CBC Archives

Emergence of the Bloc Québécois
Quebec's place within Canada's political family has always been conflicted. The Meech Lake Accord was a failed attempt to bring Quebec into the 1982 Constitution. As we learn in this report the failure of Meech led to the creation of the Bloc Québécois, a group that sought to be the official voice for a sovereign Quebec in Ottawa.

Reform Party Becomes Official Opposition
As we saw in chapter one, the alienation of many Western Canadians from Canada's political system led to the emergence of a political movement that today forms the basis of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party. A milestone on the path to legitimizing this regional protest movement was reached when the Reform Party became the official opposition under leader Preston Manning.

The West and the National Energy Policy
Policies such as Pierre Trudeau's National Energy Policy (NEP) served to provoke opposition in Western Canada. In this report on the evening of Trudeau's death, we see how the NEP resonates still.

The Cleavage of Western Alienation
Although he became extremely unpopular in Western Canada, Pierre Trudeau never shied away from expressing his opinions on how to reconcile Canada's regional identities. In this clip of Trudeau just as he emerged on the national scene, the new prime minister calls regional loyalty "a good thing."

TVO's The Agenda

Is Canada Governable?
There are western parties. There are eastern parties. In this episode, Steve Paikin asks: is regionalism making Canada less governable?