Quebeckers have a mental Bloc

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is an insightful column by Lysiane Gagnon:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lysiane-gagnon/quebeckers-have-a-mental-bloc/article2021790/

Quebeckers have a mental Bloc

LYSIANE GAGNON
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, May. 15, 2011

The Bloc Québécois might be near-extinct, but its philosophy is still very much alive in Quebec. It is striking to see how many people naively assume that the NDP, because the majority of its caucus comes from Quebec, will take up the role of the Bloc and “defend first and foremost” the interests of Quebec.

At her first press conference, last Wednesday, Nycole Turmel, the new MP for Hull-Aylmer, was asked by reporters whether Quebec would be her party’s “first priority.” A seasoned public figure (she was a labour leader for years), Ms. Turmel calmly explained that yes, Quebec would be a priority but not the only one, and that the interests of Quebeckers and Canadians are not contradictory. Mind you, she was talking to reporters who cover politics and who should know that the NDP is a federal party that can’t speak for just one province.

Shortly after the vote, NDP Leader Jack Layton was interviewed (for the second time in a month) on the popular Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle. Host Guy A. Lepage, a former stand-up comic who thinks of himself as a connoisseur of politics, asked whether he would be Quebec’s point man in Ottawa. Mr. Layton evaded the question.

During a radio panel on the election, Christiane Charette, the host of another Radio-Canada talk show, joyously exclaimed that “the NDP will be another Bloc Québécois!” And La Presse ran this headline: “Layton, the new strong man of Quebec” – in other words, the new Gilles Duceppe. These reactions are symptomatic of the way many francophone Quebeckers have internalized the Bloc’s mentality. After having lived for 20 years inside a Bloc bubble, they’ve lost any understanding of what a federation is and how federal parties work.

Another symptom of this “Bloc philosophy” is that, judging by the blogs and the commentaries in the media, few seem to mind that Quebec is virtually shut out of government since the Conservatives won just six seats (out of 75) in the province. Indeed, for 20 years, the Bloc kept repeating that in federal politics, it’s better to be in the opposition, since all governments (according to the Bloc) fail Quebec.

Quebeckers now expect that the NDP will morph into a clone of the Bloc. Because he owes part of his victory to Quebec, it is expected that Mr. Layton will forget his real ambition, which is to become prime minister of Canada, and will be happy to serve as the full-time champion of Quebec. If these foolish expectations don’t diminish with time, Quebeckers’ disappointment with the NDP will be huge – and the big bubbling orange wave will quickly dissolve before the next election.

This misunderstanding of federal politics is the legacy of the Bloc Québécois. Its goal was not to achieve sovereignty, something that can only be done at the provincial level. It was to pave the way for sovereignty by loosening Quebec’s ties with the rest of Canada, by convincing Quebeckers that Canada is a foreign if not hostile entity and by provoking resentment toward Quebec in the rest of Canada.

By focusing exclusively on Quebec’s “interests” and acting as if the province was constantly under threat, the Bloc killed all the reflexes that help sustain a federation: the will to exchange, negotiate and compromise, the capacity to understand other people’s viewpoints, the capacity to give and take.

In this sense, the Bloc can proudly say: Mission accomplished! Whether Quebec becomes independent or not, for the time being, federalism is dead in Quebec.

I think Mlle Gagnon is quite correct: many (probably most) Quebecers are no longer Canadians; they have become Québécois, a distinct, separate and, in most respects, a sovereign people. They recognize that we, not they, voted for 'fiscal federalism' and 'sovereignty association' and allowed them to separate at almost no cost to themselves – how many Nova Scotians or Albertans know anything about Canada in the United Nations? Quickly: does Canada have diplomatic missions in the capitals of Afghanistan, Bahamas, Cameroon, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Fiji? (To save you the Googling the answers are Yes, No, Yes, No, Yes and No.) How much 'real' sovereignty are Quebecers missing?

When, not if, Jack Layton disappoints the already sovereign majority (which will happen before 2015)  Québec's vote will swing, wildly, again, towards a party that will represent its special, separate and sovereign interests.

Canada will remain wilfully oblivious to the fact that we have lost a province and gained an 'associate state.'

 

[GAP]

Especially since Harper has proven that the adage of "You Can't get a Majority without Quebec" has been put to rest.....

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen, is more on this topic:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/decision-canada/nation+divided+election/4788152/story.html

A nation divided by an election

BY DESMOND MORTON, OTTAWA CITIZEN

MAY 16, 2011

The May 2 general election had more surprises than most voters realized. In our democracy, most Canadians voted to deny Prime Minister Stephen Harper a majority? No one warned that the Liberal party faced abject humiliation and imminent bankruptcy? Can New Democrats really rejoice at promotion to official Opposition? Can they possibly retain close to a million Quebec voters?

For Canadians as a whole, that may turn out to be the most risky issue of the latest general election.

If Quebec had embraced the NDP in 1962 or 1963 when the rest of Canada was trying to preserve or remove John Diefenbaker's Quebec sweep of 1958, fewer people would have been surprised. After all, the most surprising feature of the New Party's founding convention in Ottawa in August 1961 was the astonishing turnout of hundreds of Quebec delegates. For most Canadians it was their first notice of the political ferment that Quebec politicians soon christened the Quiet Revolution. For old CCFers who had organized the New Party movement, crossing the Ottawa River had seemed an impossible dream.

Now, it seemed, Quebecers had come to Ottawa to embrace social democracy.

One consequence was that the New Party's program was amended to include ideas that would become a Quebec program for the next generations, from official federal bilingualism to the notion of Canada as a country of two nations. The most radical break with the CCF's Regina Manifesto was recognition of the major provincial role in socialist reform, though that was what the CCF itself had done during its 20-year rule in Saskatchewan. Conventions end. Quebec delegates went home and things began to change. A Liberal government finished nationalizing privately owned hydro-electricity and started secularizing a church-controlled education system. In the excitement of its Quiet Revolution, Quebec discovered the appeal of achieving its own national sovereignty. In this excitement, the pro-federalist NDP seemed irrelevant to potential Quebec supporters, though the party attracted brilliant individuals like philosopher Charles Taylor and lawyer Robert Cliche. In all the years from 1961 to 2011, the NDP elected only two MPs in Quebec, ex-cabinet minister Thomas Mulcair and automobile critic Phil Edmonston, though thousands more ran as token candidates, confident they would be back at their old jobs after election day.

In 2011, that expectation turned out to be wrong. Though no one outside Quebec seemed to notice, and few Quebecers admit it, the Bloc campaign was an utter failure. A flood of signs depicting a grumpy looking Gilles Duceppe claiming to speak for "Qc" seemed a little arrogant and underlined a suspicion that talk is cheap. NDP leader Jack Layton sounded cheerful and eager to get some good things done. The NDP candidates looked much as they always had been: invisible.

No one believed the polls. As Mulcair commented, he had never seen a poll vote, a joke about the utility poles that, in Quebec, bear the bulk of candidates' signs. The polls turned out, on the whole, to be right. Layton swept the province, much as Brian Mulroney had in 1984. It was election night's biggest surprise.

The hard news, of course, was that Harper had finally won a majority, though, in a Canada of two nations, he had swept English Canada and been thumped in French Canada. For Conservatives, this was historically unprecedented. John A. Macdonald, R.B. Bennett, Brian Mulroney, even Robert Borden, had formidable backing from Quebec. In his 1958 landslide, Quebec was delivered wholesale by then premier Maurice Duplessis. Harper's campaign in Quebec was a massive rejection by voters of his appeal for a majority government.

In federal politics, the two cultural nations are now split by the carpet running through the House of Commons. Close to a million Quebecers abandoned the sovereignist Bloc Québécois and took their votes to Layton and a federalist party. Stephen Harper now faces a hard choice. Can he suppress his own resentment at rejection and risk annoying his triumphant followers by giving Layton some tangible rewards for winning Quebec's support away from the Bloc? Or will his ego and his ideology take pride of place?

Quebecers will eagerly await the results of their May 2 votes. Like Harper, they have a choice. If NDP voters in Quebec feel disillusioned by their votes, they will cheerfully return to Pauline Marois's Parti Québécois, already primed to sweep Jean Charest's Liberals from office. In the process, returning NDPers will give the PQ some of that youthful demographic it has been losing in recent years, as well as the clear majority the Clarity Act now requires from any sovereignty referendum.

Harper and many of his voters may want to forget about Quebec and its demands. His postelection pledge to remember all Canadians, including those who voted against him, may, for the sake of Canada, be the most important words he has ever uttered.

Desmond Morton is an emeritus professor of history at McGill University and founding director of McGill's Institute for the Study of Canada.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

I disagree with Morton on a couple of points:

1. While it is true that a majority government with so little Québec 'bench strength' is, indeed, unprecedented, it is something with which we had best grow accustomed. As I have said, several times in these fora, those who want to lead Canada must learn to govern without Québec; not against Québec, just without much representation from it; and

2. The big challenge has nothing to do with Mr. Harper's perceived resentment, it has everything to do with the direction in which Quebecers next turn when, not if, the NDP fails to satisfy them.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

I would recommend Harper to appoint every Quebec member to cabinet with Maxime Bernier pretty close to him in the front row. 

 

[wannabe SF member]

I disagree with the idead that sovereignty is a done deal. The make-up of Quebec is dramatically changing with immigration as the previous Péquistes governnment's failure at social engineering is becoming more apparent. Immigrants aren't buying the salad and neither are the more industrious Québécois. The proof of this is in the Beauce region which remains in conservative hands after this election.

Furthermore, nothing guarantees that we lose all of Quebec the referendum go through, I for one, am for partition. Most of Quebec's territory was acquired post-confederation, I don't see why the feds couldn't take back the territory that was given along with federalist enclaves like Montreal.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
Furthermore, nothing guarantees that we lose all of Quebec the referendum go through, I for one, am for partition. Most of Quebec's territory was acquired post-confederation, I don't see why the feds couldn't take back the territory that was given along with federalist enclaves like Montreal.

Drifting off topic ...

I agree with you.

What's the first problem facing an independent Québec? Sepratrism and potentially violent separatists.

My first – and I think pretty good - guess is that if a free and fair (clear question) referendum passed, province wide, it would fail in some regions, most notably: the North (James Bay and the Ungava Peninsula) the Pontiac/West Québec and the Eastern Townships. Separatist movements would quickly develop and agitate very strongly in those regions.

The aboriginal separatists in the North have the only valid case for separation – more valid in the eyes of the United Nations than Québec's case – because those aboriginals can, fairly, claim to be a colonized people.

But the substantial English minorities in some regions will be constant thorns in the side of a new aggressively French government – the Anglais will bring out the worst in the French nationalists and many 'soft nationalists' will leave the movement, à la Lucien Bouchard after l'Affaire Michaud in 2000/2001, thus weakening the legitimacy of the new national government.

My second guess is that any separation would, eventually, be settled through a multi-national panel that would partition Québec and allow some regions to rejoin Canada.

 

[observor 69]

Which reminds me of being in Bagotville in the 1970's and being concerned about the strong regional separatist sentiment.
The Lac St.Jean area had no love for the feds and as a member of the distinct minority Anglais I was quite happy when I packed my bags and left

 

[57Chevy]

But the substantial English minorities in some regions will be constant thorns in the side of a new aggressively French government – the Anglais will bring out the worst in the French nationalists

I pity the English speaking French Canadian or any other minority who may someday have to deal with any of the Federal Agencies owned and operated by those same biased individuals.

Which reminds me of being in Bagotville in the 1970's and being concerned about the strong regional separatist sentiment.
The Lac St.Jean area had no love for the feds and as a member of the distinct minority Anglais I was quite happy when I packed my bags and left

House for sale may be coming !

 

[xo31@711ret]

My wife, a NB Acadain was posted to Sept-Iles, on the lower north shore ( I left the regs & went reserves to serve at that unit). I speak little to no french myself. And anyone who's been to the lower north shore knows it is very franco with a spattering of some anlgos - though not much. Sept-Iles for example has a population of about 27,000 with about 700 bilingual anglo-phones. My point is, I went to Sept Iles very ignorant & bias thinking I was going into 'the dragon's den' of separatism. What I learned after 4 years there is yes, there are a few folks who are die-hard separatists. But most I found were proud Quebecois first and Canadians second.  Especially after the last provincial election a few years ago when the media & especially the PQ were surprised when the riding I lived in (Dupleessi) must of gotten sick of being ignored by the PQ & went red.

 

[Rifleman62]

They can afford to be

proud Quebecois first and Canadians second.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

If any one is interested: A good piece of fiction was written about 15 years ago but Rufus Marlowe (not his real name - changed to hide which member of one of the Montreal Militia unit he is). Its called "Victory?" and it deals with civil war in Quebec after a UDI by  a separatist government. The main tank battle to try and capture Camp Farnham from the Canadian Forces actually takes place (in the book of course) in fields across my house!

Good read - probably not for sale anywhere anymore, but possibly available at your local library. 

To those who will:  Enjoy

 

[The Bread Guy]

If any one is interested: A good piece of fiction was written about 15 years ago but Rufus Marlowe (not his real name - changed to hide which member of one of the Montreal Militia unit he is). Its called "Victory?" and it deals with civil war in Quebec after a UDI by  a separatist government. The main tank battle to try and capture Camp Farnham from the Canadian Forces actually takes place (in the book of course) in fields across my house!

Good read - probably not for sale anywhere anymore, but possibly available at your local library. 

To those who will:  Enjoy

There are actually a few copies still kicking around out there:
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com

 

[MrsAlex]

Alright. As a Quebecker, I have to admit the "Bloc" mentality is definitely a reality. That "Bloc bubble" has kept Quebec population from really experiencing federal politic. And that most definitely has played into the last election. However, I don't think the NPD wave in Quebec is explainable by that alone. In the last few years, the separatist movement has lost a lot of ground. The arguments used to sell the independence to the Quebeckers are dated and do not appeal to the majority of the younger generation. Of course, all the rest of the Canada hear from us comes out of the mouth of Duceppe and the like. The truth is the PQ is also loosing ground in Quebec. I sincerely think many Quebeckers want to finally experience a federalist party. And, the way things were on the political field during the elections, the NPD was the logical choice for most of them.



PS: the book sounds interesting, might give it a look 

 

[a_majoor]

Quebec voters might have much reason to regret their embrace of the BQ; if this is correct the Maritimes and Quebec are facing the "New Canada" of Ontario + the West as the base of political and economic power in Confederation:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/995231--harper-s-conservatives-here-to-stay

Harper’s Conservatives here to stay?
Published On Sat May 21 2011

JONATHAN HAYWARD/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Susan Delacourt
Ottawa Bureau
WATERLOO—Prime Minister Stephen Harper is building a Conservative coalition in Canada that will probably be more enduring than Brian Mulroney’s conservatism of the 1980s, according to Ipsos pollster Darrell Bricker.

Bricker, delivering his election analysis to a Canadian political scientists’ convention last week, said he believes Harper’s brand of conservatism is built on a stronger base than Mulroney’s.

The big difference, says Bricker, is that Mulroney built his Conservative party out of regional grievances, while Harper is forming a Conservative party around individual voters’ values.

“The interesting thing about what happened in this (May 2) election . . . is that they actually put together a values-based national coalition of Tories — the first time we’ve had it in this country,” Bricker said at a luncheon session of the Canadian Political Science Association, which held its annual meeting at Wilfrid Laurier University last week.

Bricker, who worked in the Prime Minister’s Office during Mulroney’s reign, said Conservatives were united in the 1980s largely around their disaffection with Liberal rule. The West, outraged over the Liberals’ national energy program, came together with Quebec, aggrieved over Pierre Trudeau’s patriation of the Constitution.

But according to Bricker, Harper is building his Conservative base on stronger stuff.

He rattled off the typical values of a Harper Conservative voter: “smaller government, law and order, pro-military, pro-trade, pro-U.S., economically focused and fiscally prudent.”

Bricker said: “It is essentially a coalition of taxpayers . . . They’re demographically older, the mean age is 50. They’re more male, they’re more affluent, they’re less educated, they own guns — higher than the rest of the voters — they’re churchgoers, they’re more rural but increasingly suburban.”

Bricker says Harper may become a modern-day Mackenzie King — Canada’s longest-serving prime minister, a Liberal who dominated Canadian politics from the 1920s into the 1940s.

It is, however, Mulroney who holds the record for the biggest-ever majority in Canadian history. In 1984, his party won 211 out of 282 seats.

Mulroney, in fact, is one of the few Canadian prime ministers in recent decades to have won with more than 50 per cent of the popular vote. He went on to win a second majority in 1988.

Harper, meanwhile, has three election victories, but only one majority to his credit now. Though his 167 seats don’t come close to Mulroney’s majority in 1984, Bricker believes Harper’s Conservative base is in less danger of blowing apart, as Mulroney’s did in the 1990s.

In 1993, angry Westerners, former Conservatives largely, banded together behind the fledgling Reform Party, while former Quebec Conservatives migrated to the new Bloc Québécois. Mulroney’s old Conservatives were reduced to two seats in that election.

“Brian Mulroney’s Tory coalition was never united on values, . . . never got along,” Bricker said. “It was an impossible coalition to hold together.”

“But Harper now has a coalition that is possible to hold together because they’re united by values, not just by geography or just by hatred of the Liberal party.”

The challenge now in Canadian politics, according to many attendees at last week’s conference, is to assess what’s going to happen on the left of Canada’s political spectrum.

The once-dominant Liberals have been reduced to third-party status, with only 34 seats and small pockets of strength, mainly in Ontario and the Atlantic region. The New Democratic Party is on the rise, but with a new, untested base in Quebec, whose MPs form nearly half of the 102-member official Opposition.

Very few academics attending last week’s conference were willing to forecast whether the NDP’s new strength would hold. Bricker believes this Liberal-NDP fight for the left will be the political story to watch in coming years. And like the Conservatives, the trick will be in finding values around which to unite a base of support.

“I would say that, through this election, the right side of the dialectic has been sorted out,” Bricker said. “The battle is now actually for what I would say is the progressive side of the agenda.”

 

[Edward Campbell]

Rather than start a new thread ...

I found this article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act interesting, to say the least, and, maybe, even a little thought provoking:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/would-justin-trudeau-separate-from-stephen-harpers-canada-maybe/article2337672/

Would Justin Trudeau separate from Stephen Harper’s Canada? ‘Maybe’

TAMARA BALUJA AND BILL CURRY

OTTAWA— Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Did Justin Trudeau really say he would support Quebec separating from Canada? Maybe, in the most hypothetical of hypothetical situations.

During a 16 minute radio interview in French with Radio-Canada broadcast Sunday, the Montreal Liberal MP was asked if he currently recognizes Canada under Stephen Harper. Mr. Trudeau’s answer clearly caught the host off guard.

“I always say, if at a certain point, I believe that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper – that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways – maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country.”

The blogsphere and Twitterverse is exploding with shocked comments, with many wondering how the MP could go against his father Pierre Trudeau’s vision of federalism.

Although he refused an interview with The Globe, he tweeted Tuesday that “Canada needs Qc to balance out Harper's vision that I (and many) just don't support.”

Earlier in the interview, Mr. Trudeau restated his view that he is not interested in the Liberal leadership at this point in his life because he isn’t sure if he could balance his leadership duties with being a good father to his two children.

He also bristled at questions comparing him to his father, the former prime minister.

“We’ll see when I’m 80, maybe then we can do comparisons,” he said. “He was an intellectual. Me, I’m a bit less intellectual. I’m still a person who has very strong opinions.”

First, a quibble: Pierre Trudeau was not an intellectual, not unless that term has lost all meaning. He was a law professor, a job which is about as intellectual as being, say, a professor of engineering. He had one big idea - he was an anti-nationalist and he found only one way to express that sentiment: by being anti Maurice Duplessis. That was all he was - for heaven's sake my great aunt's cat was anti Duplessis and made almost as much sense as Trudeau did in Cité Libre, a journal that had several hundren readers.

"If at a certain point, I believe that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper – that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways – maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country.” That seems pretty clear to me; if a majority of Canadians turned very, very socially conservative - something that would make me unhappy and uncomfortable - then I would, likely, quit the Conservative Party and support a party that opposed the Canada that was going backwards in 10,000 ways, while Justin Trudeau woud become a separatist.

Good luck with that Liberals.

 

[Danjanou]

If any one is interested: A good piece of fiction was written about 15 years ago but Rufus Marlowe (not his real name - changed to hide which member of one of the Montreal Militia unit he is). Its called "Victory?" and it deals with civil war in Quebec after a UDI by  a separatist government. The main tank battle to try and capture Camp Farnham from the Canadian Forces actually takes place (in the book of course) in fields across my house!

Good read - probably not for sale anywhere anymore, but possibly available at your local library. 

To those who will:  Enjoy

The fun part was trying to figure out the pseudonyms of the main and supporting characters from the different Regiments. Having just been posted to one of the units in the book, it was interesting to note how accurate he was in their descriptions and persona. Not a bad read and one of the better in this rather limited genre. Far superior to Rohmers efforts and the 1970's Killing Ground (IIRC the name)

 

[The Bread Guy]

If any one is interested: A good piece of fiction was written about 15 years ago but Rufus Marlowe (not his real name - changed to hide which member of one of the Montreal Militia unit he is). Its called "Victory?" and it deals with civil war in Quebec after a UDI by  a separatist government. The main tank battle to try and capture Camp Farnham from the Canadian Forces actually takes place (in the book of course) in fields across my house!

Good read - probably not for sale anywhere anymore, but possibly available at your local library. 

That one is still available to buy (used) if one hurries
http://www.amazon.ca/Victory-Novel-Civil-War-Canada/dp/0969629605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329250216&sr=8-1
Never heard of this one - may order one of the used ones up myself.

The fun part was trying to figure out the pseudonyms of the main and supporting characters from the different Regiments. Having just been posted to one of the units in the book, it was interesting to note how accurate he was in their descriptions and persona. Not a bad read and one of the better in this rather limited genre. Far superior to Rohmers efforts and the 1970's Killing Ground (IIRC the name)

Maybe you mean "Separation"?

 

[a_majoor]

The reality, of course, is that Western Canada is evolving and in terms of economics and demographics leaving Quebec and Eastern Canada behind. As well, there is a very large and growing population of immigrants from socially "conservative" cultures who are very much against gay marrage and other progressive tropes (an unintended consequence of multiculturalism, to be sure). It is already possible to generate a majority without Quebec, and with the new seat distribution, the ability of Quebec to influence events will be even smaller.

The real question might not be "will Quebec separate?", but rather will they be shown the door.

 

[57Chevy]

The reality, of course, is that Western Canada is evolving and in terms of economics and demographics leaving Quebec and Eastern Canada behind. As well, there is a very large and growing population of immigrants from socially "conservative" cultures who are very much against gay marrage and other progressive tropes (an unintended consequence of multiculturalism, to be sure). It is already possible to generate a majority without Quebec, and with the new seat distribution, the ability of Quebec to influence events will be even smaller.

The real question might not be "will Quebec separate?", but rather will they be shown the door.

Eastern Canada and especially Quebec is evolving proportionately with the rest of Canada.
As for the real question
IMO, Quebec will never separate for that reason exactly.
"The Growing population of immigrants in all regions accross the country."

The other reason ( I think ) is bilingualism.
No separation without bilingualism.... but that's my opinion.

 

[a78jumper]

One thing for certain, Justin Trudeau is a featherweight in the brains department....takes after his Mom. :nod: