Quebec’s Relations with the United States under Jean Charest: Building a Special Relationship
Stéphane Paquin, dans Donald E. Abelson and Stephen Brooks (eds.), History Has Made Us Friends: Canada-US Relations, McGill-Queen’s Press.
Quebec’s relationship with the US is of vital importance. Louis Balthazar (2006), the researcher who has most analyzed the relationship between the US and Quebec, argues that Quebec’s southern neighbour has been, “for better or for worse, an essential partner in Quebec’s development” (115; author’s translation). There is clearly no “special relationship” between Quebec and the US like the one between Canada and the US (Blanchard 1998; Paquin 2014a, 2016).
Still, if historically it was the France–Quebec relationship that favoured the construction of an international policy on the part of the Quebec government from the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s onwards, the US has gradually become a central object of concern. Today, the budgets Quebec allocates to Quebec–US relations have grown to exceed those for France–Quebec relations. This has been the case since the early 2000s, around the time Jean Charest became premier of Quebec (2003–12).
Stéphane Paquin
Professeur, École nationale d'administration publique
Directeur exécutif du GÉRIQ
