Twice this summer, my former colleague at the Toronto Star Bob Hepburn has attacked NDP leader Tom Mulcair for his position on what he terms “Quebec separation.”
His latest broadside came last week: “Many Canadians could never vote for Mulcair because of the NDP’s policy that Quebec could split from Canada with a referendum vote of just 50-per-cent-plus-one.”
Such misleading statements have come from many anti-NDP partisans, pundits and politicians, including Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, most notably during the recent Maclean’s debate when he accused Mulcair of “choosing to side with the separatist movement in Quebec.”
He said that because, simply put, the NDP has promised to repeal the 2000 Clarity Act, which states that “the Government of Canada shall not enter into negotiations on the terms on which a province might cease to be part of Canada” if “the House of Commons determines… that a referendum question is not clear” and “unless the House of Commons determines… that there has been a clear expression of a will by a clear majority of the population of that province.”
I’ll spare you all the Supreme Court legalese. There’s enough fodder there to keep academics and lawyers arguing for decades. Bottom line is, the NDP says Canada would negotiate secession after a simple separatist majority in a referendum. But the constitutional contortions that such a vote, should it ever occur, would trigger are so complex that nothing would likely ever change. So many hypotheticals, such a waste of time.
Judging by the current pathetic poll position of the Bloc Quebecois and the humiliation of the Parti Quebecois during the 2014 provincial election, separation is, if not dead, comatose.
What’s more, not once, not ever, have Quebecers voted on a straight-ahead, upfront, clear, unequivocal, unqualified, yes/no, stay-or-go referendum question. Both in 1980 and 1995 the questions have read more like “Would you like to move out of the house, still borrow Dad’s car but not have to pay for gas and bring your laundry home so Mom can do it?”
The Distinct Society – and I have never had any doubt that it is, within Canada, a nation clearly defined by language and culture – has matured since the 1960s and 70s, when francophones cast off the shackles of the Church and successive governments reaching all the way back to the Quebec Act of 1774.
At one point, Quebec churches dominated every small town and street corner, everything was named after a saint, and families were proud to see their sons and daughters join the monasteries and convents that still cover vast areas of Montreal’s most prime real estate.
Indeed, in the 1950s, by order of Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger, Elvis concerts were banned, women were forbidden from wearing short shorts in public, and drive-ins were illegal, all because (Dieu forbid) fornication would follow.
Then Liberal premier Jean Lesage came in with his “Quiet Revolution” in 1960. That was the end of the Church’s iron grip, as evidenced now by how much of its property has since been sold and converted into condos.
The 1960s were also when rebellious baby boomers were filling the universities and the civil rights movement and “black power” were sweeping the U.S. Overseas, left-wing nationalism was on the rise. This was the context for the Quebecois drive for language rights and self-determination.
Then Liberal leader Pierre Elliott Trudeau blew into this fierce political windstorm with his withering contempt for Quebec nationalists.
My friends and I were just two blocks away during his heroic stand against the rioting rock- and bottle-throwers at the Saint-Jean-Baptiste parade the night before he was elected in 1968. The violence confused me. Like many teenaged Montreal girls, I was infected by Trudeaumania, which began for me when, as voters in his Mount-Royal riding, my parents had hosted a meet-and-greet. I couldn’t understand why Quebecers would not be proud of a native son on his way to being prime minister.
But in 1970 I got it. That’s when terrorists kidnapped British trade minister James Cross and killed Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte and Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act. Soldiers filled our streets. Quebec had been invaded and occupied by English Canada. It was the October Crisis and, to my mind, the real start of Canada’s decades-long constitutional crisis.
As history would later prove, Trudeau deprived us of our civil liberties for purely personal political reasons. There was no “insurrection,” as he claimed. But, with the approval of the rest of Canada, he gave the virtual finger to Quebec with his “Just watch me!” line to Parliament Hill reporters.
Personally, I have a lot of problems with Mulcair. He’s mealy-mouthed on pipelines, and his equivocation on Israel-Palestine is cowardly. But the NDP is our best bet for getting rid of Stephen Harper, although some strategic voting may be necessary in some ridings. The Greens have no hope of ousting him in nearly all the ridings where they are running candidates, votes for them will be wasted.
So for me, NDP it is. (Besides, I live in Toronto-Danforth, an NDP stronghold.)
Quebecers’ surging support for the party shows that they want a federal party representing them in Parliament.
Harper may talk a good game on Canadian unity, but he is toxic and divisive on everything from foreign policy to the environment.
As for Justin Trudeau, he carries the weight of the father who tossed intellectuals – hundreds of them – in jail without charges. He even boasts about the family heritage. “I don’t think anyone will ever accuse a Liberal named Trudeau of being afraid of going after sovereigntists,” he said last month.
I was old enough in 1970 to have been repeatedly stopped and searched, and that turned me off Trudeau forever. So you can imagine how the Quebecois feel.
I don’t expect many Anglo-Canadians will understand much of this because their perspective was different, no thanks to alarming media reports and editorials emanating from Ottawa and other points outside Quebec.
But as somebody who was there, and covered the referendums (for CBC-TV and the Star), lived and studied the history, got to know many of the separatist intellectuals and interviewed the players, believe me when I say, fairly or not, Justin Trudeau inherited the wrong brand.
Just as way too many Anglo pundits got it wrong on Quebec before (during the 1992 Charlottetown Accord referendum, for example), they are getting it wrong now. They are playing with constitutional fire. They should stop and focus on what really matters on October 19.
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