The Trudeau Essay

[Said1]

Not bad for a "commie-lib".

PRIDE AND MONEY

Commenting on Quebec nationalist politics in the first issue of [1mCite
Libre[0m 42 years ago, I wrote, "The country can't exist without us, we
think to ourselves. So watch out you don't hurt our feelings...We depend on
our power of blackmail in order to face the future...We are getting to be
a sleazy bunch of master blackmailers."

Things have changed a lot since then, but for the worse. Four decades ago, all
Duplessis was asking for his province was that it be left in peace to go its
own slow pace. His rejection of proposals for constitutional reform was
intended mostly to block an updating of Canada's economic and social institu-
tions. And Quebec's "no" was forumulated by a relatively small political
class. In today's Quebec, however, the official blackmail refrain gets backup
from a whole choir of those who like to think they are thinking people: "If
English Canada won't accept Quebec's traditional, minimum demands, we'll
leave..."

Leave for where? What for?

Consider that in the past 22 years the province of Quebec has been governed by
two premiers. The first was the one who coined the phrase "profitable federal-
ism." We'll stay in Canada if Canada gives us enough money, he argued.
However, adds the Allaire report that he commissioned, the rest of Canada must
hand over nearly all its constitutional powers, except of course the power to
give us lots of money. And to put a bit more kick in the blackmail, no
opportunity is missed to point out the Quebec's (alleged) right of self-
determination is written into the premier's party program. This is the
premier who prides himself in not practising "federalism on bended knee."

The other premier was the one who invented "soverignty-association." He
demanded all the powers of a sovereign country for Quebec, but was careful to
arrange for the sovereign country not to be independent. Indeed, his
referendum question postulated that a sovereign Quebec would be associated
with the other provinces and would continue to use the Canadian dollar as
legal tender. Money, money, money!

So for 22 years the Quebec electorate has suffered the ignominy of having to
choose between two provincial parties for whom the pride of being a Quebecer
is negotiable for cash. And if by some stroke of ill forunte the rest of
Canada seems disinclined to go along with the blackmail, as happened over
the Meech Lake accord, it is accused of humiliating Quebec. In Quebec,
humiliation is decidedly selective.

Except for a small handful of dyed-in-the-wool separatists, together with the
sprinkling of Montrealers who exercised their vote in favor of the Equality
Party, just about all the cream of Quebec society approves of this shameful
horse trading, and so without batting an eye has backed one or the other of the
above-mentioned premiers for 22 years.

Artist in general parade as [1mindependantistes[0m, but want the Canadian
government to keep giving them money. Big businesspeople and professionals
endorsed the independence blackmail over the Meech affair, but with the
economic crisis worsening are rediscovering advantages to "profitable
federalism." The francophone media line up in great numbers on the side of
sovereignty, but remain faithful to their hero and soft-pedal real independ-
ence because of the costs it would entail. Political scientists (and their
students, of course), instead of analysing this spineless behaviour with
scientific detachment, subscribe to it almost unanimously; some openly advocate
the knife-to-the-throat negotiations with English Canada, maintaining that
with a certain kind of independence, Quebecers could continue to elect federal
members of Parliament (from whence come equalization payments).

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said. Want more examples of this ludicrous
political thinking?

* In 1964 and 1971, Quebec premiers scuttled two constitutional agreements
that they had signed (Fulton-Favreau) or drafted and promised to sign
(Victoria). In Quebec they were cheered. But when the premiers of two other
provinces refused to back the 1987 Meech Lake accord, which they had neither
negotiated nor signed, it was claimed that Quebec had been hurt and humiliated
by the rest of the country.

* A Canadian prime minister is accused of having broken a promise made to
Quebecers during the referendum of 1980, whereas the words interpreted as a
promise were in fact addressed to the other provinces to urge them to
resume constitutional negotiations after the referendum.

* Seven provinces that approved the repatriation of the Constitution in
November, 1981, are accused of betrayal (on the night of Nov. 4, the so-called
night of the long knives), after forming a common front with Quebec in April,
1981, to block the repatriation project. The truth is that during the neg-
otiations on the morning of Nov. 4, it was the premier of Quebec who broke
ranks with the other provinces of the Group of Eight and left them out in the
cold.

* In 1992, the premier of Quebec considers a constitutional veto for Quebec
a matter of life and death; yet in 1971 he himself rejected this veto when the
federal government and the nine other provinces offered it on a silver tray.
And his successor, who also considered Quebec's veto sacred, turned it down
several times between 1978 and 1981; he even went to the Supreme Court to
prevent the federal government, which had the support of Ontario and New
Brunswick, from putting a veto for Quebec in the Constitution.

Continued