FLQ: The Quiet Revolution

The event that lead up to the formation of the FLQ would be the Quiet Revolution that started in the 1960’s. The Quiet Revolution began after the passing of Premier Maurice Duplessis, whose time in power was known as the Grande Noirceur. Then on june 22 in 1960 there was the Liberal provincial government lead by Jean Lesage. This ended the conservative reign of Maurice Duplessis who was supported by most of the rural and small-town clergy. One factor that I believe contributed to the revolution is that foreign investors were the main developers with a lot of Quebec's natural resources. Felix Leclerc who was a singer and a political activist from Quebec said “Our people are the waterboys of their own province.”(Wiki), he used this phrase because
From the year 1963 to 1970 the FLQ targeted mainly mailboxes in English speaking parts of Quebec, like Westmount and detonate bombs in them. On February 13, 1969 they targeted the Montreal Stock exchange which was the largest bombing in Quebec, this bombing injured 27 people and caused a lot of damage. The FLQ came out with manifestos for the years 1963 and 1970, the first manifesto was giving on April 16, 1963. Both FLQ manifestos wanted a change, “a separate Quebec, but the 1970 manifesto called as well for a workers’ state, which was one of the major contributions of Pierre Vallieres and CHarles Gagnon, two political activists who joined the organization in 1964.” (The October Crisis, pg. 57). However, the manifestos didn’t have many points for Quebec but, rather for the people of the FLQ and how to escape the country when the crisis is over “One of the seven demands made by the FLQ kidnappers of James Cross on october 5 1970 concerned ‘workers and social ills’”(The october crisis, pg. 58). There was about 150 people that were members or that sympathized with the FLQ. They did get a lot of demonstrations that were in their favour from students in CEGEPS or other student occupied
They were able to kidnap Cross from his home because the maid let them in since they were dressed like delivery men bringing a package to him. They communicated with authorities with their demands. The demands included an exchange for political prisoners that belonged to the FLQ in exchange for Cross, the demand also wanted the radio station CBC to broadcast the manifesto of the FLQ on air. By the 8th all radio stations in French and English broadcasted the manifesto. Another cell of the FLQ called the Chenier Cell had some members kidnap Pierre Laporte, the Minister of Labour for Quebec. He was outside on the front lawn of his home in Montreal while he was playing a game of football with his nephew. In the next couple of days on the 11th the captivity letter by the FLQ was broadcasted by CBC to Robert Bourassa who was the Premier of Quebec. October 12th is when troops sent by General Gilles Turcot, from the request of the federal government, arrived to patrol Montreal. Both the FLQ and the government of Quebec appoint lawyers to discuss the possible release of James Cross and Pierre Laporte. The next day Tim Rafle from CBC interviewed Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau about the military presence. During the interview Prime Minister Trudeau answered “Just watch me” (CBC)when asked by Rafle about