Montreal Gazette - Quiet Revolution: Heady times haunt us still

On the anniversary day this week, McGill University assembled a panel of eminent Quiet Revolution veterans for a conference to shed the light of first-hand experience on the period. All agreed that it was a heady, historic and transformational time, but also conceded that the exercise had its failings that haunt us still.

"We had so many things to change. It was done within the framework concept of becoming masters in our house. It wasn't an organized revolution. But then I doubt there's any such thing."

It actually wasn't a revolution at all, said moderator Yvan Lamonde, head of McGill's Quebec studies program. "It was a reform, more like a catching up."

He noted that Quebec was by far the last Canadian province to get an education ministry and that Ontario-Hydro predated that jewel in the Quiet Revolution crown, Hydro-Quebec, by more than half a century.

It was a response to crying needs, in areas such as education, the pension and health care systems, said Antonia Maioni, director of McGill's Institute for the Study of Canada. "This government was out to do something because there was a need, not because they had these newfangled ideas and wanted to ram through a revolution. "