Fearful Acrimony

“It’s as if someone had emptied the contents of a garbage truck in my garden,” wrote political scientist Alain Noël after reading Brian Lee Crowley’s controversial essay, Fearful Symmetry: The Fall and Rise of Canada’s Founding Values. If they read the book, most Quebeckers would certainly feel the same way. In fact, considering how sensitive people in my province are to anything critical said about them in English Canada, it is surprising that hostile comments have not been more widespread since the first reviews in French were published. A good thing too; we certainly do not need more bad feelings between the country’s two principal language groups.

Before I proceed, allow me two disclosures. One: I have always liked Brian. I have rarely agreed with his ideas, but he has had the courage to go against the grain. I distrust consensus on economic, social or cultural policy. Devil’s advocates are essential to a healthy public debate. Disclosure two: I am an atypical Quebecker. In 2005, I was signatory to a manifesto titled “For a Clear-Eyed Vision of Quebec,” which advocated major changes in Quebec’s economic model, such as raising tuition fees at our universities, increasing electricity rates and opening the door much more widely to the private sector. Most of those changes were and still are strongly opposed by a majority of the province’s inhabitants. Also, I am a staunch federalist, convinced not only that being part of the Canadian federation is good for Quebec, but also that an authentic federalism is the only way for today’s nations and regions to manage their increasing diversity. Very few Quebeckers share this kind of faith in the virtues of federalism.

Holding those views may explain why I felt not so much anger at Brian Lee Crowley’s charge against Quebec as disappointment and concern. The book is not only a new case of Quebec bashing; it expresses a deeply flawed view of the country. Yet, because it is wrapped in statistics and powerful writing, it is dangerously attractive. Those Canadians who are prejudiced toward Quebec now have an apparently credible source to justify their position and fuel their resentment.

Crowley’s thesis is easily summarized. From 1867 to 1960, Canada was a deeply conservative country, cherishing work and family, distrusting government. That all changed at the time when Quebec’s Quiet Revolution started. First, Canada needed a larger government to absorb the huge surplus of workers produced by the baby boom. The state would either hire them or pay them to do nothing. More importantly, the government of Canada started to compete with the Quebec nationalists for the loyalty of Quebeckers. Following in Quebec City’s steps, Ottawa therefore produced more and more social programs so that Quebeckers would understand how important Canada was to them. The impact of that formidable increase in the government’s involvement in Canadians’ lives was deeply destructive, for it undermined their most precious values. Work was no longer seen as important in and of itself; you could be paid for doing “pseudo-work”—that is, working for the government or teaching sociology. (I’m not making this up!) Family ties loosened because government made divorce so easy that couples had no real incentive to endure the normal ups and downs of a long-term relationship. Women went off to work and became unhappy. Children were not raised properly because the state forbade parents to discipline (read: spank) them. Since young adults could count on government for financial and legal support, parents could not bribe or force them out of unwanted behaviour (choosing the wrong mate, for example).

There are so many things wrong or grossly exaggerated in this thesis that it is hard to decide where to start one’s criticism. Let’s begin with the obvious: the major interventions of the federal government in social policy were decided before the separatist movement became a serious threat to national unity. Unemployment insurance began in the 1940s, equalization was initiated in 1957, hospital (1958) and health insurance (1968) were all put together before the Parti Québécois was born. Besides, the case for all those programs had nothing to do with Quebec and a lot to do with problems plaguing society in general at the time and ideas then in vogue in all western democracies. To this last argument, Crowley replies that in 1960, Canada and the United States both spent on government the same share of their respective gross domestic product. In the 40 following years, government spending increased much faster here than in the United States. What happened? “Quebec is the key,” argues Crowley, with no proof whatsoever, except that the rise of separatism and the ratcheting up of social spending in Canada happened at the same time. Yet, as all scientists know, simultaneity does not make for a causal relationship. Another explanation is offered by Lars Osberg in his review of Crowley’s book in this journal last October: “Canada’s surge of social policy activism in the 1960’s and early ’70s… was the price the Liberal minority governments of the day paid for NDP support.”

Since Crowley briefly lived in the province and has so many friends here, it is disappointing that he draws such a grotesque caricature of Quebec nationalism. I agree with the author that French Quebeckers have a tendency to imagine themselves as morally superior and therefore the efforts to preserve the Québécois culture are too often imbued with a “high moral purpose.” As he does, I often denounce Quebec politicians for putting all the province’s problems on the back of the federal government. I’ve written passages similar to this one drawn from Fearful Symmetry: “By focusing economic discontent on federal actions, the nationalists of all parties distracted Quebeckers from looking at the extent to which their own redistributionist policies were at the root of the province’s difficulties.”

However, Crowley should know better than to state that in Quebec “English is the threatened language.” Anyone who spends a day walking in the streets of Montreal will realize that English is alive and well here. And good for us! His description of the decline of English language institutions, McGill University for one, is laughable. Using such charged words as “ethnic cleansing” and “oppression” may be provocative, but it is also dishonest, since these terms have no basis in fact.

Other points Crowley makes may please his admirers from the right, yet they are extraordinarily simplistic. For instance, to him, poverty is the poor’s fault rather than the product of social and economic circumstances. I do not disagree that there exists a poor person’s culture that can deprive individuals of models promoting hard work and responsibility. Yet Crowley exaggerates when he says that “poverty [is] more an outcome of the behaviours of the poor themselves” and that therefore, it is counterproductive for the state to help the poor for it discourages work. It is as if the welfare state had created poverty rather than been created to alleviate it (which it did, although not as much as its promoters had hoped).

It is not a problem that the author’s view of marriage and the family is old-fashioned; having been happily married for 30 years, I share some of Brian’s nostalgia. However, he idealizes marriage to an irrational extent. His argument that women today are less happy than they were 50 years ago (because they work outside the home) and that modern men and women make worse parents than their fathers and mothers is not convincing.

Crowley believes that if they had the option, many women would choose not to be part of the workforce and would raise their children full-time. Because the state has made divorce easier, “economic insecurity … is forcing them to work more than they wish to or than they believe is good for their children.” The women I know work first and foremost because they cherish their independence, even when part of a stable marriage, and want to use their talents to the fullest.

Again, Crowley regrets the good old days when parents wielded more authority over their children. He seems to think parents should be let free to discipline their kids without any supervision by law: “If parents are unable to establish effective discipline, however, the consequences are not just terrible for the parents but cast a life-long shadow over the child’s chances for success.” I don’t know that yesterday’s ways made young people happier and, later in life, healthier and better citizens. For my part, I think parents’ authority should be exercised by example rather than by force or blackmail. Parenting today is a matter of leadership, not dictatorship.

Fearful Symmetry’s last chapters present the author’s view of the future. A few parts of the scenario are plausible; the rest is pure fantasy. Brian Lee Crowley predicts that the labour force and public finance challenges produced by population aging will bring a return of traditional Canadian values. People will have to work longer hours and later in life, government will have no choice but to shrink, couples will rediscover the advantages of marriage and parents will regain authority over their children. Finally, husbands and wives will learn to love each other better.

I have no doubt that population aging will bring important changes in Canadian society, especially in Quebec. But I see no sign of us going back to the traditional values Brian cherishes. Men and women have changed deeply and I do not foresee that transformations in the workplace or in the size of government will pull them back to the 1950s. In any event, turning the clock back is not necessary. For instance, the whole country has seen an increase in the birth rate in recent years, even while the proportion of married couples reached a historic low. In Quebec, where common-law unions are much more prevalent than elsewhere, the birth rate has gone up faster. Apparently, Canadians know how to love each other well enough…

Crowley obviously relishes predicting a weakening of Quebec’s influence on the country’s affairs. Because the province’s population grows more slowly than the rest of the federation’s, its political and economic weight will diminish: “Quebec’s bargaining power may not disappear, but it will be an anorexic relic of its former glory.” Therefore, English Canada will be free to return to its core values. There will be “a renewal of family life … we will re-evaluate relations between the sexes in our quest to encourage Canadians to have more babies,” etc.

I, for one, think both the Rest Of Canada and Quebec will come out as losers if my home province becomes less relevant. Already, the founding peoples have become indifferent to one another. English Canadians do not care what Quebec does anymore; Quebeckers do not bother to get involved in the governing of the country as a whole. No effort is made to better understand each other; no advantage, only trouble, is seen in the cultural duality that makes Canada such a unique and challenging country. If these trends endure, the Canadian adventure will again be at risk.

To prevent that from happening, Canadians need to rediscover the true value of federalism, namely tolerance, openness, compromise. For their part, Quebeckers should stop sitting on the sidelines by voting for the Bloc Québécois and instead re-engage with Canada as an extraordinary work in progress, as a great national and international ambition.

It is sad that Brian Lee Crowley succumbs to what he (rightly) accuses nationalist Quebeckers of doing: blaming someone else for one’s presumed problems, from big government to the unhappiness of women. It is sadder that the only way he sees of solving those problems is for that capricious partner to be politically put aside.

Since there is some resentment and huge fatigue toward Quebec in the rest of the federation, Crowley’s thesis will certainly enjoy some popularity. However, I hope that Thomas Courchene’s will also find advocates. In an op-ed published in The Globe and Mail and La Presse, Professor Courchene noted that Quebec played a very positive role in the building of Canada as a distinct nation from the United States. “In this sense, we are all Quebeckers now!” I hope also, against all hope, that more Quebeckers will recognize the political, economic, social and cultural benefits that being part of Canada has brought and can bring them in the future. If my hope were to be realized, that renewed mutual recognition might help us … love each other better.