A Diagram for Division in Canada

...The Court, however, declined to deal with the prospect of the negotiations becoming dead locked...

...There is a distinct possibility that Bouchard and the PQ will return to power...

...The Court had to avoid producing a decision the PQ could use to whip up nationalist sentiment and win re-election in the balloting that must be held before the end of 1999, and could be held as early as next month...

...Not incidentally, the approach also took away the potential PQ election issue, since the separatists definitely gained by the decision...

...The Court's determination that the rest of Canada cannot stonewall a province if it really wants to leave, and fully understands the ramifications of such an action, is in a legal sense a radical departure...

...In an ambiguous situation the Federal government could still avoid negotiations...

...The Court, though, did not actually define "clear...

...Surveys found that voters did not fully understand what was presented to them...

...The nine justices did add an element of specificity to the rules of the game, a development welcomed by the Federalist camp...

...The separatists have always insisted it would, knowing full well that they approached one with great difficulty...

...In other words, the Court had to show that a UDI was verboten under both domestic and international law without giving the impression of being a tool of the Federal government...

...Instead, the matter was settled on the battlefield...

...The Court examined the issue of a sufficient majority, too...

...To that end, the justices, while denying that the right of selfdetermination entitles Quebec to secede unilaterally, went on to discuss the immediate steps that had to be taken should the next referendum end in an irrefutable majority Yes vote...

...So in spelling out the process (though not the terms), the Court was charting new ground and had little to go on in the way of precedents from other countries...

...The impetus for the latest development was the fallout from the near-disastrous 1995 Quebec referendum, when a vote in favor of independence was narrowly averted...

...By pointedly using the adjective "clear" several times in the opinion, it appeared to be suggesting that a simple majority would not suffice...

...Rather, it was a carefully crafted Supreme Court of Canada decision that laid out in simple terms exactly what secession would mean and what Quebec would have to do to realize it...

...The climate itself has not changed, but the last few months have been the summer of Canada's discontent —particularly given the seemingly inexorable slide of the currency to unprecedented lows...

...Meanwhile, Prime Minister Chrétien continues to recite the mantra that things are just fine, that Canadians should not worry, that the Supreme Court decision was a great victory for the Federalist cause...

...This came to be known as Plan B. (Plan A was to continue to try to persuade Quebecers to vote No in any subsequent referendum...

...Other countries have survived similar periods and this one will too, but the rapidity and depth of the currency decline have been surprising and even shocking in a nation that has elevated gradualism to high principle...

...He was complacent when the country nearly went down the drain in 1995, and he still is today, even though the dollar is sinking and the Court has turned his Plan ? into a diagram for dividing the country he leads...

...That has been distressing to all except the most diehard exporters, some economists and a few blinkered politicians in Ottawa...

...In the referendum campaigns of 1980 and 1995 the PQ deliberately obfuscated the proposition in order to maximize the likelihood of winning approval...

...That would set the stage for Round Three of what is known locally as the "Neverendum," and certainly could lead to a majority Yes vote...

...But politically it amounts to stating the obvious...

...The next big test is the Quebec general election...

...The Court's silence on that issue was not exactly Lincolnesque, nor was it inspirational...

...Moreover, dismantling a modern state represents, in its way, a more formidable administrative task than the Americans faced in 1776...

...The United States, for instance, never did resolve the question legally...

...With the effectively devalued loony (as the Canadian one dollar coin is referred to here) trading at around 66 cents U.S., the cost of everything from fruits and vegetables to Florida vacations has gone up...

...In fairness, though, it is hard to imagine the highest court of very many countries being prepared to detail the procedure whereby one of their provinces could secede...

...In these circumstances the Liberals, who generally attract voters from the more populous urban districts, could win the ballots of more Quebecers than the PQ and still find that the PQ has a majority of seats in the province's Legislative Assembly...

...Thus, should there be a third referendum, both sides will argue not only about the merits of secession and the wording of the question, but about how great a majority is needed...

...Writing the ultimately unanimous opinion, finally handed down on August 20, was a process fraught with danger...

...In September 1996, to clarify the situation, Minister of Justice Allan Rock (currently the Health Minister) asked the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion called a reference—a procedure not available in the American legal system...

...Summer is a time for experiencing the joys of nature, preferably in a relaxed atmosphere...

...Harold M. Waller, who writes for the NL on Canadian affairs, is a professor of political science at McGill University...

...More ominously, there was evidence that Quebec's Prime Minister at the time, Jacques Parizeau, would then have announced a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) and thereby led the country into treacherous and uncharted waters...

...Where does all this leave Canada right now...

...Granted, the United States utilized the very same device in 1776, but Canada in 1995 was already independent and Quebec was certainly not a subjugated colony...

...This was widely hailed by the supporters of independence because it undermined one possible Federal tactic, a refusal to negotiate...

...This creates a conundrum for the PQ: If they put forward a transparent question, they will probably lose—especially if a majority larger than 50 per cent plus one is deemed mandatory...

...Federalists are hoping that a revived provincial Liberal Party, now led by the youthful and energetic Jean Charest—who gave up his post as national leader of the increasingly powerless Progressive Conservatives to enter Quebec politics—will regain power and obviate the possibility of another referendum...

...If the opinion appeared to be insensitive to the needs and interests of Quebec's French-speaking majority, separatist leaders such as Prime Minister Lucien Bouchard could point to it as another example of what they regard as the unacceptable and humiliating character of Canadian federalism...

...Had the proposition garnered another couple of percentage points, there would have been a constitutional crisis...

...Among other things, the PQ benefits from an electoral system that countenances apportionment anomalies between rural and urban constituencies, which works to the detriment of the opposition...

...It was not a political maneuver by the province's governing Parti Québécois (PQ) that again raised the specter of separatism...

...If they achieve a bare majority with a confusing question, their demand for negotiations, not to mention secession, might well be declared illegitimate...

...The country can't ignore the implications of a majority vote by Quebec to opt out...

...Although the situation is not comparable to what has occurred in Russia or Asia or, of late, Latin America, it has sent a message to dismayed Canadians that the world does not value their economic output highly...

...If the sudden drop in their wealth and standard of living were not enough to ruin the vacation season, Canadians also found themselves confronting a new wrinkle in the old yet still festering issue of Quebec's separation from the federation: In August there emerged a legal prescription for moving toward that goal...

...Their conclusion was that if the question placed before the voters were forthright, the Federal government and the other provinces would have no choice but to negotiate secession terms with Quebec...

...For a future referendum to have any legitimacy, it will have to be free of the confusing euphemisms for independence that were featured prominently in the previous questions, like "sovereignty-association" or "partnership...

...But the Liberal spurt in opinion polls that followed his uncontested spring leadership drive seems to be fading...

...What if the parties could not agree on a constitutional amendment or recommended one that was not approved by a required complex procedure involving all the provinces...

...Consequently, during the period of uncertainty following the 1995 referendum, the Federal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien began to devise a scenario for responding to a UDI in the event of a future vote favoring secession...