2025 Mallory Lecture: Back to the Future by Chantal Hébert

Join MISC for the 2025 Fall Mallory Lecture, “Back to the Future”, presented by Chantal Hébert on Wednesday, October 29th, 2025, 4 p.m. at the Mount Royal Center, 2200 Mansfield St.

Abstract of talk:

Back to the Future: at a time when the leading provincial party in Quebec and the ruling Alberta party are both looking at holding votes on secession, a look-back at the 1995 referendum and the 30-year constitutional peace that followed.

Thirty years ago this month, Quebec came within less than 20,000 votes from giving its government a mandate to negotiate its secession from the Canadian federation. Now that the unity issue is back on the radar, what, if any, lessons can be drawn from the 1995 near-death Canadian experience? And will blowing on the embers of the sovereignty flames really stand to reignite the issue, or could it instead extinguish them for another generation?

The talk will be followed by a Q&A and reception. This event is free and open to the public.

For more information about MISC and our events, please visit the MISC website.

Chantal Hébert is a freelance political columnist whose work is featured on radio, television and in print in both French and English. That includes a weekly participation on the political panel at Issue on the CBC’s The National, as well as on Peter Mansbridge’s Good Talk podcast on Sirius XM.

Ms. Hébert began her career in Toronto as a reporter for the regional newsroom of Radio-Canada in 1975 before moving on to Parliament Hill for Radio-Canada radio. She has served as parliamentary bureau chief for Le Devoir and La Presse before moving on to become a political columnist for the Toronto Star.

Hébert is a graduate of Glendon College, York University. She is a Senior Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto and hold honorary degrees from a dozen Canadian universities.

She is a recipient of two Asia-Pacific media fellowship (Malaysia and Japan). She is the 2005 recipient of the APEX Public Service Award. In 2 006, she received the Hy Solomon award for excellence in journalism and public policy as well as York University’s Pinnacle Achievement Bryden Alumni award.

In 2012, she was appointed to the Order of Canada. Her second book: The Morning After, dealing with the 1995 Quebec referendum, was published simultaneously in both official languages in 2015. In 2019, her peers in the Parliamentary Press Gallery awarded her the Charles Lynch award for her longstanding coverage of national issues. In 2024, she received the Michener-Baxter award for excellence in journalism. In 2025, she was appointed to l’Ordre national du Québec.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher McGill Institute for the Study of Canada