Goodbye, Quebec?

A few years ago I wrote a book with the central proposition that Canada would be better off without Quebec. It was published in 1999 under the title Time to Say Goodbye: The Case for Getting Quebec Out of Canada. In it I suggested that the political values of Quebec and the rest of the country are incompatible. One indication of this is the independence movement, supported by slightly more than half of Quebec’s francophone population. But the mismatch is equally evident in the attitude of the other half, which overwhelmingly sees Quebec as its one and only political home and believes that the federal government should hand over an undefined but ever increasing share of its revenues, responsibilities and status to the Quebec legislature. To make their position perfectly clear Quebeckers consistently elect the majority of their members of Parliament from the Bloc Québécois, a political party whose only discernible idea is the achievement of Quebec’s independence, and whose presence in Ottawa critically undermines the federal system.

My second point was that the federal government’s response to these pressures—its costly and erratic efforts to prevent separation—diverts our attention from many more important issues vital to Canada’s long-term prosperity and security. It also gives rise to a legitimate feeling in the other provinces that they are victims of discrimination. This erodes the sense of fairness that is essential to the successful management of our Canadian federal system. The present situation is corrosive and profoundly dysfunctional—for Canada.

Finally, I argued that Quebec will never separate, or stop threatening to separate, because the maintenance of this tension admirably serves its own interests. By playing off threats of independence with demands for more autonomy and more money, it has already achieved a kind of “special status” in Canada—in the form of the status quo. For Quebeckers, federal-provincial relations could not get any better than they are right now. Until recently, Canadians have reluctantly chosen to live with this federal bias toward Quebec—seeing it either as a duty to make amends for past injustices or as the price to be paid for the originality of our dual nationhood, or as a problem that time would resolve.

Although my book received considerable attention for a few weeks, and a French-language edition was published that same year with the title Le Temps des adieux: plaidoyer pour un Canada sans le Québec, the timing was bad. In early 2000 it was widely believed that a new generation of “forward looking, internationally minded” Quebeckers was evolving in a way that made talk of independence irrelevant for them. In any event, the failed Parizeau referendum of 1995 had made another one unacceptable; even those who had voted yes were opposed to putting themselves through the process again. And, in Ottawa, the government was busy adopting the Clarity Act, which put tough restrictions on the wording of the question in any future referendum, and on the majority which would be required. So it seemed that the beast was finally dead and could be given a quiet burial.

Today, six years later, one cannot be so sure. The separatist movement is still alive and well in Quebec, supported, it seems, by the new “outward-looking” francophones who were supposed to have outgrown it, and by at least 30 percent of all new immigrants to the province. The shabby efforts of the Liberal government to buy the federalist vote during the 1995 referendum (revealed in the sponsorship scandal) have hardened suspicion of Ottawa in Quebec. Meanwhile, the federalist Liberal Party controls Quebec’s Assemblée Nationale but the most recent polls indicate it would receive only 30 percent of the vote if an election were held today. It is quite possible that we will have another independence referendum in Quebec in the next few years.

In the rest of Canada the feeling that Quebec has gone too far is becoming more prevalent. We are beginning to hear the “let them go” sentiment from a growing number of political commentators, and not just in the West. Two respected members of the eastern newspaper establishment, Norman Webster of the Montreal Gazette and Jeffrey Simpson of The Globe and Mail are saying pretty much the same thing. Webster feels that the prevailing Canadian attitude is becoming “if that’s what they want, let them go,” an attitude that he thinks is “not all bad.” Simpson goes even further. He reminds us that “Quebec has dominated federal politics and policy-making for four decades” and yet “an increasing number of Quebeckers don’t care about Canada.” He points out that “at almost every level of Quebec society, secessionist voices are more prominent than federalist ones.” He asks: “If Quebeckers are no longer much interested in national politics, why should national politics be much interested in Quebec? … Their attachment is only as deep as the next cheque coming from Ottawa. A country… cannot be built or sustained on a cheque.”

It seems to me that the election of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government brings us to some kind of crossroad in our efforts to satisfy the seemingly unquenchable appetites of Quebec. The Liberals, our self-appointed experts on Quebec matters, have had two generations pretty much to themselves to get things right. They started by making a number of very substantial gestures: official bilingualism coast to coast, going along with Bill 101, de facto respect for the principle of “two nations” in appointments of all kinds, disproportionate economic benefits for Quebec in both the private and public sectors, opting out clauses for that province in all kinds of legislation, a federal law
granting Quebec special status. Nothing seemed to provide satisfaction. So they got tough—the repatriation of the constitution without Quebec’s concurrence, the Clarity Act, the extraordinary expenditures on flags and other paraphernalia at referendum time, the use of street language to vilify the “separatists.” Carrot and stick, Plan A and Plan B, everything was tried. And now the Liberals are gone, exhausted intellectually and morally, in large part due to their efforts to keep Quebec in Canada.

So the ball has been given back to the Conservatives and the new prime minister is about to be held to an election promise to devolve even more powers and funding to Quebec. In a widely quoted statement, made in Quebec City during the election campaign, Harper attacked the “paternalistic” and “domineering” attitude of the federal Liberals and promised to put strict limits on his own government’s spending power, whose existence, he declared, “is a serious threat to the future of our federation.” He gave official recognition to the celebrated “fiscal imbalance” (which the Liberals had identified as just another political slogan) and he promised to rectify it. And, by way of encouragement, Quebeckers rewarded him with 10 of their 75 seats in the new Parliament, in return for which they now expect substantial and immediate compensation.

An anecdote: On election night Harper’s victory was announced at about 11 p.m. Seven hours later, at 6 a.m., Montreal’s largest and most influential newspaper, La Presse, was on the street with an article by André Pratte, editor-in- chief, informing his readers that, in return for his ten Quebec MPs, Harper now has a “historic responsibility” to “deliver the merchandise which Quebeckers have been expecting” and reminding us that, with less than two years left before a new referendum, “Canada cannot allow itself to disappoint the Quebec population.” On the facing page another writer, Jean Herman Guay, informed us that “the clock is ticking.” If Charest’s Liberal government is to be re-elected, Quebec must have “tangible proof” of Harper’s promise. If he fails in this, or resorts to only “half measures,” “unfortunate” conclusions about the federal system will
be drawn by a “sceptical electorate.” These people never sleep!

Now we have a prime minister from western Canada who, philosophically, feels comfortable with a looser, more decentralized federation. On a more mundane level he would also like to win many more seats in Quebec. So his public discovery of the fiscal imbalance and his choice of a site to announce this new vision are understandable at both levels. But here comes the hard part. Before any more funds, powers or status are devolved to Quebec, Harper owes it to the rest of Canada to tell us all, clearly, the quantity of “merchandise” that must be “delivered” to Quebec in order to correct its perception of the imbalance and bring us to the point of equilibrium in powers and status which both Quebec and Canada would recognize as “National Unity.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Harper knows that he will find no answer to this question. It has been asked by many people over many years and the reply has always been “we want more.” Quebec wants more for Quebec and less for Ottawa and the rest of the country—and in the struggle to get more, the threat of separation is a wildly successful form of blackmail. Quebeckers are not victims: they are the aggressors. And from their perspective, they are behaving logically, understandably. Quebec really is different—profoundly different—with a distinct culture inspired by a curious form of language worship, with its own sacred and untouchable catechism (Bill 101), and an imposing structure of institutions and conventions to ensure orthodox behaviour. To be blunt about it, by its very nature, Quebec is not a good candidate for membership in any federal system.

So the new Conservative chapter in the Quebec versus Rest of Canada drama is going to look very much like the one just completed by the Liberals. The dynamics are all the same—provincial Liberals desperate for federal concessions, a Quebec referendum on the horizon, the Bloc Québécois in Ottawa, Conservatives hungry for more Quebec seats. I believe it will all end badly.

You may disagree, but even those who think that Stephen Harper will find the magic bullet that has evaded all his predecessors will have to admit that they could be wrong.

In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada made a highly significant ruling which was largely overlooked in the excitement of the events that followed. It declared that Quebec has the legal right to secede from Canada, our country thus becoming, in the words of Stéphane Dion, “the first major democratic state to acknowledge its divisibility by a legal enactment.” Yes, the Court put conditions on this right, and the subsequent Clarity Bill refined them, but if these specific procedures are followed Quebec is now legally free to leave. It seems curious to me that we have defined in considerable detail how Quebec may leave the federation, but we have not even begun to give a single collective thought as to what we Canadians will be left with, who we are, what we do, the day after that happens.

It is now time, overtime, for our political leaders in Ottawa and in the provincial capitals to undertake a serious public examination of what our country might look like if it had nine provinces rather than ten. Whether we like it or not, that’s the situation in which we could find ourselves by the end of this decade. And, today, most Canadians living in what will be left of our country are still in a state of deep denial. They deserve some level of preparation for the political upheaval that may await us—even at the risk of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Enthusiastically, or simply as an insurance policy, something should be done, now.

There are many challenging issues to be faced. But the most important question by far—the one before which all others become mere matters of detail—is whether we have the will to live together as Canadians, without Quebec. My answer was yes, and I devoted considerable space in the book to that subject. But quite a few readers were unconvinced. The most common concern seemed to be that Quebec’s departure could give rise to a separatist movement in the West that, in turn, would lead to the break-up of the whole country. I don’t believe this. It implies, somewhat bizarrely, that Quebec’s membership in the Canadian federation is all that is holding the rest of the country together. In my opinion a Canada of nine provinces and three territories—Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, the North West Territories, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Yukon—is a country, and a very fine one, too. We have countless things in common—history, values, institutions, a desire to share our prosperity and our troubles. Our country provides an enviable, constitutionally based, democratic framework for the Canadian citizen, within which we are collectively addressing public policy issues with a profound sense of responsibility for each other. We have something that is priceless here, something we can build on confidently, for an even better future.

However, if I am wrong about this, and there is a possibility that Alberta could walk away as well, taking all its oil wells with it, then it is even more important that we face this possibility now. Because Alberta is legally free to leave if it wants to. The Supreme Court reference states clearly that any province now has the right to negotiate its independence if it follows the conditions established. As startling as this may seem, the Court has told us that it’s up to us as citizens of our respective provinces to decide whether or not Canada will continue to exist. Are the provinces creatures of the central government or vice versa? The ruling would seem to resolve this ancient constitutional debate for all time.

The only way to begin to imagine a New Canada of “nine and three” is to consider in detail the specific issues that would arise. Some work on this has already been done and a good summary of the available material can be found in a book called The Secession of Quebec and the Future of Canada by Robert Young, a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. He identifies and addresses most of the issues that would arise. How do we negotiate our own independence from Quebec? Would the geographical separation of the two parts of the country pose any problems? If so, how do we overcome them? What about the aboriginal peoples, the English in Quebec? Will Ontario be too big to handle? Who gets what citizenship? How will all this change the geo-politics of North America? What happens to our existing two-nations structures? How do we negotiate official-language reciprocity? Young’s book, published in 1998, is clearly not the last word on the subject, but it offers a solid base from which to begin an examination of the alternatives in the current context.

The transformation of the dominant paradigm of Canadian public opinion—from “Quebec must be satisfied” to “Let’s look at the alternatives”—may seem unlikely. Letting go is never easy. But mindsets do change. Who, a year ago, would have believed that a western conservative could become prime minister? With the millstone of Quebec nationalism completely removed from the country’s political agenda, I believe that we could find ourselves reinventing our homeland in a very positive way.

And there is a second possible benefit. As we work on this project, and the advantages become clearer, it may have a surprising effect on Quebeckers. For 40 years, separated from an encounter with reality by a wall of rhetoric, they have been persuaded that Canada is desperate to keep them at any price. When they see that we have something more interesting on our mind, francophone Quebeckers might find themselves reconsidering their own position. We will be able to say to them that we, in the Rest of Canada, know exactly who we are, and like ourselves very much. We will tell them openly, frankly, at last, that the notion of a special status for their province is a dead issue; the nine or ten referendums required to enshrine it in the constitution will never take place. If Quebec would like to stay with us, in Canada, on Canadian terms, they are welcome, as one of ten provinces, with the same status as Ontario, Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan. If not, then we’re ready for the separation negotiations to begin this afternoon. Faced with this new self-confidence and sense of purpose, Quebeckers might come to the conclusion that membership in this federation on Canada’s terms could be quite worthwhile.

Let’s encourage Mr. Harper to act on his promise to rethink our federal-provincial relationships. There is more than one way to administer the system and perhaps a more decentralized Canada would be a better thing. But he should do this based on what is fair and satisfying to the other provinces and territories of Canada, and without reference to the demands of Quebec because, in the debate over the sharing of power and resources, Quebec is operating from a completely different premise. For 50 years they have been playing chess while the rest of the country has been playing checkers.

Either as a positive plan for a new and better Canada, or as a message to Quebec that the carnival has ended, or as preparation for what may overtake us whether we like it or not, I suggest that our political leadership has a responsibility to give some serious and positive consideration to the possibility of a Canada without Quebec.

Or they should tell us why we can safely continue to ignore that possibility.