Quebec sovereigntists rally in Montreal on 30th anniversary of 1995 Referendum
Posted October 25, 2025 5:39 pm.
Last Updated October 25, 2025 6:26 pm.
Montrealers gathered at Carré Saint-Louis on Saturday for the March to Independence, hosted by Oui Québec and the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal.
The event marked 30 years since the 1995 Quebec referendum and aimed to highlight a renewed wave of support for Quebec’s sovereigntist movement.
“So there’s two big changes of the independence movement,” said Camille Goyette Gingras, president of Oui Québec. “The first one, first and foremost, of course, is that the movement is now lead by a new generation, by youth. The second thing is it’s a citizen movement. Whereas in 1995, it was really more around political parties. Now we really feel that it’s profoundly, the initiative comes from citizens.”
“It feels really exciting,” said demonstrator Adam Levis-Paquette. “I wasn’t expecting all these people. I wasn’t expecting that energy. It’s really, really fun to be honest.”
“I think that there’s a lot of misconceptions with anglos and Quebec as independence,” said demonstrator Nicolas Frenette. “I know that as a basis, we as a core love our French language. French is very, very important. It’s part of Quebec. It’s part of our history. But we can’t forget that other people have other languages, other cultures and as an independent Quebec, we need to accept that English people do exist.”
The rally came as a recent Léger poll found that 65 per cent of respondents are not interested in sovereignty.
“It’s somewhat normal that this number isn’t impressive right now,” said Marie-Anne Alepin, president of Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal. “It’s the base number we should be looking at. Support for ‘yes’ usually stays between 35 and 40 per cent, and we’re not even in a campaign. And before the 1995 referendum, support was about the same.”
“That’s really the way we’ve taken the independence project as a, like a big party for, you know, the pleasure to be from Quebec and to share those values that we have,” said Gingras.
“If you ever think that you don’t belong somewhere, well Quebec is here to take you with open arms and accept you for who you are,” said Frenette.
