The results of the 2011 general federal election – which featured the collapse of the Bloc Québécois, the rise of the NDP in Quebec, and the advent of a Conservative majority government with scant representation in Quebec and strong roots in the economically ascendant West – would in themselves be reason enough to examine the state and future of Quebec in the Canadian federation. However, if one sees these results as embedded in a larger national intellectual and policy-political context in which, two decades after the death of the Charlottetown Accord, an entire generation of political leaders and scholars outside of Quebec has developed without any sustained immersion in – or indeed instinct for – questions relating to the Constitution specifically and, arguably, Quebec in general, then the basis for renewed, new-century reflection on the “Quebec Question” acquires a far greater degree of relevance.

In Quebec – even leaving aside the watershed moment of the 1995 referendum – these same 20 years have, for many Francophone Québécois, seen the emergence and intensification of a collective imaginary that abstracts from Canada and the collective project. The consequence of this divergent imaginary is less the threat of a near-term national unity crisis than paralysis in the federal-provincial relations between Ottawa and Quebec, as well as general self-deterrence among leaders and thinkers about bold, new-century projects that will move the country forward in a fast-changing, ever complex world. An arguably facile assumption that Quebec will usually not be part of large-scale or ambitious pan-Canadian policy initiatives has set in among political and policy leaders in Ottawa and a number of provincial capitals. The degree to which such thinking is self-fulfilling is difficult to gauge.

With separatism far from dead (although many outside of Quebec may think it is) and a new Quebec provincial election scheduled for 2011-2012, the time is ripe for bringing together eminent thinkers and key players on Quebec and Canada-Quebec relations, as well as – by way of bridging the generations – emerging stars and future players on these matters to frame the “Quebec Question” for this early new century.

Full list of conference speakers here.
Find conference website here.

RSVP: http://thequebecquestion.eventbrite.com/