Administration and social conditions of Quebec

Government

Quebec's administrative system can be defined as government through parliamentary democracy.

An elected unicameral National Assembly is the equivalent of the parliamentary institutions of

other Canadian provinces; its second chamber was abolished in 1968. A lieutenant governor

represents the British monarch. The Executive Council, or Cabinet, is headed by a prime minister

who is responsible to the National Assembly for all legislation within provincial jurisdiction. The

Executive Council has responsibility for preparing legislation for the National Assembly. The

administration follows the parliamentary principle that a prime minister and his Cabinet will

remain in power as long as the prime minister is able to command a majority in parliament.

An unusual characteristic of Quebec is its administration of justice. Although its Department of

Justice, as in other Canadian provinces, has a dual responsibility for criminal and civil laws, the

civil law of Quebec is different from that in the other Canadian provinces. It follows the civil

code of the French rather than the English common law followed by the rest of Canada. Quebec

also has its own provincial police, La Sûreté Provinciale du Québec, who have taken over this

responsibility from the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Although the economy is shared

with an English-speaking minority, political life has for some time been dominated by

French-speaking Canadians. From 1936 to 1976 the parliamentary government was in the

hands of either Union Nationale or the Liberal Party, both controlled by politicians of French

descent. In 1976 a new separatist-minded party, Parti Québécois, won control and, until they

were ousted in 1985, fought a continuing battle against its Anglophone citizens and against the

federal power in Ottawa.

Education

Nothing shows more clearly the complex nature of Quebec than its educational system.

Organized originally along religious and linguistic lines and largely privately financed, it has

become, for all practical purposes, a public system since 1964 under the provincial Department

of Education. Larger sums are spent each year on education. Although the religious dichotomy

between Protestants and Roman Catholics has been maintained, it is largely along linguistic lines

that the separation continues. A problem causing tensions is the growth in the number of

English-speaking pupils, while, because of the low birth rate, the number of French-speaking

pupils at the elementary level is decreasing. The law permits parents to choose the language of

education, and increasing numbers of persons are choosing English.

Organized on the normal structure of preschool, elementary, secondary, and college-university

levels, the educational system has created the Colleges of General and Professional Studies,

which act as two-year pre-university-level institutions. There are three English-speaking and four

French-speaking universities; of the latter, the University of Quebec has numerous remote

campuses, including those at Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Chicoutimi.

Health and welfare

The provincial government has an integrated system of health and social services. More than 200

hospitals are under government administration to serve the health care needs of the people.

Social assistance is available for the indigent, the elderly, dependent children, and others in need.

Although sharing with the rest of Canada one of the world's highest standards of living, Quebec

has a larger proportion of unemployed and persons on social security than the Canadian

average. The cost of social aid is one of the highest among provincial governments in Canada.

This situation is explained by the fact that age, health, level of education and training, and similar

factors place a higher percentage of the population below the requirements of a modern

industrialized society. In the late 20th century the Quebec government developed minimum-wage

legislation, reorganized its health service, and introduced universal medicare.

The relation among economic development, social conditions, and educational level remains one

of the basic causes of the political tension between French and English, on the one hand, and

between the federal and the provincial governments, on the other. Although Quebec has

transformed some of its institutions in order to meet the difficult demands of an industrial society,

the changes are yet too recent to be able to determine whether they will improve the present

situation permanently.