nationalist, corrupt, and undemocratic regime of Duplessis; some even labelled his term in office as the Grande noirceur, or Great Darkness.9 Two priests, Gérard Dion and Louis O’Neil, published a book in 1956 that criticized Duplessis’s reactionary policies and advocated democratic and egalitarian ideas.10 Examining activities and events in these two decades, historians have come to recognize the cultural and social currents that ultimately prepared for the Révolution tranquille, or Quiet Revolution. Still, despite these moments of anticipation, when the Liberal government of Jean Lesage was elected on 22 June 1960, a cultural explosion took place that truly deserves the name Quiet Revolution.11
III. THE RALLYING CRY, THE REVOLUTION AND IDENTITY
VVThe Révolution tranquille was a period of effervescence. It made Québécois identity political, proud, and fierce, while reducing the Roman Catholic Church of Québéc from a monolith to an anachronism.12 This ‘Quiet Revolution’ meant that the state and not the Church was to be “the embodiment of the French nation in Canada.”13 People wanted to catch up with modern society, be open to pluralism, participate in democratic decision-making, express themselves in art and literature free of censorship, and create a modern educational system qualifying students to advance in the fields of science and technology. The agents of this cultural upheaval also wanted to free themselves from the economic domination of the English-Canadian elites and assume full responsibility for their own society.14 Many, therefore, campaigned under the slogans Il faut que ça change (“Things have to change”) and Révolution tranquille, Maintenant ou jamais…Maîtres chez nous (“Now or never…Masters of our own house”).
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8889. Léon Dion, Nationalisme et politique au Québec, (Montréal: Hurtibise HMH, 1975), p. 55-60.
8810.Gérard Dion and Louis O’Neil, Les chrétiens et les élections, (Montréal : Éditions de l’Homme, 1956).
8811. Alain-G. Gagnon and Michel Sarra-Bournet, Duplessis: Entre la grande noirceur et la societé libérale, (Montreal: Éditions Québec-Amérique, 1997).
8812. Terence Fay, A History of Canadian Catholics, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s, 2002), p. 279.
8813. Hubert Guidon, Québec Society: Tradition, Modernity, and Nationhood, ed. Roberta Hamilton and John L. McMullan, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), p. 104.
8814. Gregory Baum, p. 151.