Dream Interrupted

For many Canadians, Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau’s infamous line is all they remember of the night of the 1995 Quebec referendum: the “No” side had won, he said, because of “money and ethnic votes.” Francine Pelletier describes that moment in her new book, Dream Interrupted: “We had witnessed Quebec’s most respected living statesman commit suicide on live TV.” With those words, Parizeau’s career had ended, says Pelletier, along with the dream of an independent Quebec that was inclusive and open.

Pelletier has been an intimate watcher of Quebec politics for four decades, so she brings a seasoned eye to telling the story of Quebec nationalism, from the 1930s (under the Catholic iron grip of Premier Maurice Duplessis) all the way through to the Catholic-secularist (or, as Quebecers call it, catho-laïque) leadership of recent premier François Legault.

Pelletier brings a seasoned eye to telling Quebec nationalism's story

Dream Interrupted doesn’t just tell the story of the rise and fall of Quebec nationalism, though. It traces the politics that guided Pelletier’s life from her days as a student at the University of Alberta to becoming one of Quebec’s most important political journalists. Pelletier, a Franco-Ontarian, writes about the vision of a sovereign Quebec from the perspective of someone who came to share that dream only to watch it wither to what it too often is today: a cry for ethno-nationalism, secularism that demands respect for Quebec’s Catholic heritage.

The 1995 referendum was a turning point for the sovereignty movement. In a conversational style, Pelletier describes what came before — which culminated in that moment — and then what came after. She blends memoir with political analysis in a way that’s as accessible to an English audience as it was those who read Au Québec, c’est comme ça qu’on vit, the book’s French-language title, released in 2023.