Separation anxiety Back to square one: Quebec is still in Canada, by a vote that revealed significant divisions in the province itself
Bishop, Jordan
Jordan Bishop SEPARATION ANXIETY Quebec fails to secede Even when it's finally over, it may not be over. That seems to be the consensus following October's hard-fought referendum on Quebec's...
...The "two solitudes" are very real, as was clear in a nationwide constitutional referendum held in 1992...
...In a word, there is a serious crisis and it does not look as if it will go away, not in this century, not well into the next...
...Love and the status quo are unacceptable...
...Canada is now back to square one...
...Most Canadian elections manage to get something like 70 percent of eligible voters to the polls...
...Louise Baudouin, Quebec's minister of intergovernmental affairs, said on the night of the referendum, "Love is not enough...
...Some political leaders in English Canada talk of a radical devolution of power, but demolishing the strong federal center would risk leaving Canada in a state of anarchy...
...In theory, that referendum was about the ratification of a constitutional agreement worked out in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island...
...The people of Quebec-and it is important to note that the Quebec leader of the Non forces, Daniel Johnson, habitually refers to Quebec as a people-do not really care what the rest of Canada does as long as they have their autonomy, as long as they can be, finally maitres chez eux...
...But it remains to be seen whether there is the imagination to achieve it...
...It has its own pension plan and some control over immigration, and it practices interventionist economic policies that are taboo to the New Right in the rest of the country...
...The side Chretien did take was both obvious and predictable, but his tactics left much to be desired...
...Those who sought independence failed by a slim percentage point...
...What was the referendum about...
...As for the future, Quebec nationalists were unequivocal: The October 30 vote was not the end...
...Since the Lesage government in the 1960s, Quebec has had the exercise of substantial powers that other provinces do not have...
...The English-speaking provinces are a collection of communities united by peace, order, and good government rather than by a strong nationalist sentiment...
...Unfortunately, most provincial premiers, particularly those in Western Canada, look at Canada as being a federation of ten equal provinces, much like the states in the American federation...
...The vote was, after all, a referendum within only the province of Quebec...
...Basically it was about Quebec achieving sovereignty in the context of a negotiated relationship with the rest of Canada...
...He writes from Ottawa...
...A majority of Quebec sovereignists strongly welcomes their continued presence and diversity...
...The Oui vote was 49.4 percent...
...Should a federal prime minister take sides...
...But, in fact, the question took on a different meaning for Quebec...
...Quebec has a sizable anglophone and allophone-immigrants whose mother tongues are other than French or English-population...
...Unfortunately, this is anathema to most political elites in English-speaking Canada...
...But as Mme...
...in the other provinces it was rejected because it undermined federalism...
...the Non vote was 50.6 percent...
...It could be argued that there is only one nation in Canada today, and that is Quebec with its French language, used as the primary language by over 80 percent of the population...
...By contemporary standards, the turnout was astronomical: 92 percent...
...Jordan Bishop is a frequent contributor to Commonweal...
...Give us some specifics...
...Flag-waving is alien to most Canadians, and some English Canadians were dismayed by the spate of it-literally-on the eve of the referendum...
...What is to be done...
...But in fact, it proclaimed loudly and clearly that the problems the separatists pose for the rest of Canada urgently require a resolution...
...As M. Lucien Bouchard, the de facto leader of the Oui forces, said, there will be another time, and it may be sooner than later...
...The problem is political, but perhaps it is more difficult for the rest of Canada than for Quebec itself...
...The Charlottetown agreement was eventually rejected by voters in all of Canada, but for very different reasons...
...Admittedly, his position is not an easy one...
...Perhaps the whole exercise boiled down to Quebeckers wanting formal recognition that they are a nation, distinct from the rest of Canada, a recognition they had not been allowed under present constitutional arrangements...
...Even a more independent Quebec must necessarily have some relationship with the rest of Canada...
...Quebec's provincial government would still govern if that were to happen, but in the rest of the country, Ottawa might be prevented from doing so...
...Jacques Parizeau, the Quebec premier, said the same thing following the vote, but in much harsher terms, blaming "money and the ethnic vote...
...He was convinced, up to the last days of the campaign, that once again, if the problem was ignored, it would go away...
...When the polls began to suggest that, far from going away, the "yes" side was ahead, Chretien's less-than-inspiring speeches at the eleventh hour had little or no impact...
...Quebeckers were not asked to make a clean break with Canada...
...But sovereignists immediately and almost unanimously disagreed with Parizeau's bitter words, and he resigned the next day...
...Is it possible to maintain the federation and yet structure it to the satisfaction of Quebec nationalists...
...But Canadian federalism has never functioned like this...
...Following the narrow victory of the Non, most responsible Canadians agree there is a need for real change...
...In Quebec it lost because it did not recognize the province's status as a distinct society...
...The October 30 vote was, technically, a loss for Quebec sovereignists...
...On the contrary, their provincial government, in posing the question of sovereignty on the referendum, envisaged a political relationship in which Quebeckers would retain Canadian citizenship, in which Canadian currency would be the coin of the realm, and in which the present commercial relationships would be retained...
...These were, no doubt, heartfelt and sincere...
...That seems to be the consensus following October's hard-fought referendum on Quebec's separation from the rest of Canada...
...The obvious solution, known in Canada as the "two-nation" theory, is to accept the situation as it exists, and to forge realistic relationships between the Quebec nation and the rest of the country...
...They are not a nation in the same sense as Quebec...
...When it became apparent that the separatists might actually win the October 30 referendum, Quebec was deluged with protestations of undying love from the rest of Canada...
...The rest of Canada does not have the same sense of being a nation, and has never needed it...
...It is true that only about 25 percent of Montreal's large ethnic contingent supported sovereignty, and that Non forces outside Quebec may have breached Quebec's spending limits by subsidizing travel to massive demonstrations staged in Montreal...
...In a very real sense the vote was a resounding setback for Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who, following in the footsteps of Pierre Trudeau, vehemently opposed any special status for Quebec...
...On Radio Canada's French language broadcast the night of the referendum, McGill University philosopher Charles Taylor said that what has struck him in the Canadian discussion of the Quebec question is its "lack of imagination...
Vol. 122 • December 1995 • No. 21
