A look back at Quebec’s 1995 referendum, 30 years later

The 1995 referendum in Quebec saw the highest voter turnout of any election in Canadian history, and was decided by less than 60,000 votes.

Thursday marks 30 years since the fate of a unified Canada stood on a razor’s edge.

The 1995 referendum saw the highest voter turnout of any election in Canadian history, and was decided by less than 60,000 votes.

As the results rolled in, Quebecers and Canadians alike held their collective breath.

The vote was dead even late into the night.

“That level of tension was ‘am I going to have a country or not?’ on both sides,” said Tommy Schnurmacher, former CJAD 800 radio host and author of the book Canada is Not a Real Country, which chronicled the 28-day referendum campaign in October 1995.

• READ MORE: Fear, relief, anguish: Reliving the emotion of the 1995 Quebec referendum

In the weeks leading up to the vote, the referendum dominated Schnurmacher’s radio talk show, three hours a day, five days a week, he said.

“The only topic that Quebecers, anglophone and francophone alike, were interested in was the constitutional future of Quebec,” he said in a sit-down interview with CTV News. “Would it become an independent country or would Canada stay united?”

On Oct. 30, 1995, more than 4.7 million Quebecers cast a ballot – 94 per cent of eligible voters.

“I am very happy that at last we have come to the moment of decision,” said a confident Jacques Parizeau, then Premier of Quebec, standing on the steps of the voting station where he had just cast his own ballot.

The ‘Yes campaign’ felt its day had finally come.

A rocky start to the campaign

On voting day, it was the sovereigntists who carried the momentum, but the campaign did not start that way.

“Before the referendum in 1995, the ‘Yes side’ was at 38 per cent,” recalled Daniel Turp, a former spokesperson for the ‘Yes Committee’ charged with courting anglophone and allophone voters.

“I remember people telling me, ‘Are you crazy?’” Turp said.

• READ MORE: Records reveal what Chrétien told ministers before Quebec referendum

Pressure started to build on Parizeau, who struggled to gain traction, and the decision was made to put the popular leader of the Bloc Québécois, Lucien Bouchard, centre stage.

Immediately, the move started to pay off.

“Lucien, with his charisma, really changed the course of the campaign,” said Liza Frulla, then Member of the National Assembly for the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), and vice chair of the ‘No-Committee.’

Meantime, the ‘No side’ had grown complacent.

Frulla recalled a rally, early in the campaign, that would prove to be a turning point.

A business leader advocating for the ‘No side’ addressed the crowd, she said, and went over the top with his rhetoric.

“He says, ‘we are going to crush them,’” she said. “I remember vividly that I said to myself, we’re in trouble.”

It was that galvanizing moment the ‘Yes side’ needed, Frulla said.

“The next day, Lucien did a rally, and he says nobody’s going to crush us,” she said.

What followed was a stunning turnaround in the polls.

“It was all about empowerment,” said Turp. “I was excited because, I guess, I thought it could happen.”

The ‘Yes side’ had done a superb marketing job, said Schnurmacher, who recounted that media from around the world had descended on Montreal. “The headline the next morning would have been ‘Birth of a Nation,’ for sure.”

Canada comes to Montreal

Just days before the vote, federalists staged a massive unity rally, dubbed the ‘Love In’ in the heart of downtown Montreal.

A hundred thousand people from all over the country were flown, trained and bused into the city to support the ‘No campaign.’

“They were flying in from Vancouver, from Toronto, from the Maritimes,” said Schnurmacher. “Basically saying, please don’t go.”

“That gesture,” said Frulla, who was at the end of a gruelling four-week campaign, “What they did, I thought it was beautiful. It touched us.”

For Turp, and many others on the ‘Yes side,’ the rally amounted to election interference.

“You know, all that money spent outside of Quebec, it’s probably very inconsistent with our referendum law,” Turp said.

The Liberal Party of Canada’s communications director and one other person were eventually charged with illegally financing supporters’ travel to Montreal.

The Quebec Superior Court later dismissed the charges.

Relief and sorrow

In the early hours of referendum night, it appeared as though the ‘Yes side’ might have won, but after some unexpected results in the Quebec City region, and as votes from the Montreal suburbs started pouring in, the tide began to turn.

Quebecers voted to stay in Canada by the slimmest of margins, 50.6 per cent to 49.4 per cent.

• READ MORE: Thirty years on, is Quebec headed for another independence referendum?

“People like me were disappointed that the ‘Yes side’ didn’t win,” said Turp. “But, in a way, I was happy that there had been this democratic process, very peaceful.”

On the ‘No side,’ relief was starting to set in.

“I am still very proud of us,” said Frulla, “We did that respecting democracy to the hilt.”

Money and the ‘ethnic vote’

An emotional and embittered Jacques Parizeau addressed his supporters the next day, uttering the infamous words that have dogged the sovereigntist movement ever since.

“It’s true that we were beaten,” Parizeau said in French. “By what? By money and the ethnic vote.”

Both Turp and Frulla recalled hearing the words live while sitting on the TV sets of separate news programs, where they had each been invited to give political commentary.

In both cases, they were immediately asked for their reaction live on the air.

“I was very upset. Very, very upset,” said Turp, who felt all of his hard work convincing English speakers and minority groups there would be a place for them in an independent Quebec, had been spoiled in an instant. “I’ve never believed it was anyone’s fault. Everyone in Quebec has one vote.”

“The only thing I could say is that when you are the Prime Minister [Premier], you are the Prime Minister [Premier] of everybody,” said Frulla, who added she got to know Parizeau later in life, and now believes his emotions had gotten the better of him.

Schnurmacher, like many Quebecers listening, said he was shocked by what he heard.

“I thought to myself, wow. His dislike of ethnics and money, and I know what he was referring to, I said it was real,” he said.

30 years later, old battle lines redrawn

A new generation of sovereignist leaders is now pushing to reignite the movement.

Parti Québécois (PQ) Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised another referendum in his first mandate as premier, if elected.

“This generation has a right to say yes or no,” said Turp, of the young Quebecers who were either not born or too young to vote in previous referendums.

• READ MORE: Hundreds of Montrealers join march calling for Quebec independence

“It’s not only my generation or my parents’ generation that has that right. Self-determination is something of great importance as a collective right,” he said.

Now 30 years after the fact, Frulla said she is also just as certain in her convictions that Quebec should remain a part of a united Canada.

“Now is not the time,” she said. “With the United States and with Donald Trump, I am so sorry. It does not make sense.”