As we head into a Quebec provincial election, welcome to National Unity Crisis 3.0
Michael Den Tandt
March 4, 2014
Dear Canada; Your long rest is over. Welcome to National Unity Crisis 3.0.
As we head into a Quebec provincial election, with the separatist Parti Quebecois in a position to win a majority, this much can be taken as given; the response in the rest of Canada to any resulting new push for independence will be quite different from last time, or the time before that. There will be no candle in the window — no heartfelt plea from Main Street Ontario, imploring Quebecers to vote “Non.” If anything, the opposite could occur.
That means the tectonic plates underlying Canadian politics may be about to move, rather dramatically, after two decades of relative calm. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals seem best positioned, for now, to convert a crisis into votes. Nationalism being the unpredictable beast it is, that could change in a heartbeat. But here is what Quebecers should not expect, if they give Premier Pauline Marois the whip hand; anything but a cold shoulder, brusque dismissal and stony silence from across the Ottawa River. That’s the best-case scenario.
Let’s assume Marois wins big, jolting a bolt of electricity through the embalmed corpse of the independence movement, and setting in motion the mechanics of another referendum. Just as during the Meech and Charlottetown debates a generation ago, political elites and the chattering classes will seek to shepherd public opinion in the ROC (Rest of Canada) into a conciliatory frame of mind. They will argue, as they are wont to do, that we’re all much better off together than apart. They will be right about that. But their soothing ode will fall on millions of deaf ears.
The reason is threefold. First, Ontarians formed the bedrock of the pro-unity side, outside Quebec, in the old national unity debates. But the Ontario of today is far different from the one of the latter 20th Century. Its manufacturing economy has been decimated. In 2009/10 the province joined the have-nots under the federal equalization formula — receiving $347-million. This year Ontario is to receive just over $3-billion; Quebec, just under $8-billion.
Indeed Quebec, Conservative Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Denis Lebel helpfully pointed out Monday, “receives $16.3-billion more from the federal government than it contributes to Ottawa.” Nice. Resentment of Quebec’s endless gripes has always bubbled just below the waterline in Ontario. With so many in the province struggling, expect that to surface.
Another factor is the reason for Marois’ recent surge to front-runner status; Quebec’s proposed Charter of Values, which would dictate to provincial civil servants what articles of religious clothing or jewelry they may and may not wear on the job. When the Charter was unveiled last summer, the enlightened consensus was that Quebecers would en masse reject and punish such an unabashed appeal to their baser instincts. The opposite has happened.
There’s been much hand-wringing about the damage this has done Quebec’s reputation internationally; not enough attention paid, likely, to the potential impact on individual opinion in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia of one province’s majority, through democratic choice, placing itself offside of the pluralism that animates the rest of the country, as reflected in the Charter of Rights. If Marois wins her majority, Quebec truly will be a distinct society.
Third is the intangible Law of Threes; the sense, already germinating in the aftermath of the 1995 referendum, that the country cannot regularly be held hostage and hijacked by a minority of its population — now a minority within a minority. In the face of a third referendum, the political pressure from Main Street in the rest of Canada to push back — possibly even via a movement for a nationwide referendum on whether Quebec should be handed its hat, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out — would be impossible to ignore.
For the time being Trudeau, by virtue of his fluency in both official languages, strong base in Quebec, clear stand against the Charter from its inception, and the separatist-battling mantle of his late father, is best positioned to take on the role of Captain Canada. Opposition leader Thomas Mulcair served notice in a CBC Radio interview last weekend that he also intends to vie for the part, saying that “the NDP was the first party get rid of the separatists.”
The wild card is simply this: The Tories hold just five seats in Quebec and the totality of their majority rests on a still-new coalition between Alberta and rural and suburban Ontario. Their precursor party, Reform, was born in a lather of anti-Quebec feeling spurred by the Mulroney government’s failed overtures to Quebec soft nationalists.
The stage could soon be set, therefore, for the governing party to become the preferred vehicle for anyone who is resentful of yet another tussle over Quebec. Given the Harper government’s advanced age and desperate need for a new mission, it’s difficult to imagine it passing up such an opportunity.
