MONTREAL \u2014 Rosalie Pelchat is typical of the younger generation of Quebecers here. She switches effortlessly from French to English. She spends hours each day surfing Facebook or watching Netflix in the language of Shakespeare.<\/p>\n
And, like many of her generation, she is uninterested in fighting for an independent Quebec.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t feel the same insecurity about language as our parents\u2019 generation did,\u201d Ms. Pelchat, a 17-year-old science student, said in the cafeteria at Coll\u00e8ge de Maisonneuve, a Francophone college. \u201cWe are better off economically in Canada and open to the world. Talk of independence is a total turnoff.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Quebecers prepare to go to the polls on Oct. 1 in provincial elections, the polarizing issue of whether the province should secede from Canada has been sidelined for the first time in decades. It underscores how the culture wars of the past have shifted in this Francophone province where language and culture are deeply bound up with identity.<\/p>\n
Instead of focusing on Quebec\u2019s independence, the campaign has been dominated by talk of education, health care and, especially, immigration. The center-right party is trying to appeal to Quebecers by proposing that the province\u2019s autonomy be preserved by limiting immigration and imposing a \u201cvalues test\u201d and a \u201cFrench language test\u201d on newcomers.<\/p>\n
Independence movements have spread across the world<\/a>, from Kurdistan to Catalonia to the Balkans, in recent years. But in Quebec, globalization, prosperity and stringent laws protecting local language and culture have helped tame the quest for national sovereignty.<\/p>\n Even the nationalist, independence-seeking Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois has vowed that it would not hold a referendum on independence until after 2022, a tacit acknowledgment that the subject, at least for now, is not a vote winner.<\/p>\n The party is third in the polls, well behind the governing Liberal Party, which is running neck and neck with the center-right Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec led by Fran\u00e7ois Legault, a businessman and once ardent proponent of independence who has since abandoned that goal.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s young people are confident, capitalist, federalist in outlook and want to travel,\u201d said\u00a0Jean-Marc L\u00e9ger<\/a>, the president of L\u00e9ger, a leading Canadian market research firm. Brought up in a borderless world of Twitter and Snapchat, \u201cthey aren\u2019t interested in the battles for independence that the baby boom generation fought for and lost.\u201d<\/p>\n For the younger generation, aspirations of becoming a Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Bill Gates appear to have pushed the constitutional preoccupations of the past to the background.<\/p>\n In a more than two-hour debate among party leaders this month, the independence issue barely registered while the leaders clashed over Mr. Legault\u2019s proposals to expel immigrants who fail to pass a French language test after three years in the province.<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois Cardina<\/a>l, a veteran commentator on Quebec political affairs, who is also head of the editorial section at La Presse, Canada\u2019s leading French-language newspaper, said it was the first time in 40 years that the question of Quebec\u2019s independence was a nonissue in a provincial election. The failure of the independence movement in two separate referendums, in 1980 and 1995, he noted, had chastened independence-seekers.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at what is happening in Spain, we see powers being stripped away from Catalonia, whereas in Quebec, the province has mastered more and more areas of decision-making,\u201d Mr. Cardinal said. \u201cThe fight for independence is no longer seen as worth fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n It is hard to overstate how far attitudes in Quebec have changed.<\/p>\n The province was ceded to Britain in the 18th century, but Francophones can trace their roots to 17th-century French settlers who sailed up the St. Lawrence River. During the heady years of the 1970s and early 1980s, Quebec was bubbling with agitation for independence. In those years, Francophones who spoke French in public could still be heckled with \u201cSpeak white!\u201d or English.<\/p>\n But the balance of power gradually shifted after the governing Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois passed Bill 101 in 1977, a measure requiring that French be the language of government, the courts and commerce. Fearful that the country could be ripped apart, dozens of companies, including the Bank of Montreal, moved their headquarters to Toronto.<\/p>\n The first referendum on whether Quebec should secede from Canada was in 1980; the \u201cno\u201d side won by nearly 20 percentage points. Then, in 1995, Quebecers voted by a tiny majority, 50.58 percent, to remain in Canada.<\/p>\n By that time, Bill 101 had been in force for nearly 20 years. Though the law may have unnerved many investors, it engendered feelings of cultural confidence, Mr. L\u00e9ger said, making many Quebecers feel more secure living in English-majority Canada.<\/p>\n The drive for independence has also been subdued by Quebec\u2019s relatively resilient economy. Unemployment is less than 6 percent. And Quebec is a net recipient of billions of dollars in\u00a0transfer payments<\/a>from the federal government that help pay for public programs and services, a source of irritation to other, richer provinces.<\/p>\n Still, however much the issue has faded from the debate, secession is supported by a vocal minority.<\/p>\n Jean-Martin Aussant<\/a>, a candidate for Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, said his party was preparing the ground for another referendum on the issue, which he argued would help generate more enthusiasm for the cause.<\/p>\n If an independent Quebec was able to keep the nearly $60 billion in taxes it sent each year to the federal government, he contended, Quebecers would, on the whole, be better off.<\/p>\n \u201cCanada has far more cultural similarities with the United States than Quebec has with Canada,\u201d he said in fluent English. \u201cBut Canada wouldn\u2019t want to merge with the U.S. and have the U.S. decide its destiny. In the same manner, we don\u2019t want Quebec to be subordinate to Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois<\/a>, 28, is the co-spokesman for Quebec Solidaire, a left-wing party that favors independence. He said his party\u2019s progressive agenda cannot be accomplished as long as Canada is a\u00a0constitutional monarchy<\/a>\u00a0and decisions on Quebec\u2019s future are made in Ottawa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n