest quintile of income and all others, the former give slightly more support to English- language schooling for immigrants. As with the education variables, occupation has a fairly strong effect in Quebec. The explained variance, employing the eleven-category classification, is 2.9 per cent. The occupational differences closely parallel the results obtained on the independence question, with one very important exception: the managerial group holds a position close to the professional category - in opposition to English language schooling for non-anglophones. Professionals show much more than average support for independence, while the managers give less than average support. However, when it comes to what is seen as a fundamental question of the preservation of French culture in Quebec, the two groups are united. When statistical controls for other sociodemographic variables are introduced, there is a decline in occupational differences, but the introduction of the political variables does not diminish the occupational differences. The self-employed are greater than average opponents of English schooling for immigrants but there are no significant differences between trade union members and non-members in either group.

Finally, let us consider the political attitudes, focusing on their regression coefficients in the equation without the demographic variables. The three measures of support for social welfare have mixed signs and are not statistically significant. The clearer measures of a person’s position on a left-right political continuum have weak relationships to the language issues, but support for English-language schooling for immigrants is negatively associated with support for restrictions on foreign investment, with support for labour, and with legitimation of political protest, and it is positively associated with support for efforts against crime.

This pattern corresponds to the one found in our analysis of support for independence. There is no statistically significant tendency for opposition to English-language schooling for immigrants to be associated with prejudice against immigrants and with the view that there are too many non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants in Canada, although the correlation between these attitudes is positive. Finally, there is a weak tendency for individuals who pay more attention to the


media, and who engage in more political participation, to oppose English-language schooling for non-anglophones in Quebec.

The pattern of support by French Quebecers of measures to protect French language and culture is, therefore, broadly similar to that of support for independence. What distinguishes the two analyses is the fact that the political attitude measures explain 15.3 per cent of the variance in support for independence compared to 7.7 per cent of the variance on the immigrant schooling issues. This suggests that French Quebecers’ positions on linguistic and cultural issues are not so strongly grounded in a social- democratic ideological orientation as is the question of independence. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that the cultural nationalist strain in the independence movement is more of a right-wing phenomenon, or that the movement is likely to suffer from conflict between ideologically disparate camps favouring cultural nationalism on the one hand, and a more radical nationalism on the other.

111. THE RESPONSE TO QUEBEC IN ENGLISH CANADA

In this section, we attempt to explain variation in the attitudes of non-French Canadians outside Quebec to French schooling, to concessions and the use of force to prevent the separation of Quebec, and to the negotiation of an economic agreement in the event of a majority vote in Quebec for independence. We will follow the same procedures adopted in the last section ex- plaining the attitudes of French Quebecers. That is, we will investigate demographic factors and measures of political attitudes as factors accounting for the variation in response from Quebec.

In this connection, in contrast to the analysis of the nationalist movement in Quebec, we have access to a much more limited literature, and n o coherent theoretical framework or argument is available for reference. Two theoretical perspectives are relevant, however. The first perspective is the suggestion that attitudes to Quebec in English Canada are part of a socio- psychological syndrome of prejudice. Prejudice is generally defined as “an unfavourable attitude,” “a predisposition to think, feel and act in ways that are ‘against’ or ‘away from’ rather than ‘for’ or ‘toward’ other persons, especially as members of a group” (Newcomb, Converse,

and Turner, 1965). Prejudice against out- groups may also be viewed as linked to dimensions of political conservatism - opposition to the extension of civil liberties to minorities; opposition to social welfare and income redistribution; opposition to political protest, and t o labour, as threats to order and the status quo.

A second perspective from which to view the response of English Canadians to the nationalist movement in Quebec is to consider the conflict between English and French Canadians as a conflict between competing nationalisms, and to argue that English Canadians who are more nationalistic in their attitude to Canada will take a less conciliatory view of the “national aspirations” of Quebecers. This argument is likely to be difficult to substantiate, given the long documented ambiguity of the Canadian national identity. The historical legacy of the “loyalist” connection to the British Empire and Commonwealth, the intrusion of the cultural and economic influence of the United States, and the bias in the Canadian federal system towards provincial autonomy in matters of culture and natural resources have limited the growth of a national identity and of strong nationalist sympathies outside Quebec. Neverthe- less, it is clear that a national political system, a powerful central government, and a national economy exist, despite the tendencies towards continental integration and provincial autonomy. In our analysis we refer to the scale of attitudes favouring national policies that protect Canadian cultural and economic interests from foreign influence or control as an indicator of nationalism in English Canada.

Language rights In English Canada, the granting of French- language rights might best be seen as a question of the extension of civil rights to a minority - rights guaranteed under the BNA Act, but not generally upheld in practice. English-Canadian opposition to French schools can be considered as a question of prejudice against non-Anglo- Saxon groups and correlated, therefore, with our measures of prejudice against immigrants. More generally, one might predict that the characteristics generally associated with political liberalism would correlate positively with support for French schooling - lower age and higher educational attainment, income, and occupational status. Again we will investigate the extent to which relationships with these

TAB

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100

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83

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1

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5 25

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1

48

6 4

5 27

10

1

49

6 2

72

9

8 2

46

3

5 8

27

8

44

5

2 6

7 38

13

3

34

3 2

7 33

11

3

37

3 6

100

100

100

100

100

100

.I5

.13

.I4

.14

.oo'

.03+

-.04

-.01

-.24*

* -.3

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.16

.19*

*

.06

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.01+

.06'

-.15*

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7

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497

370

364

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26 1

63

1

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2

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53

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80

47

5

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26

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1

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2 5

24

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2

100

100

100

100

100

100

-.06

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-.09

-.12

-.Or

-.05+

.0

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.18*

.1

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.22*

.1

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.04

.09

-.02+

.O

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7

405

578

46 1

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31 1

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7 27

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100

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-.05

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410

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62

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100

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.13

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.16

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202

113

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102 83

150

255

283

459

129

269

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6 28

11

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100

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-.29*

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4**

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18

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7

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1*

-.Or

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40

3 17

85

.

- 00

W

184 / Michael D. Omstein, H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

TABLE X continued


Support for redistribution More welfare efforts More effort for minority groups

Restrict foreign investment Support for labour More effort against crime Legitimation of protest Prejudice against immigrants Too many non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants

Political efficacy Attention to media Political participation

.05*

.15**

.18** -.01 .11**

-.07** .12** -.11** -.14**

.lo**

.02 -.03

.02

.13**

.11**

.04*

.05*

-.06*

-.09**

-.05* -.09** .11** .05* -.05*

.01

.12**

.09**

.05*

.05*

-.06*

-.07**

-.04 -.08** .11** .06*

-.05*

.05

.16

.19 -.01 .12

-.07 .13

-. 12 -.15 .I1 .03 -.03

.02

.14

.12 -.06 .05

.06 -.09

-.05 -.09 .13 .06 -.05

.01

.14

.10 -.06

.05

.05 -.08

-.04 -.09 .12 .07 -.05


I Category to which statistical comparisons are made

demographic variables are mediated by political attitudes.

We have previously examined the relationship between region and support for French schooling in English Canada and we need not reiterate the results. Regional differences do not diminish when other demographic variables are held constant (see values of the deviations from the grand mean adjusted for other demographic variables and for the demographic and political variables in Table X; the analysis of variance in Table XI). Thus our finding that the strongest sympathy for French schooling is in the Atlantic region and the least in British Columbia cannot be explained away by an argument that the regions differ in their demographic patterns or in their political attitudes. While these results could be taken as a sign of the existence of regional political cultures, the actual magnitude of the regional differences is small - about half a point separates the Atlantic region from British Columbia, on a scale where agreement and disagreement are separated by two points, strong agreement and strong disagreement by

four points. Region explains just 1.3 per cent of the variation in support for French schooling.

As predicted, support for French-language schooling increases steadily with urbanization: 43 per cent of rural English Canadians support it, compared with 46 per cent in small urban areas, 51 per cent in the smaller CMA’S, and 52 per cent in Toronto and Vancouver. This difference does not decline when controls on other variables are introduced, although it explains less than half as much variance as region - .5 per cent when no other variables are held constant.

The sex differences are small, but consistent: women in English Canada are more likely than men to support French-language schooling. The simple difference of the mean values for men and women is .12 on the scale, which increases to .24 when other demographic variables are held constant, and to .30 when the political attitudes are also entered into the regression.

In English Canada there is a weak tendency for the non-British to give less support to French schooling than individuals of British


TABLE XI

ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR REGRESSION ANALYSES OF FOUR MEASURES OF THE RESPONSE TO QUEBEC AMONG NON-FRENCH IN ENGLISH CANADA

Proportion of variance explained (adjusted for degrees of freedom)

Independent variable

Region Urbanization Gender Ethnicity Age Education Income Occupation Self-employment Union membership All demographic vars. Political attitudes All variables

French schools for

French outside Quebec

.013**

.005

.004**

.006**

.014**

.009*

.Ooo

.007

.008**

.Ooo

.067**

.084**

.125**

Concessions Use force toprevent toprevent

independence separation

Economic agreement

with an independent

Quebec

.006**

.om

.003**

.Ooo

.022**

.012**

.Ooo

.003

.Ooo

.Ooo

.022**

.035**

.059**

.Ooo

.Ooo

.004**

.004**

.007*

.014**

.OO5*

.014*

.m4**

.Ooo

.030**

.045**

.062**

.001

.007**

.002*

.Ooo

.026**

.012**

.010**

.012* ,000 ,000

.050**

.060**

.083**


ethnicity, a relationship which is not diminished by controls on other variables.

As expected, support for French schooling in English Canada declines with increasing age. Age explains 1.4 per cent of the variance in English Canada. Outside Quebec, there are important differences among three age groupings: 18 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55 or more. These relationships are unaffected by controls on other demographic variables, indicating that age differences do not arise from cohort differences in educational or occupational attainment, but do fall markedly when the political attitudes are introduced. This indicates that a considerable part of the effect of age on language rights is mediated by political attitudes.

The relationship between education and support for French schooling in English Canada is not strong. At the zero-order level it accounts for only .9 per cent of the variance - with the important difference separating the respondents with at least some university education from those with less education. Opposition to French schooling is expressed by at least 36 per cent of the sample in the four lower levels of education compared to 29 per cent for the top two groups. This weak relationship is slightly attenuated when other demographic variables are intro-

duced as controls, and declines essentially to zero with the political attitudes held constant.

No statistically significant relationship between income and the language rights variables is observed. The evidence suggests, however, a weak inverse relationship between support for French-language schooling and income, when all other variables are controlled. Occupation has almost no effect on support for French schooling in English Canada. The explained variance, employing the eleven-category classification, is .7 per cent.

The self-employed tend to be stronger opponents of French-language schooling than those who are not self-employed. While in Quebec we found that self-employment is associated with more liberal attitudes, outside Quebec self- employment is associated with conservative attitudes. Though this effect is suggestive, it is not very great in magnitude. Further, we find no significant differences between trade union members and non-members.

Finally, let us consider the political attitudes, focusing on their regression coefficients in the equation without the demographic variables. The three measures of support for social welfare have a positive effect on support for French-language schooling in English Canada,


and two of them have significant effects in the multiple regressions. Support for French schooling is also positively associated with support for labour and with legitimation of political protest, and negatively associated with support for efforts against crime. Persons who favour the restriction of foreign ownership are less likely to favour French schooling. This relationship is very weak, yet suggestive. Since English-Canadian nationalism is most impor- tantly manifest in terms of attitudes to foreign economic control, it is significant that this group has less sympathy for the linguistic demands of Quebecers.

The two measures of attitudes to immigrants are negatively related to support for French schooling rights outside of Quebec which lends some weight to the prejudice model of political behaviour. The prejudice measure, however, loses significance when controls on all other attitude variables are included in the regression.

There is a consistent tendency for people with higher levels of political efficacy - who believe that they have some effect on government, and that government is responsive to the interests of the average citizen - to approve of government initiatives that accommodate the interests of Quebecers. In English Canada, therefore, identification with the federal political system affects the extent to which individuals approve of proposals to change the balarke of power between language groups and provincial governments.

Together, English-Canadian attitudes to French-language schooling rights outside of Quebec are only moderately related to the demographic variables. In total they explain 6.7 per cent of variance in the item. None of the three conventional measures of social class - education, income, or occupation - has much effect on attitudes on this issue. The strongest relationships binding political attitudes to support for French schools involve support for welfare efforts, support for minority groups, opposition to non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants, and political efficacy. Other ideological measures such as those indicating support for labour and for restrictions on foreign investment have little effect, suggesting that the issue is seen more in terms of granting civil rights t o a discriminated-against minority group than in terms of conventional left-right politics. In sum, all the variables account for 12.5 per cent

of the variance in support of French-language schooling. Clearly, support and opposition on this issue is widely diffused through the population and there are no strongly identifiable groups on either side of the issue. Perhaps this should be expected in view of the fact that 15 per cent of the population chose the “no opinion” or “neither agree nor disagree” answers to this question, or said that it ‘‘depends”.

Concessions The relationships which emerge in the analysis of support for concessions to Quebec to prevent separation are similar to those described above for support of French-language schooling outside Quebec. What is important is that the relationships are very much weaker for the concessions measure - all the demographic and political variables explain 12.5 per cent of the variance in support for French schools, but only 5.9 per cent in support for concessions. This suggests that the schooling issue, which often has local implications, commands more attention than the distant question of how the federal government should go about preventing Que- bec’s separation. The result is that the language issue is better integrated in English-Canadian political consciousness than are positions on the strategy of bargaining with Quebec.

There are regional differences in support for concessions - but the range of opinion is fairly limited: 52.5 per cent of the respondents in the Atlantic region favour concessions, compared to 50.7,48.2 and 44.2 per cent who do so in On- tario, the Prairies, and British Columbia. Region alone explains .6 per cent of the variance in support for concessions. Even after multivariate controls are introduced, this remains stable, again indicating that regional differences are not only the product of demographic or ideological differences.

Urbanization, on the other hand, does not behave as it did in the analysis of the language issue, and its effects are not so clear. While the greatest support for concessions is predictably found in Toronto and Vancouver, comparable levels of support are also found in smaller urban and rural areas. The only statistically significant difference in the regression is between the “other urban” category where 44 per cent support concessions, and the two largest cities where 5 1 per cent favour concessions. The ef-


fect of urbanization does not decline, indeed it increases in magnitude, when other variables are held constant.

Women are more likely to support concessions than men. But this difference is largely a function of the “don’t know” responses: only 3.5 per cent of the males answer that they “don’t know” about concessions, compared to 1 1 per cent of the females. This suggests that the issue has a greater salience for men and that they may be better informed. Still, men have a higher probability of supporting the “no concessions” option: 48 per cent favour no concessions compared to 39 per cent of the women.

Ethnicity has almost no effect on support for concessions, although the issue appears to have greater salience among those individuals with British ancestry, i f we measure salience as the propensity not to answer “don’t know.”

By far the strongest effects on attitudes to concessions are produced by age and education. These two variables respectively explain 2.2 and 1.2 per cent of the variance when entered alone into a regression, and the patterns of response produced by these demographics are quite striking. Age is negatively and linearly related to support for concessions at the zero-order level while education appears to be positively related to support. High school graduates and those with less education give less than average support to concessions; those with more education give higher than average support. The frequency of “don’t know” responses is linearly related to both age and education. The youngest age group has the lowest percentage of “don’t knows, (3.9 per cent) and the oldest group gives the high percentages of those answers (13.4 per cent). Similarily, university graduates answer “don’t know” the least often (3.4 per cent) while those in the lowest education group answer “don’t know” the most often (14.8 per cent). It is clear, however, that the similarity of these results is due, a t least in part, to the correlation between age and education. The greatest levels of support for concessions are found among those in the 18-to-24 age group (63.6 per cent) and among those who hold university degrees (63.4 per cent); the lowest levels of support are observed among those who are in the highest age category (35.8 per cent) and among those who have attained only the lowest level of education (40.3 per cent). Moreover, the basic patterns remain even after controls for the other

demographics and for the political attitudes are introduced, although they are weakened somewhat.

Income and occupation have very little effect on support for political concessions even though income appears to be inversely related to the frequency of “don’t know” responses. Alone, occupation accounts for .3 per cent of the variance in support for concessions while income explains none. Similarly, self-employment and union membership produce only slight differences in the responses and have no effect in the regression.

When support for concessions is regressed on the twelve political attitudes, only foreign investment (beta = .054), political efficacy (.063) and the measure of negative attitudes to immigrants (-.071) have significant effects. The measure of prejudice against immigrants and the indicator of attitudes to minority groups are no longer significant after controls on the demographic variables are added.

As opposed to the results for attitudes on French schooling, the use of force, or the negotiation of an economic agreement with an independent Quebec, economic nationalism is associated with a more conciliatory attitude to concessions. Clearly, however, the critical wording of the option to grant concessions in order to prevent the separation of Quebec indicates that English-Canadian nationalists are able to approve of this measure as a defence of the integrity of Canada rather than as a conciliatory gesture towards Quebec. The relationship between political efficacy and approval of concessions to Quebec again indicates that those who believe that the federal government is responsive to citizen involvement are more likely to approve of government interventions to modify the constitutional status quo.

Force We should again stress our previous finding that only a very small minority in English Canada explicitly approves the use of force to prevent Quebec’s separation. Almost nowhere does the percentage of individuals who favour the use of force rise above 20 per cent, and in only one occupational category does it rise above 25 per cent.

Whereas region has some effects on attitudes to language and concessions, it has little effect on attitudes to force. A general unwillingness to

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2.5

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7.7

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100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

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100

100

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100

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.180

**

.039

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+ -.0

90

-.054

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5**

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-.035

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-.025

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-.063

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64

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+

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-.027

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-.01

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w

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-.003+

390

497

370

364

303

261

405

578

461

209

31 1

225

352

280

477

410

449

225

202

113

109

102 83

150

255

283

45 9

129

269

182

2010

403

1785

n .

c

00

W

190 / Michael D. Omstein. H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

TABLE XII continued Standardized regression

coefficient Regression coefficient

Support for redistribution More welfare efforts More effort for minority groups Restrict foreign investment Support for labour More effort against crime Legitimation of protest Prejudice against immigrants Too many non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants Political efficacy Attention to media Political participation

.026

.079**

.129**

.067**

.055**

.083** -.007

-.096 * * -.109**

.069** -.043*

.010

.004 .022

.044 .035

.089** .046

.052* .054* -.008 -.005 -.012 ,034

.033 ,012

-.047* -.039 -.073** -.071**

.076** .063** -.040 -.011

,013 .018

,018 .003 .053 .030 .087 .060 .045 .035 .037 -.005

-.005 -.008 .056 .022

-.065 -.032 -.074 -.049

.047 .052

.007 .009 -.029 -.027

.015

.023

.03 1

.037 -.003

.023

.008 -.026 -.048

.043 - .007 .013


+ Category to which statistical comparisons are made

use force is apparent in each region, with British Columbia casting the strongest “no force” bal- lot. But the variance is slight. The percentage of individuals who prefer force is highest in On- tario at 15.4 per cent and lowest in BC at 12.6 per cent. It is interesting that the British Colum- bians are also the least likely to support French schooling - which suggests that those issues, as a whole, are seen as distant in this province.

The same point can also be made about the effects of urbanization. After controls are introduced, cities are more favourable than average to the use of force while the small urban and rural areas are found to be less favourable.

Sex and ethnicity have significant effects on attitudes to force, although together they explain less than 1 per cent of the total variance on this issue. As before, women appear to take a more liberal stance - 10.5 per cent of the women explicitly favour the use of force compared to 17.8 per cent of the men who support that option. In a similar manner, respondents of British ethnicity appear to have a lower probability of favouring force than those of other ethnic backgrounds.

Age and income also have significant effects on support for force, although the effects of education are relatively much stronger. Alone, education explains 1.4 per cent of the variation in attitudes to force while age accounts for .7 per cent. On the whole, age is positively related to support for the use of force against Quebec although the relationship is not smoothly linear.

While the actual percentage of individuals in favour of force only increases from 13.7 per cent in the lowest age group to 16.7 per cent in the highest, the percentage support for “no force” drops from 82.2 per cent for the 18 to 24 year olds, to 65.2 per cent for respondents of 65 or more, a more substantial difference. Again, the number of “don’t know” and “depends” responses rises from 4.2 to 19 per cent as a linear function of age.

A similar analysis might be made about the relationship between education and attitudes to force: the percentage of “force” responses drops smoothly as education increases (from 17.4 to 8.2 per cent), while the number of “no force” responses climbs just as steadily (from 65.4 to 85 per cent). The gross effect is that


those with some high school education or less fall above the average in support for force; those with a complete high school education or more fall below. These differences are weakened by controls on the other demographic variables and very significantly reduced by the introduction of controls on the political attitudes. This result suggests again that the crucial effects of education are ideological in nature.

Things are not so clear with income and occupation. Although support of the use of force is concentrated in the lower income quintiles, there are no differences among the three upper quintiles. The relationship shows signs of be- coming curvilinear as the demographic and political controls are added, with the strongest opposition to force in the third and fourth quintiles. Otherwise, the functional relationship between income and support for force is not obvious and is certainly not strong: income alone explains only .5 per cent of the variation in attitudes to force.

Turning to occupation we find that 29.1 per cent of the foremen, 18.6 per cent of the skilled craftsmen, and 16.9 per cent of farmers favour the use of force against Quebec. In contrast, only 8.6 per cent of those in the skilled clerical category and only 8.7 per cent of the professionals prefer the force option. This evidence suggests the existence of some blue-collar I white-collar division in attitudes of the type that was indicated in the analysis of French support for English-language rights. On a scale between 0 (no force) and 1 (use force) the foremen have an unadjusted mean o f . 124 and the professionals a mean of -.062. This indicates that foremen are approximately 12 per cent more likely and professionals 6 per cent less likely to support the use of force than is the “average” person in English Canada, when no other factors are controlled. This difference persists when demographic controls are added, and it is emphasized when controls on the attitude variables are introduced: while the adjusted mean for the professionals is reduced almost to zero - the average - the coefficient for the foremen is significantly increased. This result suggests that the nature of the ideological salience of the issue in these two occupational categories is quite different. While we can account for differences in attitudes to force in the professional category by controlling for political attitudes, we cannot account for differences in attitudes produced by being a foreman. Occupation accounts for 1.4

per cent of the variance in attitudes on the use of force.

Self-employment makes a significant contri- bution to determining responses on the force issue: 20.3 per cent of the self-employed favour force compared to 13.5 per cent of those who are not self-employed. This result confirms our previous findings that the self-employed are generally less sympathetic to Quebec and to French-language rights. Union membership has no significant impact on attitudes to force.

Once again, the political variables behave in ways which appear to reinforce the prejudice! civil rights interpretation of non-French response to French-Canadian nationalism. Preju- dice against immigrants is positively related to favourable attitudes to the use of force; support for minority groups and legitimization of protest are negatively related. Moreover, positive attitudes to economic nationalism are again related to negative attitudes to Quebec, as observed in the analysis of the language issue. The positive relationship between support for forct and support for more welfare efforts is inconsistent with our argument that support for welfare is an element of political liberalism. It is, however, logically possible to support political measures designed to recognize the cultural interests of French Canadians and still strongly oppose, for example, any extension of unemployment insurance benefits. By them- selves the political variables explain 4.5 per cent of the variance in support of force compared to 3 per cent explained by the demographics alone. When regressed simultaneously, all variables account for 6.2 per cent of the variance in this issue.

Economic agreement The last issue we consider in this section antici- pates separation and asks about the desirability of negotiating an economic agreement with an independent state of Quebec. In view of the Parti Quebkcois’ strong emphasis on agreement as an economic priority after separation, and also in view of the hard line taken by some of the provincial premiers on this issue, attitudes to agreement are presented here as an important measure of English Canada’s general level of sympathy toward Quebec.

There is little in the way of regional differences in support for an economic agreement. This finding is similar to that obtained in the analysis of support for the use of force, and

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40

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461

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20

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12

311

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22

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35

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280

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47

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19

410

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19

225

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113

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102

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1785

194 I Michael D. Ornstein, H . Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

Table xiii continued

Standardized regression roe fficient Regression coefficienl

~~ - ~~~~~~~ ~

II) II)


Prejudice against immigrants Too many non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants Political efficacy Attention to media Political participation

.081**

.074**

.110** - ,004

.091** -.091**

. 1 5 1 * *

.078**

-.031

-.082** -.007 -.028

.033

.069* -.074**

,100. *

.040 -.061**

.107**

.012

-.024 -.019

.003

-.045

.030 .029 .012

.082** ,027 .025 -.064* -.011 -.026

.095** .040 .036

,028 .032 .014

. 1 1 1 * * ,054 .038 ,009 ,028 .004

-.029 -.OOl -.016

-.050* -.033 -.022

-.010 -.029 -.009 -.030 -.003 -.GO7 .008 -.010 ,001

.011

.029 -.023

.034 -.010 .010

-.018

.040

.003

-.004 -.011

,003



contrasts with the stronger regional differentia- tion on the issues of French language schooling outside Quebec and of concessions to prevent separation. The lowest levels of support are found in the Maritimes and in the Prairies (47.5 and 50.9 per cent), while the highest levels of support are found in the more advantaged provinces, Ontario and British Columbia (55.4 and 54.7 per cent). These small differences d o not decline when other variables are held constant.

Urbanization turns out to have some effect: rural areas are the least likely to support economic agreement (47.5 per cent) and the larger cities show the greatest level of support (59.1 per cent). With controls, however, this clear pattern is changed: the level of support in the rural areas does not differ from the over-all mean, leaving the “other uban” category in the position of least support. Moreover, the effects produced by the larger cities and by the other CMA’S are also reduced by controls, again indicating the mediating effects of other demographic and ideological variables. In a one-way analysis of variance urbanization accounts for .7 per cent of the variance in attitudes t o economic agreement, adjusted for degrees of freedom.

Sex and ethnicity produce their by now familiar effects. Women and those of British origin are more likely to support an economic agreement; men and those of other ethnic ori- gins are less likely to support such an agreement. As we noted earlier, the main differences within these groups have to d o with the number of “don’t know” responses. Women are two and a half times more likely to answer “don’t know” than men; “other” ethnic groups are about twice as likely to answer “don’t know” as those of British ethnicity. Over-all the combined effect of these two variables is quite small.

Age and education continue to exert relatively strong influences on the distribution of attitudes to Quebec. Support for economic agreement is concentrated among the youngest respondents (60.1 per cent) and is weakest in the oldest age category (41.6 per cent). Sixty-three per cent of university graduates favour economic agreement with Quebec, but only 43.3 per cent of those with less than high school education support that option. Furthermore, the “don’t know” responses are again strongly linked to age and education: 17.2 per cent of those in the oldest age group and 20.9 per cent of those in the lowest education category respond with


“don’t knows” compared with 6.5 per cent of those in the youngest category and 6.7 per cent of individuals who hold university degrees. Age alone explains 2.6 per cent of the total variance in support for economic agreement; education explains 1.2 per cent.

Income has its strongest effect in our analysis on attitudes to economic agreement. While income only explains 1 per cent of the variance in support for agreement, that amount is twice as large as the total explained in any previous issue, and it is statistically significant. As before, the relationship between income and attitudes to Quebec appears to be curvilinear with the most support for economic agreement (about 60 per cent) being found in the middle income quintiles. Moreover, evidence of this non-linear effect can also be discovered in the adjusted category means after political attitudes are controlled. But the effects remain very small. On a scale from 0 (no agreement) to 1 (agreement) the lowest level of support is found in the fifth quintile (6.9 per cent below the over- all average) and the highest in the fourth quintile ( 5 per cent above that average).

Some sort of blue-collar I white-collar split in attitudes to Quebec can be found in the relationship between occupation and support for economic agreement: 64.6 per cent of the semipro- fessionals, 61.3 per cent of the professionals, and 59.3 per cent of the managers support agreement compared to 52.1 per cent of the “other clerical”, 49.7 per cent of the skilled craft, and 33.5 per cent of the farmers. This relationship is complicated by the higher than average support of foremen (58 .5 per cent) and those employed in “other crafts” (54.4 per cent). In the analysis of variance, occupation accounts for 1.2 per cent of the variation in support for an agreement. The addition of statistical controls does little to alter the relative positions of the occupational groups. Self-employment and union membership have no effects.

Of the political attitudes, political efficacy turns out to have the largest effect on support for economic agreement (beta = .093), when all other variables are controlled, again indicating a relationship between conciliatory attitudes to Quebec and feelings that the government is responsive to individual citizens. Measures of political participation and attention to media, however, show significant negative effects on support for agreement with coefficients of -.048

and -.051 respectively. On the other hand legitimization of protest (.086), support for minority groups (.082), and support for labour (.023) have, as previously observed, positive effects on attitudes favourable to Quebec. Moreover, feelings that there are too many immigrants (-.043) and support for welfare efforts (-.041) are negatively related to support for economic agreement, a result which strengthens similar obser- vations made in the context of the other three political issues.

Our analysis of the response in English Canada to the political problems posed by Que- bec indicates that our reference to the prejudice/civil rights and the competing nationalism models helps account for variation in that response, although the statistical power of these models is obviously weak. While we have previously explained 21 per cent of the variance in support for independence within Quebec, we have been able to explain less than half that amount with regard to the related political issues in English Canada. Clearly, this implies that the relative importance of these issues is not as marked in English Canada as in Quebec and that the ideological mobilization and constraint of individuals in English Canada on these issues is much less complete.

The results are nevertheless suggestive. Con- trary to the assumption most often made about the distribution of public opinion in Canada, regional differences have little independent effect on attitudes to Quebec outside Quebec. Only in the context of French-language schooling and political concessions was the regional effect statistically significant at the zero-order level, and even then the effects were very weak. Over-all, measures of age, education, and sex had a greater effect on the analysis than did region. We found that older and less educated individuals hold less conciliatory attitudes to Quebec than do the young and those with higher levels of education. Persons in lower status occupations hold less conciliatory views than those in higher status occupations; men and those from “other” cultural backgrounds are less conciliatory than women and those of British ethnicity.

As in the analysis of public opinion in Quebec, the results for English Canada show that the measures of political attitudes provide greater explanatory power than the demographic variables. Support for minority groups, prejudice against immigrants, and perceptions

TA

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-.096

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89**

-.0

21+

-.O

M*

-.038

-.0

52

-.003

-.0

07*

.005+

.047

,0

38

.069

.002

,0

22

.ow

,043

-.0

76**

-.0

51*

.008

,0

36

,047

,0

38

.077

.00Y

-.018

-.0

27

.040

-.1

52**

-.0

33

.039

-.0

04

-.012

.0

03+

,012

.0

62**

-.0

23'

-.067

-.005

-.004

.Ooo

-.005*

.013

+ .0

45

,017

.0

46

-.007

.0

18

,036

' .0

50

-.042

* - .0

69* *

,002

.0

37

.017

.0

27

,076

.0

14+

-.007

-.0

20

.036

-.1

60**

-.0

22

,059

-.005+

-.021

,005'

390

497

370

3 64

303

26 1

405

578

46 1

209

31 1

225

352

280

477

410

449

225

202

113

109

102 83

I50

255

283

459

129

269

182

2010

403

1785

0

9. 2. I

W Q W a Y

U

0,

ii' er n 3.

E. -. -


Table X I V continued


- __ - - ~-


Prejudice against immigrants Too many non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants Political efficacy Attention to media Political participation

,002 .018 .117**

,001 .084**

- .070* * ,162”

-.123** -.105**

.097** -.083** -.054*

.012 -.038

.107**

-.022

-.036 .05 1 *

. I lo**

-.055* -.043

.loo** -.054* -.064**

.028

.082**

.049*

.086**

-.041

-.018

-.011

-.043 -.051*

.092** -.051* -.048*

. 000

.008

.054

.om

.039 -.033

.075 -.057 - .049

,045 -.039 -.025

,005 -.018 .050

-.010 .024

-.017 .05 1

-.026 -.020

.046 -.025 -.030

.013 -.019

.038

-.008 .023

-.005 .040

-.020 -.024

.043 -.024 -.022



that there are too many immigrants consistently produce regression coefficients in the direction predicted by the prejudice argument. The measure of support for the restriction of foreign control of the economy, which we have interpreted as an indicator of economic nationalism, is negatively related to sympathy for Quebec on three of the four issues, as predicted by the competing nationalisms argument. In contrast to the results of the analysis of Quebec opinion, we find no evidence in English Canada of any systematic relationship between left-right political attitudes (other than the prejudice variables which may be interpreted that way) and attitudes to Quebec. Also in contrast to the Quebec results, we have observed that measures of political efficacy, political participation, and media attention d o tend to discriminate between those who take relatively conciliatory attitudes and those who take relatively hostile attitudes t o Quebec independence.

The lack of explanatory power in these results may reflect the relative absence of significant strains of prejudice or nationalism in the political culture of English Canada. Similarly, it may reflect the confusion of ideological debate

on class issues. One implication of this remark and of the relative importance of political efficacy in the analysis is that we should pay special attention in English Canada to the identification of individuals with the federal political parties. For instance, we might expect to find closer links with party on the Quebec issues than with any broader ideological concerns. Table xv shows that federal party identification is relevant in this connection.

As indicated in the table, Liberal party supporters take a more sympathetic attitude to Quebec than supporters of the Progressive Con- servative party. Ten per cent fewer Liberals oppose concessons than Pc’s; 5 per cent more approve of major concessions, and 8 per cent more approve of minor concessions. Propor- tionately fewer Liberals are undecided on the issue than supporters of other parties. Interest- ingly, the independents look more like Con- servatives than Liberals in this connection, and supporters of other parties are more widely split on the issue than supporters of the major con- tending parties. Those who have no party identification are predictably less decided on the issue, as indicated by the high rate of “don’t


TABLE X V

SUPPORT FOR CONLESSIONSTOQUEBLC TO PRLVENr INDEPENDLNC L BY I LDLRAL POLITICAL PAR1 Y IDENTlrlCATlON f OK NON I RLNC H IN L N b I I5H CANADA

Concessions to Quebec toprevent independence

(percentage distribution) ~- __ _ _

Number Federal political Don’t of party identification Major Minor None know Total cases

Liberal 13 45 38 4 100 646 Progressive Conservative 8 37 48 6 100 517 New Democratic party 13 37 45 5 100 256 Social Credit 14 38 43 5 100 38 Independent 8 37 48 7 100 319 No identification 9 31 43 17 100 312 Total 10 39 44 7 100 2088

know” responses. These differences are not affected by controlling for demographic and political attitude measures, but federal party identification explains only .1 per cent of the variance at the zero-order level, considerably less than the amount explained by age, education, sex, or even region. We conclude then, that federal party identification is not a crucial factor in determining attitudes to Quebec in the rest of Canada.

IV. CONSTRAINT AND IDEOLOGICAL RATIONALITY

In the preceding sections we have examined public opinion in Quebec and in English Canada by referring to multivariate models in which the variance in attitudes to Quebec’s independence and French-language rights is accounted for by the linear and additive influences of demographic and political attitude measures. The fact that the proportion of the variance in attitudes to Quebec explained by these models is low suggests attention to a number of issues.

First, it should be remarked that whether these explanations are “strong” or “weak” is somewhat indeterminate unless we know some- thing about the reliability of the measures on which they are based. One aspect of the project of which this study is a part is to investigate the reliability of attitude measures using panel data gathered from the same individuals a t three different points over time. Obviously, if the reliability of these measures is low, a significant proportion of their variation must be due to random error, and the explanatory power of the

regression models must be correspondingly low. At the moment, however, we know little about the reliability of the attitude measures and can only speculate that low reliability might be part of the problem.

A second and related consideration involves the likelihood that the reliability of measures of political ideology may be low not simply because the survey items are confusing, ambigu- ous, or otherwise imperfect, but because a very large proportion of the population has little familiarity with ideological arguments and is likely to respond to questions of ideology in inconsistent ways. Our analysis assumes that opinions about language policy and the independence of Quebec are indicative of more basic configurations of attitude and belief which are bound together by some form of functional interdependence or “constraint,” where “constraint” refers to the probability of predicting an individual’s attitude in one area given prior knowledge of his attitudes in other relevant areas (Converse, 1964: 207). But this assumption needs to be examined.

In his 1964 analysis of the American electorate, Philip Converse concluded that coherent political belief systems exist in the general public only for a small minority of highly educated individuals, and that for the majority belief systems tend to be highly disorganized and fragmented (1964: 255). More recently Hennessy has commented on the nearly total absence of coherent belief systems in the mass public (1972: 36), while Sniderman and Citrin concluded that the average citizen is generally unable to organize his ideas in any logical way


TABLE XVI

MATRIX OF GAMMAS SHOWING ASSOCIATIONS AMONG ITEMS MEASURING OPINIONS ON LANGUAGE RIGHTS A N D QUEBEC’S INDEPENDENCE BY EDUCATIONAL STRATA

FRENCH IN QUEBEC WITH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION ABOVE THE DIAGONAL (N = 50) FRENCH IN QUEBEC WITHOUTA COMPLETED HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION BELOW THE DIAGONAL(h = 183)

~

__ A.

B.

C .

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

A B

Favour English schooling for non-English in Quebec

Favour Quebec’s independence

Favour concessions to prevent Quebec’s separation

Favour economic agreement after independence

Prejudice against immigrants

Support for redistribution

Support for labour

More effort for minority groups

-

-.236

.305

.391

.056

.064

.042

.080

-.379

-

.067

.lo6

-.I01

,377

.538

.076

C

-.291 -

.I79

-

.546

.218

-.021

.067

.I07

D E

-.682 -.252

.979 .241

.542 -.052

- ,468

.293 -

.I70 .172

,036 .096

.053 -.009

F

-.154

,575

.028

.755

.I57

-

.221

.I89

G H

-.251 -.064

.491 .356

-.I24 .059

.750 .292

.314 .094

.558 .I89

.I53 -

.I26 -

and is apt to state his position with regard to important political issues “on a random basis” (1971: 415). According to this view, the individual’s grasp of “standard” political belief systems becomes more and more tenuous as we progress beyond that section of the population with a high level of education, and progressively more restricted as we near the relatively unedu- cated base. In the lowest educational stratum, we should, therefore, observe sets of opinions which are only weakly interdependent and which might, in a purely logical sense, even appear to be inconsistent or contradictory.

In the case of opinion relating to Quebec’s independence and the language issues, the absence of structured opinion might then be interpreted either as a function of opinion expressed on a random basis, or as the simple absence of opinion based on the extremely low centrality of these political issues in public belief systems. Either way, any analysis of the data at least for that subsample of the population under little or no constraint would be

futile, except in the most elementary descriptive sense. As Hennessy puts it, “We should not try to investigate that which isn’t” (1972: 36).

In order to test the possibility that the poor explanatory power of our models is due to the lack of constraint in less educated strata of the population, subsamples of the respondents in Quebec and English Canada were drawn to represent the two extremes of educational attainment - university graduates and respondents with no high school - from among French Quebecers and the non-French in English Canada.

Four attitude scales and four appropriate language-independence items were selected for each grouping and a matrix of gamma coefficients between variables was then computed. l o

The results appear in Tables XVI and XVII . Although associations between the attitudinal

variables in the highly educated populations are higher, on the average, than those in the populations with the lowest level of education, the gammas provide us with little evidence that con-

10 Gamma coefficients measure the number of concordant pairs of values between variables. I f gamma takes on a positive value, concordant pairs predominate; if gamma takes on a negative value, then discordant pairs predominate. Gamma was chosen for these tables because, unlike Pearson’s product-moment coefficient, it does not assume equal intervals between values of each variable. Pearson correlation coefficients were also calculated. Though they were generally found to be somewhat smaller in magnitude, they did confirm the basic pattern of relationships found in the gamma matrices.


TABLE X V l l

MATRIX OFGAMMAS SHOWING ASSOCIATIONS AMONG ITEMS MEASURING OPINIONS ON LANGUAGE RIGHTS A N D QUEBEC’S INDEPENDENCE BY EDUCATIONAL STRATA

NON-FRENCH OUTSIDE QUEBEC WITH UNIVkRSITY EDUCATION ABOVE THE DIAGONAL (N = 225) NON-FRENCH OUTSIDE QUEBEC WITHOUT A COMPLETED HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION BELOW THE DIAGONAL ( N = 406)

- -

A.

B.

C .

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

Favour French schooling for French outside Quebec Favour federal bilingualism requirements Favour concessions to prevent Quebec separation Favour economic agreement after independence Prejudice against immigrants

Support for redistribution

Support for labour More effort for minority groups

A -~

-

,254

.241

.096

-.012

.229 ,224

.260

B C D E F G H

.336

-

.237

.328

-.078

,064 .059

.228

.129

.390

-

.372

-.132

,083

.028

.03 1

.093

.275

,220

-

-.185

.208

.118

.022

-.278

-.216

-.174

-.241

-

.081

,078

.077

-.057

.116

.046 -

.161

-.I16 -

-

,294

,278

,193 ,406

.099 .I13

-.018 ,169

.206 .360

-.I66 -.321

,372 .301

- .388

,373 -

straint is absent in the lower educated population. Moreover, with one or two minor excep- tions, the signs of the coefficients in the lower stratum consistently appear in logical patterns, indicating the presence, rather than the absence of structured belief systems. Although far from being definitive in a statistical sense, the evidence presented in Tables XVI and XVII tends to contradict the no-constraint hypothesis, and to justify our inclusion of the lower educated strata in the analysis.

At the same time we recognize that the constraint hypothesis has considerable validity if we interpret it simply as predicting lower levels of constraint associated with lower levels of education. Furthermore, an analysis of the tables indicates that constraint is also, as Con- verse suggests, a function of the relative centrality of specific political issues in different belief systems. Not only are the highly educated more constrained than those with lower levels of education, but the highly educated French are more constrained than the highly educated non- French in English Canada with regard to Quebec’s independence and the language issues.

There is a sense therefore in which we could expect greater explanatory power in our analysis if we confined our attention to more highly educated strata in the mass public. In the case of English Canada, for example, the most striking

difference between the two subsamples is the much more pronounced relationship between the prejudice measure and other variables in the university-educated sample.

In the case of Quebec, the differences in the size of measures of association in the two matrices are more marked, but there are also some indications that the form of relationships differs between the two subgroups. Following Cuneo and Curtis (1974) we would argue that support for independence should be more strongly tied to linguistic and cultural demands among the well educated, partly because they are much more likely to be placed in situations where they might be subject to discrimination on these grounds. Presumably the opposite should also be true. Individuals who place low on the education scale, and who probably do not conceptualize political issues in sophisti- cated terms, should logically be less concerned about the abstract cultural aspects of nationalism and more likely to view the issues of independence and language rights in terms of their immediate, concrete effects. The data in Table X I V support both these hypotheses.

By far the strongest associations in the French population are found in the highly educated stratum. For instance, economic agreement and independence are very strongly related; the gamma value is .979. Inspection of the matrix

202 / Michael D. Ornstein. H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

shows that virtually all supporters of independence favour an economic agreement, though the converse does not hold. Similarly, strong positive associations are also present between independence, agreement, and nearly all of the other variables in the analysis, suggesting that those issues are clearly situated in a much broader ideological framework. Interestingly, this population does not strongly associate concessions and independence, a finding which underlines the conceptual gap which exists between the two political strategies. After all, for individuals who favour independence as the only workable method of enhancing cultural nationalism, concessions which are aimed at preventing separation are beside the point, if not counter-productive. An economic agreement, on the other hand, is seen as a necessary adjunct to political sovereignty, hence its strong association with independence.

Bearing more directly on the question of nationalism, we find that support for English-language schooling for the non-English in Quebec is strongly and negatively related to independence and economic agreement, and also negatively related to support for concessions and support for labour. Moreover, independence and agreement are positively related to the measure of prejudice against immigrants, emphasizing the ethnocentric nature of Quebecois nationalism among the highly educated.

The general configuration of relationships for the poorly educated French Quebecers, in the lower triangle of Table XVI, is quite different from that found in the upper triangle. By far the most dramatic difference between the subgroups can be observed in the association between independence, concessions, and agreement. For university graduates, the coefficient between independence and agreement is extremely high (.979); among those with no high school it is very weak (.106). Moreover, although support for independence is negatively related to support for the English-schooling rights of the non-French in Quebec, support for concessions and association are positively related to the same variable. And while independence is positively related to discrimination in the upper stratum, it is negatively related to discrimination in the lower stratum.

This evidence about the possibility of different justifications for independence in different classes of Quebec society suggests a third important qualification to the analysis we have

presented. Linear models of the kind we have analysed fail to consider the possibility of interactions among variables which may have considerably more explanatory significance than the additive relationships considered in this paper. Generalizations about differences across classes in support for independence in Quebec may be less important than generalizations about the different ideological approaches to independence within classes. Support for independence within militant sectors of the Quebec working class may be seen as a tactic within a broader struggle between labour and capital. Within the middle class, however, the argument may turn more on questions of the equality of economic opportunity and cultural autonomy of Quebec.

In English Canada, similarly, there may be important differences in the approach to Que- bec not revealed by our analysis but empirically discernable in the interactive relationship between attitudes on different issues. It is possible, for example, that there are important differences not only between those who take systematically flexible or systematically hostile positions on concessions and economic agreement, but also between those (about 40 per cent of English Canadians) who approve of concessions but oppose an economic agreement, or vice versa. Similarly, while we have conceived of nationalism and prejudice in English Canada as independent dimensions of political attitude, there may be important differences in the approach to Quebec amongst those English Canadians who are nationalistic but politically conservative or prejudiced in their attitude to other ethnic groups, as opposed to those who are nationalistic but less conservative or prejudiced. Serious attention should be paid to distinctions of the type that Meisel (1973: 196 ff.) makes among his “four perspectives of English Canada.” Finally, in this connection, there are “rational choice” approaches to the issues we have been discussing which may reflect differences amongst English Canadians who make different assessments of the desirability of provincial autonomy as opposed to a strong federal government, of the extent to which existing federal arrangements provide for fair or unfair treatment of Quebec and other provinces, and of the economic costs to the rest of Canada of Quebec’s independence. Typolo- gies of the different - but equally plausible - combinations of such variables may isolate


more definite constituencies of opinion regard- ing the relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada than we have uncovered in this analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

We set out to examine the ramifications in public opinion of the major crisis in Canadian politics precipitated by the emergence of the movement for Quebec’s independence. Our data illustrate the magnitude of this crisis in a number of ways: by the emerging political commitment of many Quebecers - particularly the younger and better educated - to independence, and the equally strong opposition to such constitutional change in English Canada; by the very general support within Quebec for policies to promote and preserve French culture in Quebec, and the correspondingly widespread in- sensitivity of English Canadians to that issue; by the approval of equal facilities in both official languages throughout Canada by the great majority of Quebecers as compared to the am- bivalence of English-Canadian public opinion towards these rights.

As important as these differences in public opinion is our finding that the attitudes of both Quebecers and English Canadians on these issues reflect differences in political ideology more strongly than sociodemographic differences among people in different occupational, income, educational, and age groups. Further- I lore, despite the great stress placed on them by many commentators, the differences in opinions on these issues among the regions of English Canada are relatively small. Differences in the views of individuals with different levels of education, for example, are much larger than the regional differences.

Our analysis, therefore, re-emphasizes the fundamental division between two nations - Quebec and English Canada - rather than multiple divisions between provincial or regional political communities. At least with respect to the central issue of the status of French and the future of Quebec, there is a deep cleavage in public opinion between Quebec and the rest of Canada. The differences of opinion between the two nations on these issues reflect the very different political dynamics in the two areas. In Quebec the debate is linked to ideological arguments about support for labour, income redistribution, and aid to disadvantaged groups like

native people and women. In the rest of Canada, the debate is less grounded in such arguments than in beliefs about the desirability of foreign immigration and immigrants, and about the relationship between government and private citizens as indicated in questions about political efficacy. Perhaps the clearest indica- tion of the cleavage between the two nations is the quite opposite use made of arguments in favour of restrictions on foreign economic control: in Quebec such arguments are linked to support for the independence of Quebec; in the rest of Canada, the same arguments are linked to opposition to the special status of Quebec.

The importance of political ideology in understanding these issues emphasizes the political character of the present crisis and of its resolution. The significance of seeing the independence issue in Quebec in terms of a political struggle rather than a demographic transforma- tion is very clear. This finding underlines the strategic advantages to the independence movement of the fact that the Parti Quebecois is presently the government of Quebec. The political resources that flow from control of the state and from the legitimacy commonly attached to government action will be of greater significance in a conflict that is based so clearly on political ideology.

The striking characteristic of the support for independence is the fact that it is concentrated in those sectors of the population with the greatest capacity and willingness to engage in political struggle: amongst the better educated, younger people who work in jobs with more individual autonomy. A characterization of the independence movement on the basis of its “irrational” appeals to ethnic solidarity and of its appeal, therefore, to authoritarian political sentiments finds little support in our analysis. Quebecers who support independence are not more bigoted or authoritarian. On the con- trary, they tend to be more approving of minority language rights than English Canadians, and they tend to be more libertarian in their attitudes towards civil rights than other Quebecers.

In English Canada there is a much weaker relationship between opinions on Quebec and other aspects of political ideology. The sociodemographic differences are also relatively small. Therefore, it is difficult to localize specific views in identifiable sectors of the English-Canadian population. The relatively large proportions of respondents who take no

204 I Michael D. Omstein, H. Michael Stevenson and A. Paul M. Williams

position on these issues is further evidence of the low levels of information outside Quebec and of the fact that, for all the coverage in the mass media, many English Canadians have little interest in Quebec or the linguistic rights issue. To the extent that these issues can be related to more general political attitudes, they are con- nected with support for civil rights and levels of prejudice, not with more policy-related issues like the questions of income redistribution, labour relations, or foreign control of the economy. This absence of readily definable constituencies, of groups of individuals whose opinions strongly favour or oppose the extension of linguistic guarantees to French Canadians or who take other clear positions in the political debate, gives English-Canadian political elites considerable room for manoeuvre. Our data do, however, reveal some important potential constraints on political elites. The widespread opposition to the use of force is the most marked such constraint. But there is also much more agreement to propositions about the desirability of making constitutional concessions to Quebec in order to prevent separation and about the willingness to conclude an economic agreement with an independent Quebec than has so far been reflected in the pronouncements of Cana- dian political leaders.

Our assumption that mass public opinion can act as a constraint on the decision-making of political elites, is, of course, no more than that. In the context of this research, it is worth emphasizing that those who feel least estranged from government and least politically impotent are more likely to take a flexible and conciliatory attitude to Quebec than the less attentive public in English Canada. This finding may buttress the argument that the constraints in public opinion should influence English Cana- dian political elites towards a less adversarial confrontation with Quebec.

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Documents

Public opinion and the Canadian political crisis