What Might Have Been

For Canadians of a certain age—and Chantal Hébert and Jean Lapierre, authors of The Morning After: The 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day That Almost Was, are both grandparents—Quebec nationalism was the defining political issue of our generation. It burst upon us with the death of Duplessis in 1959. Soon we were transfixed by the Quiet Revolution and the existential question: Quebec—in or out of Canada? This question preoccupied Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau throughout his 15 years as Liberal leader, while in Quebec the Parti Québécois emerged, took office, lost one referendum but won the following election, and then failed to stop the 1982 patriation of the -constitution.

Myths about Quebec’s exclusion from patriation set the stage for Brian Mulroney’s capturing Quebec as he swept the country in 1984. But Mulroney made the fateful promise to “bring Quebec into the constitution,” then failed to deliver. His old friend Lucien Bouchard quit his cabinet and...