"The Quebec advantage and the Canadian advantage: a winning combination for Quebecers"

The Honourable Stéphane Dion
President of the Privy Council and
Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Discussion paper distributed at a meeting of the
Quebec Round Table of the Council for Canadian Unity

Sainte-Foy, Quebec

May 27, 1999

"Winning conditions". Rarely have two words more effectively encapsulated a strategy. Because everyone knows that the current Quebec government is absolutely obsessed with creating the winning conditions for a third referendum. Winning conditions from their viewpoint, of course, which from our viewpoint are the losing conditions for Quebecers and all Canadians.

The fact that the Parti québécois came in second in terms of the number of votes, behind Jean Charest's Liberals, might have been seen by most people as a moral obligation not to hold a referendum during the current mandate. But it seems that the PQ government just can't stop itself from pushing ever onward with its referendum plans, which dictate all of its actions as a government.

So how is it going about trying to create those winning conditions? And how do we react to those efforts, we who believe in a united Canada regardless of where our political loyalties lie? I would like to thank our non-partisan forum, the Council for Canadian Unity, for giving me the opportunity to try to answer those two questions.

1.  The strategy of exclusive nationalism: getting Quebecers to renounce Canada

The strategy of the PQ government consists of presenting our Canadian dimension as something foreign to ourselves as Quebecers. Something foreign and unnecessary, and worse: something harmful and threatening.

This strategy consists in convincing us that we are not Canadians. We are Quebecers, but not Canadians. Canada is not us. Canada is another nation. And our being subjected to this other nation is more of a danger to us than ever.

I hasten to add that such arguments are not only a matter of strategy. First and foremost, they are a matter of sincerity and conviction. The proponents of independence are generally every bit as sincere and convinced as the proponents of Canadian unity. Indeed, we are facing a very strong ideology, which invites people to look at their lives in society only through a nationalist lens.

According to this ideology, in essence, only nations exist. Citizens are atoms within the organic body of the nation. To be truly free, a nation must form its own independent state, and not be included within a state or another larger nation, as Quebecers are within Canada. Otherwise, it is not free: it is dominated by the other nation, as Quebecers are dominated by Canadians.

When Bernard Landry stated publicly on October 27, 1997, that Lucien Bouchard was a "liberator of a people", in the same manner as Gandhi or Bolivar, he really believed it, no matter how incredible it may seem to us. It's not a matter of linguistic hyperbole, it is the very basis of this ideology: we Quebecers are not free, can you believe it? The fact that Canada is one of the oldest democracies in the world, that Canadian citizens have enjoyed civil liberties for longer than almost any other country on earth, that Canada is ranked as one of the best countries in terms of respecting civil liberties, according to international studies, that Canada is a good global citizen, always taking it upon itself to promote greater freedom, democracy and peace in the world, all of this is barely relevant to the debate. Because the only thing that really matters is that Quebec is not an independent state, it is a province of a state in which Quebecers are a minority. Thus, Quebec is not free, and needs to be liberated.

Oh, of course, this liberation must be effected through democracy. We are among democrats, after all. But here again, it is nations that are the key players. That is why Quebec is not divisible, because it is made up of one nation, whereas Canada is divisible because it is made up of two nations. Canada is not a real country, Lucien Bouchard has told us. And so it is divisible. But an independent Quebec would be a real country, made up of a single nation, and would thus be indivisible. This is the only thing that really matters, even if populations concentrated in a given territory were to democratically and clearly express their preference for their region to remain in Canada. Those regions, the separatist leaders and their loyal intellectuals tell us, are not nations. There is a pecking order for democratic rights, depending on whether or not you form a nation.

Within this universe, citizens are nationalists. There is no other collective identity than the national identity. And this national collective identity is exclusive: you can be a member of only one nation. It is impossible to be a Quebecer and a Canadian at the same time. Not because being Canadian is a bad thing. But because being a Canadian is not us. We are Quebecers. Canadians, Bernard Landry explained on May 15th, think only of their own nation, and sacrifice our interests, the interests of us Quebecers, who form another nation.

Being a Quebecer means more than just living within Quebec's territory. Being a Quebecer means ceasing to be a Canadian in your head and in your heart, while you await ceasing to be a Canadian in point of fact. This is what has been left unsaid in the debate on identity that the Bloc has felt obliged to undertake, and what Ms. Tremblay, in reference to Céline Dion, and Mr. Landry, in reference to Mr. Monty, have expressed in their own way, as have so many others: Mr. Lévesque in reference to Mr. Trudeau's Scottish ancestry, Mr. Bouchard's comments on the white race, or Mr. Parizeau on the ethnic vote.

Some people see these statements as signs of a latent xenophobia. But looking at the problem in this manner misses the main point. The ideology we are confronting is not mainly an ideology of xenophobia. It is mainly an ideology of secession. It is based on an exclusive conception of the nation: you can't be a Quebecer unless you are only a Quebecer. If you feel Canadian, it is because in some way you don't love Quebec. Jean Charest doesn't love Quebec, he feels Canadian as well.

While belonging to Quebec and to Canada is an impossible combination, there is a perfect equivalency between Quebec and the independence movement. This is why the two pro-independence parties are called the Parti québécois and the Bloc québécois.

Such is the ideology that the separatist leaders believe in. But they have a problem, the same problem they've had for thirty years, which is that the vast majority of Quebecers don't share that belief. Quebecers in general do not have an exclusive conception of the nation. They feel that they are both Quebecers and Canadians, and live these two identities as a wonderful complementarity, not as a contradiction or some sort of visit to the dentist. They don't have a problem admitting that Quebecers form a people. They don't have a problem admitting that there can be more than one people within Quebec. They don't have a problem admitting that Canadians form a people. And they are generally very happy to be part of all of these peoples at the same time.

Since Quebecers can't convince themselves that they would be happier if they ceased to be Canadians as well, the separatist leaders have to use some strategy. In fact, they are deploying a number of different strategies simultaneously.

The first of these strategies consists in convincing Quebecers that they will keep Canada in some way, even if they vote Yes. Hence, the strategy of partnership, which used to be called "association". Partnership is clearly a strategy, a vote-getter designed to artificially inflate support for the Yes. The proof is that Mr. Bouchard himself described that partnership as "bare bones" on June 19, 1997, and that the independence parties are faring no better now than they have in the past in fleshing out those bare bones. The latest documents by the Bloc practically out-and-out admit that it doesn't know what to make of this partnership. After all, how can 25% of a country's population break up the country through a secession and then come back to have a 50% say within the country's common institutions, thus acquiring a kind of veto over some of its most strategic policies? But it really doesn't matter whether the idea makes sense or not, it's needed as a vote-getter, to camouflage the vote on secession.

The second of these strategies consists in presenting Quebecers with a done deal to some extent by denying their Canadian dimension. When the PQ government gave a $200,000 cheque a few months ago to the organizers of the Quebec Games in Trois-Rivières so as to make sure that there wouldn't be any maple leaves visible at the Games, it was more than just an anecdote. It has to be seen as a symbol of this strategy that consists of taking Canada out of Quebec as much as possible, while waiting to take Quebec out of Canada.

When Ms. Beaudoin recently said how pleased she was that the "Printemps du Québec" in Paris represented us "in all our dimensions," she naturally didn't include our Canadian dimension, which had been carefully rendered invisible to the Parisians.

But it is not enough to present Canada as being foreign to us. It is not enough to make no mention of its merits, to say nothing about Canadian solidarity, or of the leverage that belonging to Canada gives us on the international scene, of the assistance that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Canada's embassies provide to the external policy of the Government of Quebec, and to hide as much as possible the existence of equalization or ice storm relief, or in general all of the positive synergy that Quebecers and other Canadians achieve together. Canada has to be depicted as being harmful to us, as a threat. A threat so long as there is not an international border between it and us. That's what the strategy is: to depict Canada as a threat. Not because it is bad in itself, but because, well, Canada is another nation, which thinks of its own interests.

Canada, especially the Canadian government, the feds, are objectively against Quebec. Which explains the oft-heard expression, "it's the feds' fault." When things are going badly, blame it on the feds. When they're going well, say it's in spite of the feds. High unemployment: blame it on the feds. The development of the high-tech sector in Montreal: in spite of the feds.

Francophone Quebecers who become prime minister and ministers in Ottawa are especially singled out. In his most incantatory speeches, Lucien Bouchard describes Jean Chrétien as a "hatchet man", an "enemy" of Quebec. Recently, in a particularly lively sparring match in Parliament, Gilles Duceppe called the Prime Minister a "token French-Canadian." I myself heard him in his seat yelling "collaborator", while his colleagues were shouting "sell-out." Coming out of the House of Commons, at a press scrum, he called him "Uncle Tom". These are infamous statements, which are designed to convince Quebecers that they can't work for Canada without renouncing what they are, without working against Quebec.

The reference to the Supreme Court, which resulted in protection for Quebecers in the eventuality of a separatist premier abusing his powers and trying to deprive them of their full Canadian identity on the basis of an unclear and illegal procedure, was naturally depicted as an all-out attack against Quebec and Quebec democracy.

Any passing fad can become an opportunity to present our belonging to Canada as unnecessary, harmful or threatening. If the fad is a common currency, then get on board no questions asked, hooray for the greenback, or the "amero" or whatever, never mind that yesterday you were all for keeping the Canadian dollar, and the day before for Quebec's adopting its own currency. It's the cause that's important, not consistency in the positions you take. Who cares if economists predict serious problems and high unemployment if you abandon the Canadian dollar? The cause justifies all the risks that Quebecers may be subjected to.

In 1993, it was trendy to say that Canada was almost bankrupt, headed for Third-World status. And so Lucien Bouchard campaigned in the federal election calling on Quebecers to get out of this almost bankrupt country. "If they [Canadians outside Quebec] are intent on going bankrupt, let them go. But we're going to save our skin," he said on August 14, 1993. In 1995, Canada was well on its way to financial recovery, as a result of difficult cuts. And so Lucien Bouchard campaigned in the referendum calling on Quebecers to vote yes so as to escape the "cold wind" of cuts. But in 1996, Lucien Bouchard became Premier, and was forced to do some cutting himself and set the objective of a zero deficit. Which prompted another U-turn: we no longer need to become independent to escape the cuts, we need to make cuts to afford independence. And we'll achieve a zero deficit within a country that should logically have gone bankrupt. It doesn't matter if you don't make any sense: it's the cause that's important, not consistency in the positions you take.

On October 17, 1967, Jacques Parizeau gave a speech in Banff which was to become famous, in which he explained that Canada was an exceptionally decentralized federation, too decentralized, and that it had to centralize to achieve rational economic management. The trendy idea at that time was economic planning, Keynesianism. On January 28, 1999, Mr. Parizeau gave a speech in Quebec City in which he explained that Canada is an exceptionally decentralized federation, too decentralized, and that it had to centralize to adapt better to the new international order. The trendy idea now is globalization. [TRANSLATION] "If the federal government is to be able to retain the powers of a genuine government and to set policies, it is imperative that it centralize what is an extraordinarily decentralized federation."

It's no matter that the centralization announced again and again by Mr. Parizeau has been decades in coming and is still nowhere to be seen, or that it's hard to see why today's globalization, any more than yesterday's Keynesianism, should change Canada into a centralized country. It's the cause that's important, not consistency in the positions you take.

Another strategy to convince Quebecers that Canada is harmful consists in grossly exaggerating the slightest difficulties, the smallest disagreements, so as to prove that Canada itself doesn't work. Then you follow this up with lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Any pretext will do: the anniversary of the ice storm, the social union agreement, the federal budget, the provincial budget, Mr. Bouchard goes to Europe, Mr. Bouchard goes to Mexico.

This is where you get the aggressive practice of what Messrs Bouchard and Parizeau referred to during the election campaign as "booty politics". It consists of constantly calling for more powers and more money from the federal government, on every front. If the feds balk, you denounce their refusal as proof that Canadian federalism is rigid and incapable of reform. If they react positively, you suggest that Quebecers have done well to give themselves some clout by electing separatists, and that this is nothing compared to the clout they'll have once they vote Yes.

2.   Highlighting our Canadian dimension

So how do you counter the strategies of the promoters of exclusive nationalism? Simply put: by refusing to play their game.

The separatist leaders want to play on confusion, so as to hide from Quebecers the break-up with Canada that secession would represent. So, let's play on clarity. Let's say clearly that it's impossible for Quebecers to have their belonging to Canada taken away from them in an atmosphere of confusion unless they have clearly expressed their will to renounce it. It's impossible because it would be undemocratic. And it would be illegal. Let's say clearly that the Government of Canada does not have the right to negotiate an end to its constitutional obligations toward Quebecers unless they have clearly asked it to do so, through a clear majority on a clear question on secession. Not on the ambiguous concept of sovereignty: Quebec within the federation is sovereign within its own areas of jurisdiction. And not on the intellectual fraud of partnership. On secession.

The opinion by the Supreme Court exists to guarantee the rule of law and democracy for all. So let's respect it, as democrats.

Don't play their game. When they try to hide Canada, let's show it off. When they tried to hide the ice storm relief, we spoke out. When they tried to hide equalization, we spoke out. When they tried to hide the international leverage Canada gives us, we spoke out. But it must not be only the Government of Canada and the Quebec Liberal Party that speak out. To those voices must be added the voices of all of us who believe that being a Quebecer and a Canadian at the same time is a wonderful thing.

When they present Canada as a threat, let's take them up on their own contradictions. So when they say with such intransigence that Bernard Landry or Louise Beaudoin, for example, can serve Quebec's interests effectively because they are Quebecers, whereas John Manley or Sheila Copps, for example, cannot, because they are not Quebecers, let's ask them how, within Quebec itself, non-Francophones could agree to confide their interests to Francophones. To accept the intolerance of their reasoning is not only to accept the destruction of what is the very ideal of Canada, which is different populations helping one another, it is also to undermine the solidarity of Quebecers among themselves. And we have to show that, and show it clearly.

When they stoop to personal attacks, we must never follow suit. But we must show zero tolerance for such disgraceful behaviour. I cannot understand how Gilles Duceppe got off so lightly after his shameful and ignoble attacks on the Prime Minister.

When they practise booty politics, we must refuse once again to play their game. It is time for us to say, and convince ourselves, that the issue of the division of powers between the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec is not a bargaining chip to allay separatism. It is first and foremost a question of quality of public service. Quebecers have two governments that have constitutional powers: their provincial government and their federal government. They are entitled to demand that these two governments work together as effectively as possible.

Let's look at the two current hot buttons being pushed by the PQ government: foreign policy and cultural policy. No one can seriously claim that the two governments disagree on policy direction in these areas. In fact, most of the time, they share the same objectives. And when disagreements have arisen in the past, it can't be said in hindsight that it has always been the federal government that was in the wrong in terms of the interests of Quebecers. Indeed, the very opposite was true during the entire Duplessis era.

On April 13, 1999, when pressed by journalists, the Bloc MP Yvan Loubier was unable to cite a single case of Canadian foreign policy that had disadvantaged Quebecers. On May 26, he signed a convoluted document which shows just how hollow his indictment of Canadian foreign policy is: "The Canadian state is not a tool in the service of Quebec's national interest, even though its policy is often articulated–very skillfully–by Quebecers." In short, the only thing wrong with Canadian foreign policy is that it is, well, Canadian.

There is an electronic version of Hansard going back to January 1994. I checked it out, and found that, prior to Mr. Bouchard's recent trip to Barcelona between March 13 and 15, 1999, the Bloc had not asked a single question in Question Period during all that time regarding the place of the Quebec government abroad. It is obvious that this international offensive by the PQ and the Bloc is a referendum strategy.

Let's look at a hot button from the recent past: job training. The transfer has created a lot of problems, which can charitably be attributed to a transition period. Of course, one might suggest that the wholesale transfer of the Quebec federal public service to the Government of Quebec in the event of secession would create a veritable avalanche of red tape.

We believe we have found the best arrangement between provincial responsibilities in the related sector of education and federal responsibilities for economic development and employment insurance. We will do everything in our power to ensure that this new formula, which places heavy responsibilities on the provinces, is a winning formula for Canadian workers. But it must be acknowledged that past arrangements could not have been as bad as all that, since the International Institute for Management Development is on record as saying that Canada has one of the most highly skilled workforces in the world. The moral of this story is that job training is too important in itself to do be sacrificed on the altar of booty politics.

There is no single right answer in this area. The Swiss recently decided in a referendum to make job training a federal constitutional jurisdiction. As far as I know, that decision hasn't created any Swiss separatists.

And finally, when the separatist leaders try to capitalize on the divisions among us federalists, when they transform the smallest disagreement, the slightest tension, into proof that Canada doesn't work, we must not play their game there either. We must say, loud and clear, that nothing in this country justifies secession. Nothing in Quebec, and nothing elsewhere in the country. To be sure, we have our disagreements on economic policy, the social union, foreign policy. We have our own ideas on how the roles of the two orders of government ought to be arranged. We have our own views on the type of leadership that is best for the country. And we all have our own ideas on the constitutional changes that should be made, including a more clearly articulated recognition of Quebec's difference. But we all believe in this country.

To be sure, it is not the opposition's job to sing the government's praises. Within the Liberal family, the federal and provincial parties sometimes have different perspectives. This is natural and healthy. We all have our own ideas on how to improve the country. But we all believe that Canada as it is, with its own forces for change, is a great country. We don't have to make it acceptable to Quebecers, because it already is, and far more. It is infinitely preferable to the secessionist gambit.

In short, we must keep the burden of proof squarely on the separatists' shoulders. It is up to them to show that happiness means losing Canada. Two thirds of Quebecers do not want a referendum, which means they do not want to have to choose between Quebec and Canada. They want to be Quebecers and Canadians, rather than Quebecers without Canada. And they're absolutely right.