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1970 FLQ Manifesto

Analysis of the Document - (The Document follows below the Analysis)

The 1970 FLQ (Front de libération du Québec) manifesto, issued during the height of Quebec’s October Crisis, represents a stark and militant vision for the province’s future. As part of a separatist movement rooted in revolutionary ideals, the manifesto rejected both Canadian federalism and the political structures that governed Quebec. The FLQ viewed the status quo as an oppressive system dominated by Anglophone interests, where Quebec’s Francophone majority faced political and economic marginalization. Their manifesto was an uncompromising call for Quebec’s independence through radical means, aimed at overthrowing what they viewed as colonial rule by the Canadian government.

This manifesto, more than just a political declaration, was an expression of deep frustration felt by some segments of Quebec society at the time. The 1960s and 70s in Quebec were marked by the Quiet Revolution, a period of rapid social and political change as Quebec shifted from a largely agrarian, conservative society to one that embraced secularism and modernization. Yet, for groups like the FLQ, these changes did not go far enough. They believed that Quebec's true liberation could only come through complete political sovereignty, achieved not through reform, but through armed struggle and revolution.

In terms of its immediate impact, the manifesto came during a time of significant tension between Quebec separatists and the federal government. In October 1970, the FLQ's activities, including the kidnapping of British diplomat James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, escalated into the October Crisis, leading Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau to invoke the War Measures Act. This controversial decision brought the military into Quebec to restore order, and resulted in the arrest of hundreds of suspected sympathizers. The crisis ended with the release of Cross, the tragic death of Laporte, and the eventual collapse of the FLQ.

In the broader scope of Canadian history, the 1970 FLQ manifesto served as a galvanizing moment. It sharpened the debate over Quebec’s role within Canada and drew attention to the separatist cause, even though the FLQ’s violent methods were rejected by the majority of Quebecers. The manifesto’s fiery rhetoric highlighted the deep divisions within Quebec society, pitting radical separatists against federalists and moderate Quebec nationalists who sought change within the Canadian framework.

Politically, the FLQ’s manifesto and the events surrounding the October Crisis underscored the importance of addressing Quebec’s aspirations for greater autonomy. In the years following the crisis, Quebec nationalism would evolve, eventually taking a more democratic form through the Parti Québécois, which achieved political victories under leaders like René Lévesque. The 1980 and 1995 referendums on Quebec independence were a direct result of the nationalist fervor that the FLQ and its manifesto helped ignite, even if the movement itself ultimately distanced itself from the FLQ’s extremist tactics.

The legacy of the 1970 FLQ manifesto remains significant in Canadian history. It symbolized the tension between federalism and Quebec nationalism, while also highlighting the potential for conflict when political grievances are left unaddressed. While the FLQ’s vision for Quebec’s future was extreme and rejected by most, the manifesto forced Canada to confront the complexities of its national unity and the urgent need to reconcile Quebec’s distinct identity with its place in the federation. In many ways, the document catalyzed the movement that continues to shape Quebec’s political landscape to this day.

[issued by the Front de Libération du Quebec (Quebec Liberation Front); read over CBC/Radio-Canada Oct. 8, 1970 as a condition for the release of kidnapped British trade official James Cross]

The people in the Front de Liberation du Québec are neither Messiahs nor modern-day Robin Hoods. They are a group of Quebec workers who have decided to do everything they can to assure that the people of Quebec take their destiny into their own hands, once and for all.

The Front de Libération du Québec wants total independence for Quebeckers; it wants to see them united in a free society, a society purged for good of its gang of rapacious sharks, the big bosses who dish out patronage and their henchmen, who have turned Quebec into a private preserve of cheap labour and unscrupulous exploitation.

The Front de Libération du Québec is not an aggressive movement, but a response to the aggression organized by high finance through its puppets, the federal and provincial governments (the Brinks farce, Bill 69, the electoral map, the so-called "social progress" [sic] tax, the Power Corporation, medical insurance - for the doctors, the guys at Lapalme...)

The Front de Libération du Québec finances itself - through voluntary (sic) taxes levied on the enterprises that exploit the workers (banks, finance companies, etc....).

"The money powers of the status quo, the majority of the traditional tutors of our people, have obtained from the voters the reaction they hoped for, a step backwards rather than the changes we have worked for as never before, the changes we will continue to work for." (René Lévesque, April 29, 1970).

Once, we believed it worthwhile to channel our energy and our impatience, in the apt words of René Lévesque, into the Parti Québécois, but the Liberal victory shows that what is called democracy in Quebec has always been, and still is, nothing but the "democracy" of the rich. In this sense the victory of the Liberal party is in fact nothing but the victory of the Simard-Cotroni election- fixers. Consequently, we wash our hands of the British parliamentary system; the Front de Libération du Québec will never let itself be distracted by the electoral crumbs that the Anglo-Saxon capitalists toss into the Quebec barnyard every four years. Many Quebeckers have realized the truth and are ready to take action. In the coming year Bourassa is going to get what's coming to him: 100,000 revolutionary workers, armed and organized!

Yes, there are reasons for the Liberal victory. Yes, there are reasons for poverty, unemployment, slums, for the fact that you, Mr. Bergeron of Visitation Street, and you too, Mr. Legendre of Ville de Laval, who make F10,000 a year, do not feel free in our country, Quebec.

Yes, there are reasons, the guys who work for Lord know them, and so do the fishermen of the Gash, the workers on the North Shore; the miners who work for Iron Ore, for Québec Cartier Mining, for Noranda know these reasons too. The honest workingmen at Cabano, the guys they tried to screw still one more time, they know lots of reasons.

Yes, there are reasons why you, Mr. Tremblay of Panet Street and you, Mr. Cloutier who work in construction in St. Jérôme, can't afford "Golden Vessels" with all the jazzy music and the sharp decor, like Drapeau the aristocrat, the guy who was so concerned about slums that he had coloured billboards stuck up in front of them so that the rich tourists couldn't see us in our misery.

Yes, Madame Lemay of St. Hyacinthe, there art - reasons why you can't afford a little junket to Florida like the rotten judges and members of Parliament who travel on our money. The good workers at Vickers and at Davie Shipbuilding, the ones who were given no reason for being thrown out, know these reasons; so do the guys at Murdochville that were smashed only because they wanted to form a union, and whom the rotten judges forced to pay over two million dollars because they had wanted to exercise this elementary right. The guys of Murdochville are familiar with this justice; they know lots of reasons. Yes, there are reasons why you, Mr. Lachance of St. Marguerite Street, go drowning your despair, your bitterness, and your rage in Molson's horse piss. And you, the Lachance boy, with your marijuana cigarettes...

Yes, there are reasons why you, the welfare cases, are kept from generation to generation on public assistance. There are lots of reasons, the workers for Domtar at Windsor and East Angus know them; the workers for Squibb and Ayers, for the Quebec Liquor Commission and for Seven-up and for Victoria Precision, and the blue collar workers of Laval and of Montreal and the guys at Lapalme know lots of reasons.

The workers at Dupont of Canada know some reasons too, even if they will soon be able to express them only in English (thus assimilated, they will swell the number of New Quebeckers, the immigrants who are the darlings of Bill 69).

These reasons ought to have been understood by the policemen of Montreal, the system's muscle; they ought to have realized that we live in a terrorized society, because without their force and their violence, everything fell apart on October 7.

We've had enough of a Canadian federalism which penalizes the dairy farmers of Quebec to satisfy the requirements of the Anglo-Saxons of the Commonwealth; which keeps the honest taxi drivers of Montreal in a state of semi-slavery by shamefully protecting the exclusive monopoly of the nauseating Murray Hill, and its owner - the murderer Charles Hershorn and his son Paul who, the night of October 7, repeatedly tore a .22 rifle out of the hands of his employees to fire on the taxi drivers and thereby mortally wounded Corporal Dumas, killed as a demonstrator. Canadian federalism pursues a reckless import policy, thereby throwing out of work the people who earn low wages in the textile and shoe industries, the most downtrodden people in Quebec, and all to line the pockets of a handful of filthy "money-makers" in Cadillacs. We are fed up with a federalism which classes the Quebec nation among the ethnic minorities of Canada.

We, and more and more Quebeckers too, have had it with a government of pussy-footers who perform a hundred and one tricks to charm the American millionaires, begging them to come and invest in Quebec, the Beautiful Province where thousands of square miles of forests full of game and of lakes full of fish are the exclusive property of these all-powerful lords of the twentieth century. We are sick of a government in the hands of a hypocrite like Bourassa who depends on Brinks armoured trucks, an authentic symbol of the foreign occupation of Quebec, to keep the poor Quebec "natives" fearful of that poverty and unemployment to which we are so accustomed.

We are fed up with the taxes we pay that Ottawa's agent in Quebec would give to the English-speaking bosses as an "incentive" for them to speak French, to negotiate in French. Repeat after me: "Cheap labour is main d'oeuvre à bon marché in French."

We have had enough of promises of work and of prosperity, when in fact we will always be the diligent servants and bootlickers of the big shots, as long as there is a Westmount, a Town of Mount Royal, a Hampstead, an Outremont, all these veritable fortresses of the high finance of St. James Street and Wall Street; we will be slaves until Quebeckers, all of us, have used every means, including dynamite and guns, to drive out these big bosses of the economy and of politics, who will stoop to any action however base, the better to screw us.

We live in a society of terrorized slaves, terrorized by the big bosses, Steinberg, Clark, Bronfman, Smith, Neopole, Timmins, Geoffrion, J.L. Lévesque, Hershorn, Thompson, Nesbitt, Desmarais, Kierans (next to these, Rémi Popol the Nightstick, Drapeau the Dog, the Simards' Simple Simon and Trudeau the Pansy are peanuts!).

We are terrorized by the Roman Capitalist Church, though this is less and less true today (who owns the square where the Stock Exchange was built?); terrorized by the payments owing to Household Finance, by the advertising of the grand masters of consumption, Eaton's, Simpson's, Morgan's, Steinberg's, General Motors - terrorized by those exclusive clubs of science and culture, the universities, and by their boss-directors Gaudry and Dorais, and by the vice-boss Robert Shaw.

There are more and more of us who know and suffer under this terrorist society, and the day is coming when all the Westmounts of Quebec will disappear from the map.

Workers in industry, in mines and in the forests! Workers in the service industries, teachers, students and unemployed! Take what belongs to you, your jobs, your determination and your freedom. And you, the workers at General Electric, you make your factories run; you are the only ones able to produce; without you, General Electric is nothing!

Workers of Quebec, begin from this day forward to take back what is yours; take yourselves what belongs to you. Only you know your factories, your machines, your hotels, your universities, your unions; do not wait for some organization to produce a miracle.

Make your revolution yourselves in your neighbourhoods, in your places of work. If you don't do it yourselves, other usurpers, technocrats or someone else, will replace the handful of cigar-smokers we know today and everything will have to be done all over again. Only you are capable of building a free society.

We must struggle not individually but together, till victory is obtained, with every means at our disposal, like the Patriots of 1897-1898 (those whom Our Holy Mother Church hastened to excommunicate, the better to sell out to British interests).

In the four corners of Quebec, may those who have been disdainfully called lousy Frenchmen and alcoholics begin a vigorous battle against those who have muzzled liberty and justice; may they put out of commission all the professional holdup artists and swindlers: bankers, businessmen, judges and corrupt political wheeler-dealers....

We are Quebec workers and we are prepared to go all the way. With the help of the entire population, we want to replace this society of slaves by a free society, operating by itself and for itself, a society open on the world. Our struggle can only be victorious. A people that has awakened cannot long be kept in misery and contempt.

Long live Free Quebec!

Long live our comrades the political prisoners!

Long live the Quebec Revolution!

Long live the Front de Liberation do Quebec!

*** Source: "The FLQ Manifesto," Marcel Rioux, Quebec in Question (1971), tr. James Boake