Le Conseil général de la CEQ et l’arrimage de l’éducation à la souveraineté du Québec, 1990-1995.

Our thesis is a research on the history of teacher unionism in Quebec during the first half of the 1990s. More specifically, from the Congress of the Central Teachers of Quebec (CEQ) in June 1990 to the convocation by the Minister of Education of the Parizeau government of the Estates General on education in March 1995. Our research endeavors a milestone for a first critical history of teacher unionism to be constructed in its relationship to the history of education according to an initial observation that it is undervalued, even largely invisible in various fields of the humanities and social sciences (industrial relations, sociology and history). The CEQ is the central union of local federations and unions representing teachers in Quebec (primary, secondary and college and even university) and teaching professionals (pastoral animators at the time). The decision-making body of the CEQ is the National Congress which meets every two years; the application of the decisions of the Congress is done both by the National Office (Executive Council from June 1992) and the General Council of delegates of all the federations and all the local unions affiliated to the Centrale. This union agora, which meets six times a year, is the heart of the democratic, tumultuous life of the CEQ and studies all the reports, documents, analyzes, etc., which are submitted to it by the National Office / Executive Council, CEQ research unit or various committees. First, our thesis tackles the fact that Quebec teacher unionism is an unfinished and unfinished historical object. Our approach attempts to respond to this problematic link between historiography and history. Then, she proposed new milestones for a critical study of this history, in particular the failure of the first attempt to tie education to the sovereignty of Quebec from 1977 to 1984. But then, how was a Teacher Union able to evolve from an opposition of Marxist inspiration to any attempt at imposed reform of education and to a project of sovereignty considered as conservative and "capitalist" carried by the PQ in 1977-1985 to a proposal for a v comprehensive, neoliberal reform of education and support for a “social democratic” sovereignty carried by the same political party in 1994-1995? To explain and understand this historical paradox, we will study the new strategic orientations of the CEQ from the Congress of June 1990. Then, in a second step, from union archives - the minutes of the meetings of union delegates to the General Council of the CEQ -, our historical study relates to the second, the linkage of education made by the Centrale to the conquest of Quebec sovereignty, and in particular the role played by the General Council of union representatives in defining four positions: 1) the issue of deconfessionalization, then the secularity of the Quebec education system; 2) the development of intercultural education policy; 3) the political and strategic issues around the definition of Quebec sovereignty; 4) the participatory turning point and the proposal for a comprehensive education reform in Quebec. Finally, our historical research leads us to describe the teaching union memories that make the CEQ a special union organization in the history of the Quebec labor movement.

Keyphrases: Teachers, Unionism, Canada, General Council, CEQ, Labor movement, History