Sovereignty-association

Sovereignty-association, a political concept first put forward in 1967 by René Lévesque and his supporters, brought a strong political credibility to the idea of Quebec independence. It offered the rest of Canada a new agreement between two peoples, politically sovereign but economically associated, similar to the emerging European Union. The white paper on sovereignty-association, tabled in the National Assembly on 1 Nov. 1979, emphasized both Quebecers’ desire for autonomy and the deadlocked federal system. In the referendum of 1980, 59.56 per cent of Quebec’s voters rejected sovereignty-association.