Quiet Revolution

The Quiet Revolution was a period of rapid secularization and social change in Quebec during the 1960s, marked by expanded state responsibility and declining clerical influence.

Nationalization of Electricity in Quebec: The transfer of Quebec’s privately owned electric utilities to the public corporation Hydro-Québec, completed in 1963. It made public ownership a defining instrument of economic modernization.
Ministry of Education of Quebec: The provincial government department responsible for education, established in 1964 after a major reform of Quebec’s school system. Its creation shifted educational authority from church institutions to the state.
Jean Lesage: A Quebec Liberal politician who served as premier from 1960 to 1966 and led the government associated with the Quiet Revolution. His government initiated many of the period’s signature reforms.
René Lévesque: A Quebec journalist and politician who served in Jean Lesage’s cabinet and later founded the Parti Québécois. As a cabinet minister and broadcaster, he helped shape the era’s reform politics.
Grande Noirceur: A popular label for the conservative period associated with Maurice Duplessis’s governments in Quebec, especially from 1944 to 1959. It names the political order often set against the Quiet Revolution’s reforms.
Quebec Pension Plan: A public retirement-income program established by Quebec in 1965 and funded by contributions from workers and employers. It demonstrated Quebec’s expanding capacity to build province-wide social programs.
Parent Commission: A Quebec royal commission on education whose 1963–1966 report proposed a more accessible, coordinated public education system. Its recommendations provided a blueprint for restructuring education during the period.
Lesage government: The Quebec Liberal government led by Jean Lesage from 1960 to 1966. Its reform program turned calls for modernization into provincial policy.
Paul Gérin-Lajoie: A Quebec lawyer and politician who served as the province’s first minister of education from 1964 to 1966. He led the education reforms that placed public schooling under provincial direction.
Confederation of National Trade Unions: A Quebec labor federation founded in 1921 as the Confédération des travailleurs catholiques du Canada and renamed in 1960. Its transition from Catholic unionism reflects changing relations between labor and religion.

Linked from 7 pages