The election of the Parti Québécois in Quebec in November 1976 brought to a head the issue of the province’s future in Confederation. A sovereign Quebec was suddenly within the realm of possibility, since the Parti Québécois, led by René Lévesque, had promised to hold a referendum on the subject during its first mandate. In light of this situation, many imagined that the federal government would be ready to make constitutional changes to accommodate the province’s quest for political independence.

For the Fédération des francophones hors Québec (FFHQ), there was an urgent need to take into consideration the constitutional demands of all francophone minority groups in Canada, not just the French-speaking population of Quebec. Drawing on the thinking of its political committee, in 1979, the FFHQ expressed its aspiration in Pour ne plus être... sans pays (Face to Face with a Failing Country: A New Association for the Two Founding Peoples), much like it had done in 1977 with Les Héritiers de Lord Durham (The Heirs of Lord Durham: Manifesto of a Vanishing People). Lawyer Michel Bastarache, future justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, chaired the FFHQ’s five-member political committee, all of whom were men.

For the signatories of this document, the “francophonie outside Quebec” were reiterating a demand made as far back as the school conflicts in Manitoba (1890-1896) and Ontario (1912-1927): recognition of the principle that Canada had two founding peoples. This recognition should force governments to grant more linguistic rights to minorities, particularly for education. For example, minority language communities should be granted governance of their schools.

The document went even further by re-imagining the Canadian political system. Canada should break its colonial ties by becoming a federal parliamentary republic. It should also reorganize its federal parliamentary institutions, creating a House of the Federation whose members – elected rather than appointed – would represent the two founding peoples on an equal basis. The document briefly mentioned Indigenous peoples, calling on governments to protect their status and cultural values.

The 1982 amendments to the Constitution did not make Canada a republic, nor did it lead to the election of senators. On the other hand, Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms recognizes the right of French-speaking minority communities, as well as English-speaking Quebecers, to their own system of schools at the primary and secondary levels. In the 1990s, the courts ruled that this right implied the right to school governance by and for linguistic minorities.