I would like to give my opinion regarding the leaders of a Québec civ.
Personnally, René Lévesque and Samuel de Champlain are the first two that I would put in as leaders. You can see why with my interpretation of all the leaders Québec had from the colonization until today.
First, regarding the Nouvelle-France period... (1534-1759)
Samuel de Champlain
He is the founder of Québec city. Although Jacques Cartier discovered the land and made first contact with the natives, Samuel did start it up and settle what then become Nouvelle-France and known today as Québec.
Louis de Buade Frontenac
He was a governer of Nouvelle-France. He enlarged the territory and had several victories over the English and the Iroquois. He is the one stating the reknown phrase "Je n'ai point de réponse à faire à votre général que par la bouche de mes canons et de mes fusils" / "I have nothing to answer to your general but from the mouth of my canons and my guns". Phipps was defeated right after that.
Louis-Hector de Callière
Governer of Nouvelle-France. In 1701, most of all the native nations did signed his "Traité de la Grande Paix", "Great Peace Treaty". It was the first time that one European nation was in north america to bring peace and give them a huge support. It ended almost all indian wars ragarding European's interests.
Other important names of Nouvelle-France, Jean-Talon, Louis Jolliet, Montcalm, Vaudreuil...
Montcalm was a general and hehad a very bad impression of Nouvelle-France when he first came in. He said "I'd lose a battle rather than winning it with the help of the locals". He won few battles but, did not obey often to the governer Vaudreuil. I fail to see why we would make him a leader of a Québec civilization.
From 1763 until 1866, under the british domination...
Louis Joseph Papineau
He is the spiritual father of the rebellions (1837-1838) and the idea of an independence. He was the leader of Lower-Canada (Québec) from 1815 until 1837.
Other important names can be mentionned as the founding fathers of the idea of the independence but, his name comes first.
From 1867 until the 1960, the Dominion of Canada...
Georges-Etienne Cartier
One of the two founding fathers of the dominion of Canada with John A. MacDonald. He strongly defended the interests of the people of Québec, something that John was trying to avoid secretly without success. Well, that is what he thought. Québec became only a simple province among others instead of being a founding nation. The queen Victoria gave the title of "Knight of the Order of the Bath" To MacDonald and it deeply hurts Cartier. He became a pathetic loser afterward. Like defending the New Brunswick decision to abolish French schools for the Acadians.
Maurice Duplessi
His era was known as the Grande Noirceur / Big Black Out... or litaraly, the Big Darkness. Won 5 times the elections and had a huge support from the churches. He was very conservative but, a little nationalistic. He did dare and fought the federal a couple of times. He adopted the current Quebec flag.
Honoré Mercier, Wilfrid Laurier, Henri Bourassa and Adélard Godbout are other names to be mentionned in that period.
From 1960 until today, the birth of the name Québécois and the modern patriotism...
René Lévesque
Although independentist movements already exist in multiple form, he is the father of "Souveraineté-Association" concept. He successfully joined all the independentist forces together in one single party. He had the idea of a democratic process to give Québec its independence with a referendum. From 0% to 40% in 1980, Lévesque gave birth to a movement that would never stop. Even after his death, the sovereignty is gaining in importance and it seems that nothing can stop it. With a tight result of 49,4% in 1995, the last days of the actual union are running on borrowed time. The federal system is still failing to provide Québec the respect of a founding nation and it keeps on feeding the independentist feeling into the population. The sovereignty movement became way bigger than its creator.
Jacques Parizeau
Tryied to continu the Lévesque project and did a referendum in 1995 with the result of 49,4% in favor of sovereignty. He came close to realize Lévesque's dream but failed and resigned afterward.
Lucien Bouchard
He had a huge impact in the 1995's referendum and was a very charismatic political man. He took the lead of Parti Québécois after Jacques Parizeau but, failed to promote the idea of sovereignty and he resigned in 2001.
Bernard Landry
Did an impressive aggrement with the Cree nation and settle the Québec nation as being the first one to recognize a native nation as a sovereign one. He accomplished few interesting things but, Landry took the lead after Bouchard left and he was defeated in 2003.
Although these three men had an impact on our modern society, I do not beleive their names should be taken into the creation of a Québec civilization. Unless it is for a specific scenario.
To demystify Québec...
For those of you foreigners that wonder why the province of Québec would be a civilization or a nation... let me give you a very short recap.
The French founded the Nouvelle-France in the early 1600's. In the mean time, the English were establishing their domination on the east coast of north american, the Portugueses in Brazil, the Dutch tried to be present in few places and the Spanish colonized all the rest.
The French had to adapt at the new environnement and they became very different from the ones of the old continent. They called themselve Canadien and that name lasted until they changed it to Québécois somewhere between 1950 and 1970.
The French domination of North America ended in 1763 when they gave up the Nouvelle-France to England after losing a battle in the St Lawrence river. Although the English tried many times, they never assimilated the French. They adopted the name of Canadian as an astuce to not recognize the existence of Canadien nation. Pretending that English-Canadian and French-Canada were just simple charateristics of the Canadian nation.
With the creation of Canada in 1867, French Canadians saw themselve as one of the two founding nations of the country. While the English Canadians saw themselve as the only one creator and us being part of them.
To make a long story short, Québec is and always been a nation. The hot debate today in Québec is... is that nation can be respected as one as autonomous region of Canada? or, does it need to become sovereign to do so?
In the mean time in English Canada, the debate rather sounds like... should we do whatever it takes to keep Québec against its will? or should we let it go because we do not want them to be a nation within our federal system?
The opposite views are called "Les deux solitudes", "The two lonelinesses".
As the UU, I don't really know what it should be.
-Coureurs des bois is fine.
-A patriot could be fine too. A kind of Musketter very costless.
Modern Québec society is very avangardist. The creation of Hydro-Québec and its huge projects like the high tension lines and the Manic 5. The first one in the world trying the 730 KV high tension lines. Bombardier, from the snow mobiles to the aeronautics. Quebecor, Alcan, et al. What is impressive is that prior to 1950, Québec was ******** because of the huge influence of the churches. This society did a huge jump foward in a very short period of time that is also called "La révolution tranquile", "the quite revolution".
Regarding the relations with the English Canadians... you must understand that despite their political differences, the relations are pretty good. There is no harm from one another and with the exception of few red necks on both side, the two nations are very friendly. But the misunderstanding between the two of them regarding what Canada should be will probably lead the country to the separation of Québec.
I hope my two cents and an half help some people...
This is a mod thread so, if some people would like to discuss and debate politic regarding the sovereignty project, you should invite us into the proper forum for that. S'il vous plait...