Modern Canada Explained: The Quiet Revolution, Multiculturalism and the Quebec Referendums

Modern Canada covers the period from the end of the Second World War to today: postwar prosperity, the building of the major social programs, the adoption of the maple leaf flag in 1965, the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, official multiculturalism in 1971, the Quebec referendums of 1980 and 1995, the patriation of the Constitution in 1982 and the creation of Nunavut in 1999. It is the final history chapter of the official guide, and the test draws several date questions from it.

This chapter has one unusual feature: it touches on subjects that are still debated today. The test itself stays strictly factual. You may be asked what year the flag was adopted, what the Constitution gained in 1982, or which territory was created in 1999. You will never be asked what you think about Quebec sovereignty or about a political party. Learn the facts and the dates, and leave the arguments aside.

This article follows the chronology from 1945 to the present and ends with practice questions and answers. To see where this chapter fits in the wider study program, read the guide Canada Explained. For the legal content of the Charter, meaning the rights it guarantees section by section, see the Charter of Rights and Freedoms explained instead.

Key dates of modern Canada

A short list of dates covers most of the test questions on this period. Learn them as a block, then practise linking each date to its event in a single sentence.

• 1945: Canada is one of the founding members of the United Nations
• 1949: Newfoundland becomes the tenth province and Canada helps found NATO
• 1957: Lester B. Pearson wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Suez Crisis
• 1960: the Quiet Revolution begins in Quebec with the election of Jean Lesage's government
• 1965: the maple leaf flag is raised for the first time on February 15; the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan are created
• 1967: the Centennial of Confederation and Expo 67 in Montreal
• 1969: the Official Languages Act is passed
• 1971: Canada becomes the first country to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy
• 1980: the first Quebec referendum; the majority votes to stay in Canada
• 1982: patriation of the Constitution and adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• 1988: the Canadian Multiculturalism Act is passed
• 1995: the second Quebec referendum; the No side wins by a very narrow margin
• 1999: Nunavut is created on April 1

These thirteen markers cover the large majority of date questions in the chapter. One study tip: do not memorize the list in the abstract. Attach each year to an image or a person, for example 1965 and the red and white flag rising up the pole, or 1999 and the map of Canada being redrawn in the Arctic. The chapter quizzes work through these markers one at a time.

The postwar years: prosperity, social programs and a world role

After 1945, the Canadian economy grew for decades and governments built the major social programs that still define the country. Factories ran at full speed, cities spread outward into suburbs, and hundreds of thousands of people from Europe settled in Canada. The Canadian standard of living became one of the highest in the world.

The social programs arrived in stages rather than all at once. Unemployment insurance, now called employment insurance, was introduced by the federal government in 1940. Old Age Security traces back to a 1927 law. The Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan both date from 1965. Publicly funded health care began in Saskatchewan in the late 1940s before being adopted across the country during the 1960s.

The name to remember for medicare is Tommy Douglas, premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961. His province launched the first public hospital insurance plan in North America, then a medical care insurance plan in 1962. The federal government followed with the Medical Care Act of 1966 and the Canada Health Act of 1984. Remember too that health care, education and social services are mainly provincial responsibilities.

Canada also took on a larger role abroad. It was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and of NATO in 1949, fought in Korea from 1950 to 1953, and signed the NORAD agreement with the United States in 1958. Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for helping resolve the Suez Crisis through a United Nations peacekeeping force, and became prime minister in 1963. Other figures from this era come up often on the test: see our article on famous Canadians worth knowing.

The maple leaf flag and the Centennial of 1967

The red and white maple leaf flag was raised for the first time on Parliament Hill on February 15, 1965. Before that date, Canada mainly used the Canadian Red Ensign and the Union Jack. February 15 is now National Flag of Canada Day.

Choosing the flag took a long parliamentary debate in 1964, under the government of Lester B. Pearson. Hundreds of designs were put forward. The winning design, a red eleven-pointed maple leaf between two red bands, owes much to the historian George Stanley, who drew on the flag of the Royal Military College in Kingston. Red and white have been Canada's official colours since 1921.

Two years later, the country celebrated its Centennial. In 1967, Canada marked one hundred years since Confederation in 1867, and Montreal hosted the world's fair known as Expo 67, which drew millions of visitors from around the globe. The Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honour, was also created in 1967. These celebrations gave Canada new national symbols at a time when the country was defining itself less through its ties to Britain.

Another symbol date falls in the same era: O Canada, first sung in 1880, only became the official national anthem on July 1, 1980. The Olympic Games also marked these decades, with Montreal in 1976, Calgary in 1988 and Vancouver in 2010.

The Quiet Revolution in Quebec during the 1960s

The Quiet Revolution was the era of rapid change Quebec experienced in the 1960s: the provincial state modernized, the Church lost the central role it had held in education and social services, and a new nationalism took shape. It is usually dated from the election of Jean Lesage's Liberal government in 1960.

The reforms came quickly and ran deep. Quebec created its Ministry of Education in 1964 and moved schools, colleges and hospitals from religious communities to state responsibility. The provincial public service grew and became professional. The Quebec Pension Plan, created in 1965, gave the province its own public retirement plan, separate from the Canada Pension Plan.

Electricity became the symbol of this modernization. Hydro-Quebec had existed since 1944, but the nationalization of the private power companies, decided in 1963, turned it into a major public corporation. Natural resources minister Rene Levesque was its main champion, campaigning in the 1962 election under the slogan "Maitres chez nous", meaning masters in our own house. The large dams built afterwards in the north of the province reshaped its economy.

The Quiet Revolution also fed a lasting political debate about Quebec's place in Canada. Some Quebecers wanted the province to separate from the country. Rene Levesque left the Liberal Party and founded the Parti Quebecois in 1968; that party formed the government of Quebec for the first time in 1976. This is the background to the two referendums discussed below.

The Official Languages Act of 1969 and the October Crisis of 1970

The Official Languages Act, passed in 1969, gave English and French equal status in Parliament, throughout the federal government and in the federal courts. It also guarantees the right to receive federal services in either language where numbers warrant.

The Act grew out of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, created in 1963. It led to the appointment of a Commissioner of Official Languages, whose job is to oversee how the law is applied. In the same year, New Brunswick became the only officially bilingual province in the country, a detail the test likes to check. The topic is developed in our article on official languages and bilingualism.

The following year, Quebec went through a serious political crisis. In October 1970, a group called the Front de liberation du Quebec kidnapped the British diplomat James Cross and then the Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte, who was killed. The federal government invoked the War Measures Act and the army was deployed in the province. These events are known as the October Crisis.

The October Crisis marked the end of organized political violence in Quebec. The debate over the province's future moved to elected assemblies and to the ballot box. For the test, it is enough to place the episode in 1970 and to understand that it stands out as an exception in a Canadian political history that has stayed peaceful.

Multiculturalism, from the 1971 policy to the 1988 Act

Canada adopted multiculturalism as an official policy in 1971, the first country in the world to do so, and then wrote the principle into law with the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988. Those are the two dates to know for this topic.

The 1971 policy rested on a simple idea: Canada has two official languages but no official culture. The government committed to supporting cultural groups that wanted to keep their heritage alive, to helping their members overcome barriers to full participation in society, to encouraging exchanges between communities, and to promoting the learning of at least one official language.

The Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 turned that policy direction into a standing legal obligation for the federal government. In between, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 had already stated that it must be interpreted in a way that preserves and enhances the multicultural heritage of Canadians. The Canadian Human Rights Act, passed in 1977, separately bans discrimination in areas of federal responsibility.

Immigration changed shape in the same era. Starting in 1967, Canada selected immigrants through a points system based on criteria such as education, work experience and knowledge of the official languages, replacing preferences tied to country of origin. Canadian diversity is far older than 1971, though: it includes Black communities settled here for centuries, a story covered in our article on the Underground Railroad and Black history in Canada.

The Quebec referendums of 1980 and 1995

Quebec held two referendums on its future, in 1980 and in 1995; both times, the majority of voters chose to stay in Canada. That is the exact wording the official guide uses, and the wording to remember.

The first referendum was held on May 20, 1980, under the government of Rene Levesque. The question asked for a mandate to negotiate a new arrangement with the rest of Canada, described as sovereignty-association. The No side won by a clear margin.

The second referendum took place on October 30, 1995, under the government of Jacques Parizeau. The outcome was very different in feel: the No side won again, but the gap between the two camps was so small that the vote remains one of the closest in the country's history. Turnout was exceptionally high.

The debate continued through legal and parliamentary channels. In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada issued an opinion on the conditions for any secession, and the federal Parliament passed the Clarity Act in 2000. In 2006, the House of Commons recognized that the Quebecois form a nation within a united Canada. The test sticks to the facts: two referendums, two decisions to remain in Canada, and a parliamentary recognition in 2006.

The patriation of the Constitution in 1982

In 1982, Canada patriated its Constitution: until then, only the British Parliament could amend the country's founding text. Patriation gave Canada an amending formula of its own, completing its legal independence.

The Constitution Act, 1982 was proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth II in Ottawa on April 17, 1982, with Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau present. Canada had already been fully sovereign since the Statute of Westminster in 1931, but changing its Constitution still had to go through London. After 1982, that detour was no longer required.

The 1982 text also added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects fundamental freedoms, democratic rights, mobility rights, legal rights, equality rights and language rights. The same Act recognizes and affirms the existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. The detail of those protections is set out in our guide to the rights the Charter guarantees.

The Quebec government of the day did not agree to the 1982 text, even though it applies throughout the province. Two attempts at compromise followed: the Meech Lake Accord, reached in 1987 but lapsing in 1990 when it was not ratified by every province, and the Charlottetown Accord, rejected in a national referendum in 1992. The test will not ask you to judge these episodes, only to know that they happened and when.

Nunavut, the official apology and reconciliation

Nunavut was created on April 1, 1999 from the eastern part of the Northwest Territories, including Baffin Island. Its capital is Iqaluit, its name means "our land" in Inuktitut, and most of its population is Inuit. The territory came out of a land claims agreement signed in 1993, the largest in Canadian history.

The same period saw Canada confront a painful chapter of its past. From the 1800s until the 1980s, the federal government placed many Indigenous children in residential schools, far from their families, in order to assimilate them into the mainstream culture. Many were mistreated and lost their languages. In 2008, the Government of Canada formally apologized to the former students in the House of Commons.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission worked from 2008 to 2015. It gathered testimony from thousands of survivors and published a final report in December 2015, along with 94 calls to action addressed to governments, schools, churches and other institutions. Since 2021, September 30 has been the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a federal statutory holiday.

For the test, hold on to three things: the creation of Nunavut in 1999, the residential schools and the 2008 apology, and the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The three groups of Indigenous peoples recognized in the Constitution, First Nations, Metis and Inuit, are covered in detail in our article on the Indigenous peoples of Canada.

Canada today: immigration and diversity

Canada is now one of the most diverse countries in the world: according to Statistics Canada's 2021 Census, about one in four people living in the country was born abroad, the highest share since Confederation. The official guide describes Canada as a land of immigrants.

Where newcomers come from has changed a great deal since 1945. Immigration came mostly from Europe in the postwar years; today it comes from every part of the world, and especially from Asia. The metropolitan areas of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver receive a large share of arrivals, but the Prairies and the Atlantic provinces are attracting more and more new residents as well.

This diversity sits inside a shared framework, and it is that framework the test measures. The two official languages remain English and French. The law applies to everyone in the same way. New citizens are encouraged to learn one of the official languages, obey the law, vote and take part in community life. Cultural diversity and equality before the law are presented as two sides of the same identity.

Economically, modern Canada rests above all on services, which employ most of the workforce, along with natural resources, manufacturing and technology. The United States is by far its largest trading partner. Canada belongs to the G7, the Commonwealth, la Francophonie and the United Nations.

What the test asks about modern Canada

Questions about modern Canada almost always ask for a date, a name or a definition, never for an opinion. Practise with the questions below, which follow the usual phrasing of the test.

• In what year was the maple leaf flag raised for the first time? In 1965, on February 15.
• What was the Quiet Revolution? The era of rapid change Quebec experienced during the 1960s.
• How many referendums has Quebec held on its future, and what was the result? Two, in 1980 and 1995; both times the majority voted to stay in Canada.
• What was added to the Constitution in 1982? The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
• Which law was passed in 1969 for English and French? The Official Languages Act.
• In what year did Canada adopt multiculturalism as an official policy? In 1971; the Canadian Multiculturalism Act followed in 1988.
• Which territory was created in 1999? Nunavut, whose capital is Iqaluit.
• In which province did public health care begin, and under which premier? In Saskatchewan, under Tommy Douglas.
• What did the House of Commons recognize in 2006? That the Quebecois form a nation within a united Canada.

If you hesitated on three or more of these answers, go back to the list of dates at the top of the article before moving on. Questions from this chapter are easy points: the answers are short and they do not change. Then test yourself with a timed practice exam and let smart review bring back the dates you keep forgetting.

Key points to remember

Modern Canada comes down to a sequence of dated steps: the postwar social programs, the 1965 flag, the 1967 Centennial, the Quiet Revolution and the Official Languages Act of 1969, multiculturalism in 1971 and 1988, the referendums of 1980 and 1995, the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, Nunavut in 1999 and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Master those markers and this chapter will stop costing you points.

The next step is to connect this chapter to the ones before it, from Confederation in 1867 through the two world wars, and then to practise on mixed questions. The guide Canada Explained brings every test topic together in one place, and the chapter quizzes let you check where you stand section by section.