Separatists should be careful what they wish for

By Lethbridge Herald on November 5, 2025.

Tom Johnston
For the Herald

On July 1, 2026, we will celebrate Canada’s 159th birthday. For much of that time Montréal was Canada’s largest city and top dog in terms of economic power. Fast forward to today and Toronto is now at the top of Canada’s economic hierarchy, Montréal is second, Vancouver third, Calgary fourth, and Edmonton ranks fifth. Montréal’s decline relative to Toronto was both precipitous and rapid.

One common measure of a city’s economic well-being and its position on the economic food chain, is the number of corporate headquarters it is able to attract. Included among the factors influencing such decisions are linkages to the global economy, the size and skill level of a city’s labour pool, its livability, cultural amenities, the quality of civic governance, and political stability.

I make no apologies for corporations nor am I naïve as to their motivations, but their locational decisions are a bellwether for a city’s overall health. It is a measure of a city’s ability to attract and retain business. 

It’s a fact that corporations are allergic to economic and political uncertainty. As a case in point, following the 1990 election of the NDP in Ontario, led by Bob Rae, I asked an oil executive friend of mine about his company’s thoughts on that development. He said his company was not particularly concerned. The consensus view was that the Rae government would certainly adopt some policy positions corporate Canada didn’t support, but they would govern with an even hand, and the environment for investment would not be racked by uncertainty. 

My friend then added that his company was more concerned with the situation in B.C. where Premier Bill Vander Zalm had a habit of announcing new policy on the fly, often in response to a reporter’s question. Uncertainty has a way of stifling business investment. 

And that brings me back to Montréal. As mentioned at the beginning, for much of our history, Montréal was Canada’s economic hub. Built on wealth from the fur trade, Montréal grew from a colonial backwater into the country’s preeminent financial centre. It was Canada’s largest city, the Port of Montréal was the lynchpin between Canada and Europe, and for decades Montréal boasted more corporate headquarters than any other city in Canada.

Then, starting in 1970, that all started to change. By 1981 Toronto had bypassed Montréal according to several key measures, most notably total population and the number of corporate headquarters. What happened?

Completion of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959, which allowed great-lakes freighters to bypass Montréal, and the general westward shift in the locus of Canada’s population growth linked to the post-OPEC Embargo oil boom and growing trade with Asia, were clearly factors.

But, as many commentators have noted, the election of the separatist Parti Québécois in 1970, which led to the first referendum on Québec independence in 1976, was the single most important factor responsible for the corporate exodus and the toppling of Montréal from the apex of Canada’s economic pyramid. Major Canadian companies including Redpath Sugar, Bank of Montreal, the Royal Bank of Canada and several pharmaceutical firms decamped for other cities, most but no all relocated to Toronto.

The uncertainty created by the independence movement was bad for business, but it also led to many families leaving the province. Between 1971 and 1981, the population of the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area grew by 11% while Montréal’s growth rate was 0.9%. Montréal has never regained its preeminent status in Canada’s urban system.

The consequences of Québec’s independence movement were not limited to corporate Montréal. In the ten years ending in 1981, for instance, Québec’s population growth rate was 6.8 percent compared to 12.9 percent for the country. Only Manitoba and Saskatchewan grew at slower rates. And over the period between 1991 and 1996 – Québec’s second referendum was in 1995 – Québec’s growth rate was 3.5 percent while the growth rate for the country as a whole was 5.7 percent. Granted, this was a slow-growth period across the country, but the political and economic uncertainty produced by the second referendum within Québec can’t be ignored.

As the conversation about Alberta separation heats up, as it seems likely to do, the experience of Québec in general and Montréal in particular are cautionary tales. 

Supporters of Alberta independence must be careful what they wish for.

Tom Johnston is Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography and Environment, University of Lethbridge. His research and teaching interests focused on rural geography, public policy, and the Geography of Canada.