Leader of Quebec separatist party to speak at Dartmouth May 25

Posted 05/20/99

Gilles Duceppe, leader of the separatist Bloc Québecois party in the Canadian Parliament, will deliver a public lecture titled "New Neighbors: the United States and an Independent Quebec" at Dartmouth on Tuesday, May 25. The lecture will take place at 4:30 p.m. in 105 Dartmouth Hall.

Duceppe's visit, which will include meetings with small groups of students and professors, is sponsored by the Dartmouth World Affairs Council, a student organization funded by Dartmouth's Dickey Center for International Understanding.

For more than a decade, Duceppe has been one of the principal political leaders of the Quebec sovereignty movement, and is responsible for the movement on the Canadian federal front. Notably, he was the first separatist elected to the Canadian Parliament in 1990. In 1997, Duceppe assumed leadership of the Bloc Québecois. Because his party has the second-largest plurality of seats in Canada's House of Commons, he simultaneously became Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.

Bloc Québecois said Duceppe's visit to Dartmouth will be the party's first effort under his leadership to dispel what it feels are American misconceptions of the Québecois stance. Currently the party is undergoing a reflection process to envision what an independent Quebec would be like and how it would relate to Canada, the United States, and the global community at large. Issues under discussion include the potential of its diversity and the realization of better institutions of direct democracy, including the possibility of moving away from Quebec's traditional British political structures.

Bloc Québecois also said it felt that Dartmouth, as a well-known and prestigious American institution of higher learning, would be an ideal forum to launch this new campaign in the United States. The party also expressed hope that this will be the first of many bridge-building events between the United States and the Bloc Québecois.