Quebec: Going, Going . . .
FRUM, DAVID
Quebec: Going, Going . . . by David Frum It was A scene from the Latin America of the 1950s, or, perhaps, the Europe of the 1930s. Near midnight, Jacques Parizeau, the heavyset, mustachioed...
...Since the election of the first separatist government in 1976, more than 100,000 Jews have moved out of the province...
...But nothing can mitigate the political implication of a separatist victory: that not even tolerant Canada could make a binational, bilingual state work...
...It makes no room for English speakers, many of whom can trace their families' arrival to the 18th century, or for French-speaking non-white immigrants...
...Three of the nine seats on Canada's Supreme Court are reserved for Quebeckers...
...So what should happen instead...
...English-Canadian optimists can rattle off a list of reasons why they can hope that the separatist vote will dwindle over the next 12 months...
...Amazingly, Canada permits provincial governments to practice economic discrimination against out-of-province firms...
...A true North American common market would help insure English Canada against the mood swings of the Quebec electorate-and would benefit the United States by ensuring that its largest trading partner does not stumble into an unnecessary slump...
...In the referendum campaign, they were promised that the citizens of a "sovereign" Quebec would retain their Canadian passports and would continue to use the Canadian dollar as their legal tender...
...Canada is a pleasant place to live, and French-Canadians do not look very much like an oppressed minority...
...Lawrence River...
...The first French-Canadian prime minister was elected in 1896...
...Government-appointed vote counters rejected 2 percent of all ballots cast for being improperly marked...
...Unlike Parizeau, whose resemblance to an old-fashioned Norman restaurateur perversely endeared him to English Canadians, Bouchard is a dark, Miltonic figure universally loathed in the rest of the country...
...The day after the referendum Parizeau announced that he would resign as premier...
...Nor will the prime minister- who has never been accused of excessive cleverness-find it easy to speak past Bouchard directly to wavering Quebec voters...
...Quebec's political clout is equally disproportionate throughout the federal civil service...
...Despite the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada still transacts only a fraction of the business with the United States that it would in a borderless world...
...There is a warning here for American multicul-turalists-and for American policy makers who want to send American troops to Bosnia to preserve in the bloodstained Balkans a type of polity that could not survive on the gentle banks of the St...
...Their nationalism isn't always attractive...
...up to 12 percent in constituencies known to oppose separation...
...These hopes are ill-founded...
...We will have our own revenge and we will have our own country...
...Voters in English-speaking neighborhoods suffered delays of more than two hours, as government-appointed scrutineers outfitted with electoral lists on which non-French names had been marked in yellow highlighter painstakingly checked their identities...
...Economically, Quebec receives far more than it contributes to the Canadian Confederation...
...It was an apt conclusion to a day that shocked the mild sensibilities of English Canada...
...Non-Canadians often have difficulty understanding what the separatist battle is about...
...There will be no deals...
...The important thing, he added, was that 60 percent of French speakers-of "those who make us what we are"-voted in favor of secession...
...Meanwhile, after 30 years of conciliation, English Canada's mood is hardening...
...It's true we have been defeated," he declaimed with a bitter smile...
...Foresight and American assistance could mitigate the economic costs of the fracture of Canada...
...French-speaking Quebeckers voted for separation not because of any objective grievances against English Canada, but because they regard themselves as a nation and-rationally or irrationally-aspire to their own state...
...2) Strengthening the economic union between the nine English-speaking provinces...
...That would entail: (1) Immediately balancing the federal budget...
...11) was ordered to remove this piece of "federalist propaganda" before he could enter the polling place...
...This would end chronic deficits, proportionately double those of the United States, and reduce the vulnerability of Canada's currency and credit rating on international markets...
...Opinion polls found that as many as one-third of all separatist voters imagined that Quebec would continue to send members of Parliament to Ottawa after it became "sovereign...
...English Canadian public opinion will not tolerate anything that might be construed as a concession to him...
...But have patience...
...It is true, for example, that many separatist voters have no idea what separatism will mean...
...And, it won't surprise you to hear, Quebec nationalism has long har-bored a special hatred for Jews...
...That is true both directly-through the government-to-government transfers known as "equalization" payments-and indirectly, via the federal government's unemployment insurance and astonishingly generous Canada Pension Plan...
...Since 1968, Canada has been ruled by non-Quebec prime ministers for precisely 22 months...
...Parizeau's outburst the night of the referendum answers the question...
...Parizeau continued: "I know many of you will want to hit a wall-or something else...
...The next referendum could occur as soon as November 1996, and it seems probable that the next time the separatists will win...
...But that's all beside the point now...
...One recent study found that, adjusted for population, Quebec trades 20 times as much with British Columbia as with California...
...The optimists hope that with more information about the actual costs of separation, with a better federalist campaign than the lackluster performance mounted this time, and-finally-with another round of constitutional concessions from English Canada, a 1996 referendum could be stymied...
...But basically by what...
...Bouchard's ascendancy will create unsolvable political problems for the federal government and Prime Minister Jean Chr?tien...
...That opens the way to the province's premiership for Lucien Bouchard, leader of the separatist bloc in the federal House of Commons and the most popular figure in Quebec...
...3) Redirecting trade flows away from Quebec by entering into a closer economic union with the United States...
...Near midnight, Jacques Parizeau, the heavyset, mustachioed premier of the province of Quebec, puffed to the rostrum to acknowledge his 50.5 to 49.5 percent loss in the October 30 referendum on secession from Canada...
...By money and the ethnic vote...
...On a symbolic level Quebec is privileged as well: French is the sole official language in Quebec (with an 82 percent Francophone population), while neighboring Ontario (Francophone population 5 percent) earnestly prints its government documents-including driver's licenses-in both English and French...
...Quebec voters were abundantly informed of the true costs of separation-they chose to ignore them...
...A tough-minded English Canada would act now to design a new federal union capable of surviving the departure of Quebec...
...In at least one instance, a voter wearing the red poppy insignia that commemorates Canada's war dead (Canada's Remembrance Day is Nov...
Vol. 1 • November 1995 • No. 9
