MINISTER DION SAYS AT THE LONDON SCHOOL
OF ECONOMICS THAT PLURAL COLLECTIVE
IDENTITIES ARE AN OPPORTUNITY RATHER
THAN A CONTRADICTION

LONDON (U.K.), May 19, 1998 – The Honourable Stéphane Dion, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, said today at the London School of Economics that since the end of the Cold War, conflicts between groups within states have greatly exceeded conflicts between states. The Minister stated that the unity debate in Canada is "universal in scope", because "Canadians are now debating what could be the most important question of the next century: how to enable different populations to live together within the same country."

The Minister indicated that the compelling idea that should convince citizens who do not speak the same language or do not have the same cultural references to stay together is that of plural identities. As for Canada, he stated that his hope was for every Quebecer to be able to say: "I am a Quebecer and a Canadian, and I refuse to choose between the two".

Mr. Dion said he wished that, instead of British critics of the creation of parliaments for Scotland and Wales raising the example of Quebec within Canada as a danger to national unity, the Canadian example of diversity would be seen as a strength. "I want countries throughout the world to say: ‘We can have confidence in our minorities, and allow them to develop in their own way, because they will make our country stronger, just as Quebec makes Canada stronger,'" said the Minister.

Mr. Dion was critical of several "false solutions" to the question of national unity, including assimilation of minorities, forcing populations to remain in a country against their will, and promoting "internal separatism" by granting separatist leaders "everything they want inside the country, hoping that they will lose interest in separating".

The Minister stated that any group which has "a collective identity, as a people or a nation, must have an autonomy, institutions in which it can recognize itself. But at the same time, if the concept of plural identities is to have any meaning, those citizens must also feel that they are members of the country a whole." Mr. Dion noted that unity requires a balance between autonomy within a country, on the one hand, and solidarity throughout the country, on the other.

"In short", stated the Minister, "democracy invites us to help our fellow citizens who are different from us, and to accept their help, and to see our sometimes difficult cohabitation as a process of learning a more complete citizenship that is closer to universal values."

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