The Rise of Sovereignty in Quebec Youth
Gigi Devlin, Associate Editor
Photo Source: CBC
“If there were a referendum tomorrow, would you vote yes?”
For years, the question has been a hypothetical, an unserious icebreaker I would ask at social gatherings. Sovereignists, serious ones, were few and far between in my Montreal circles. I could count them on one hand, and they always came from deeply sovereignist families. I had never taken the question quite seriously myself, feeling mainly neutral on the subject. When I moved away from Montreal four years ago, sovereignty seemed to have lost its momentum.
This spring, I started to realize things had shifted. When it came time to vote in the federal election, close friends who had never expressed a particular interest in Quebec politics began telling me their biggest political concern was Quebec independence, that they were going to vote Bloc Québécois even if they didn’t agree with all of the party’s policies. My social media began feeding me Quebec memes and rap songs that were gaining millions of views. Had I become so disconnected from Quebec since moving away that I had missed a public shift?
Turns out I wasn’t as disconnected as I had thought. In 2025, 48% of Quebecois youth between 18 and 34 supported Quebec independence, a 20-point increase from the year before. The shift had truly happened overnight.
Recently, youth politics have shifted worldwide as young people try to find answers to the unfortunate cards they’ve been dealt: climate change, housing crises, growing class divides, the consequences of the pandemic, the rise of AI and automation. Young people crave identity and a sense of belonging. For our neighbours in the United States, this has meant a rise in conservatism, and now in Quebec, it seems to mean a rise in support for sovereignty.
Just this fall in Montreal, sovereignists held a march to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1995 referendum. In the crowd were many hopeful young people who believed that, in an independent Quebec, they would be better able to resolve their political grievances. In theory, this makes sense. Or at least, this is what the Parti Québécois, Quebec’s main separatist party, promises voters. The party claims that Quebec has all it takes to succeed “economically, socially, culturally” within its borders and that, if elected, they will ensure that a referendum happens before 2030. When interviewed at the march, one young protester said they believed an independent Quebec would “better integrate newcomers into the local culture.” Another protester said they were separatists to escape the Canadian “colonial, petroleum state.” This is where the movement loses me.
When I look at Quebec today, I do not see a Quebec that will solve the political problems that plague our lives as young people. I see a Quebec that hides behind preserving its culture and secularism as an excuse to discriminate. I see a Quebec that attacks English universities, impeding the education of thousands of students.
In 2019, Quebec passed Bill 21, asserting that it is a secular state. The Superior Court of Quebec upheld the bill despite it violating the freedom of expression and religion of religious minorities, especially Muslim women. This November, Quebec proposed expanding its secularism laws to ban public prayer spaces, prohibit public institutions from serving religious meals, and expand what workers can and can’t wear religious symbols. As much as Quebecois people try to deny it, Quebec at its core is, just like Canada, a white colonial state. And the province continues to use the excuse of secularism to uphold this white colonialism. The Quebec we know today would not be more welcoming to newcomers if it were independent.
The housing crisis is one of the main political issues affecting younger generations today. Yet Quebec youth couldn’t come out and vote in an election critical to defeating it. In 2021, 1 in 6 households in Quebec spent more than a third of its income on housing. A single-family home costs nearly ten times more than it did in 1980, but salaries are only 4.25 times higher. The housing crisis is felt all over Quebec. And despite the supposed political revival of Quebec youth, in the Montreal municipal election this fall, voter turnout was at only 37%. Furthermore, the elected mayor is a landlord who is not interested in regulating Airbnb, one of the causes of the crisis.
This is not to say that the belief in a better Quebec through independence is entirely unfounded. After all, the province has a record of achieving social changes before other parts of Canada. Since the 1990s, Quebec has been a leader in affordable daycare, where subsidized daycare costs parents only $9.35 a day. Quebec has consistently been a frontrunner when it comes to LGBTQ rights, becoming the first province in 1977 to add sexual orientation to its charter of human rights and freedoms.
The independence movement has been, and is still, rooted in the feeling of Quebec’s unique culture. I won’t deny that growing up in Quebec is unlike growing up in the rest of Canada. When moving to Toronto, I experienced an intense culture shock, realizing that the cultural references I grew up with were very different from those of Ontarian students as well as how little most Torontonians spoke French. However, I also realized that, despite our cultural differences, most Canadian youth that I met shared the same hopes for our country’s future as Quebec youth.
Quebec, as it currently exists, is a politically confused state that cannot decide the version of itself it wants to pursue. Sovereignists pride themselves on their province’s distinct identity, believing that an independent Quebec would not inherit any of Canada’s faults. Yet the province continues to utilize its nationalism to enact policies that create an unwelcoming environment for religious minorities. Young sovereignists believe that an independent Quebec will resolve economic problems affecting our generation, but they cannot vote in municipal elections, which are the most critical for economic issues like the housing crisis. The province has been a leader in accessible early childhood education, but continues to attack higher education.
I am not against an independent Quebec, and I can believe that maybe one day an independent Quebec could be the answer to our problems. But when I look at the province I call home today, I do not see independence as the answer.
