Timeline of Quebec history (1960 to 1981)

This section of the Timeline of Quebec history concerns the events between the the Quiet Revolution and the patriation of the British North America Act.

Table of contents

1 1960s 2 1970s 3 1980s

1960s

• 1960 - The election of a new Liberal Party government led by Premier Jean Lesage marks the beginning of a decade of changes known as the Quiet Revolution.
• 1963 - Front de Libération du Québec members, Gabriel Hudon and Raymond Villeneuve are sentenced to 12 years in prison for manslaughter after their bomb killed Sgt. O'Neill, a watchman at Montreal's Canadian Army Recruitment Center. See Front de libération du Québec.
• 1963 - Second wave of the nationalisation of electricity. On April 30, Hydro-Quebec acquires 8 private producers of hydroelectricity.
• 1964 - A ministry of education, separate from the Catholic cleargy, is created by the Quebec government.
• 1967 - Rene Levesque leaves the Liberal Party of Quebec and founds the Sovereignty-Association movement.
• 1967 - The Universal Exposition of Montreal opens for the summer.
• 1968 - On Monday, June 24, 290 people are arrested during the St-Jean-Baptiste parade.
• 1968 - Pierre Trudeau, born in Montreal, Quebec, is elected Prime Minister of Canada.
• 1968 - On October 26, the Parti Québécois is created out of the merger of René Lévesque's Sovereignty-Association Movement and the Ralliement National. Later the Rassemblement pour l'Indépendance Nationale disbands and its members are invited to join the Parti Québécois.
• 1968 - The Université du Québec network is created by the government.
• 1969 - The Parliament of Canada, under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, passed Bill C-120 : An "Act Respecting the Status of Official Languages in Canada" making both French and English the official languages of all Canada. See Official Languages Act.

• 1970 - Terrorist activities by the FLQ culminated with the abduction of James Cross, the British Trade Commissioner to Canada, and Pierre Laporte, a provincial minister and Vice-Premier. See the October Crisis.
• 1976 - On November 15, the Parti Quebecois (PQ) is elected. With a participation rate of 85.27%, the highest in Quebec's history, 41% of voters give 71 seats to the PQ.
• 1976 - Quebec-born author Saul Bellow wins the Nobel Prize for literature.
• 1977 - On August 26, the Quebec Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) becomes law.
• 1977 - The exodus of English speaking workers and businessmen started with the economic boom of the West accelerates. Over the next decade, more than 400,000 English-speaking Canadians leave the province. Most settle in Ontario. An equaly high number of Canadians moved from other provinces to settle in Ontario, where Toronto was booming, replacing Montreal as the metropolis of Canada. See Toronto.

• 1980 - Premier Lévesque put Sovereignty-Association before the Quebec voters in a referendum. 60% of the Quebec electorate voted against it. See the Referendum of 1980.

1931 to 1959

1960 to 1981 History of Quebec

1982 to present