Thirty years on, is Quebec headed for another independence referendum? [Video]

Ten years ago, Jean-Francois Lisee predicted that Quebec’s independence movement would be reborn.

“It could rise again given the right circumstances,” he said in 2015. “What could trigger it, I cannot say.”

Three years later, as leader of the sovereigntist Parti Quebecois, Lisee lost his riding and saw his party reduced to 10 seats when the upstart Coalition Avenir Quebec, led by Francois Legault, swept to power for the first time.

The 2018 election was widely seen as proof that separatism was no longer a defining issue in Quebec politics, and pollsters speculated that the PQ’s days were numbered. The province’s new leader was a former sovereigntist at the helm of a conservative-leaning, nationalist party promising not to hold a referendum, and Quebecers rewarded him with a decisive majority.

“There are many Quebecers who put aside a debate that has divided us for 50 years,” Legault said after his victory.

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