Measuring national identity and patterns of attachment: Quebec and nationalist mobilization

To develop a better sense of the strength, nature and evolution of Quebecers’ identities and attachments this article examines all publicly available survey research on Quebecers’ identity and attachment collected over the last three decades. I conclude that a French Canadian identity has been gradually replaced by a Québécois identity; that this transformation is far from complete, which represents a serious hurdle for nationalist mobilization; that attachment to Canada remains strong (though weaker than attachment to Quebec); and that Quebecers see themselves as members of two tangled, overlapping national communities: Canadian and Québécois, and have rejected calls from intellectuals and nationalist leaders to choose between these two identities.