From 1963 to 1971, during a period that witnessed growing stress and strain in Quebec’s relations with the federal government, Claude Morin was Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in Quebec. In setting forth his point of view on many of the issues and conflicts with Ottawa, from the pension plan to the constitutional conferences, this book should help English-speaking Canadians to an understanding of the Québécois ideas of federalism during these years and of how people in Quebec can come to believe that sovereignty is essential. Quebec versus Ottawa is an edited and updated translation by Richard Howard of Le Pouvoir Québécois…en négotiation, published in French in 1972, and Le Combat québécois (1973). It thus has two parts ‘Experience,’ dealing more with the facts of Quebec-Ottawa relations during the troubled sixties, and ‘Answers,’ describing the structure and rules of Canadian federalism as the author experience them. M. Morin is not presenting arguments for the independence of Quebec but is rather recording and evaluating his experience of how our government works – a rare thing for a senior civil servant to do.
