Quebeckers want a parting of the ways: Canadian province is restless again
By David Ljunggren
QUEBEC CITY: A decade after a referendum on whether Quebec should break away from Canada failed by a whisker, the pro-independence movement in the French-speaking province is anxious to try its luck again.
Fury about a federal government patronage scandal has pushed support among Quebecers for sovereignty above 50 per cent in some opinion polls, a level not seen for years. The separatist Parti Quebecois says it will call another referendum quickly if it wins the next provincial election, likely in 2007.
“We must win. We must win,” said Agnes Maltais, who chairs the caucus of Parti Quebecois legislators in the provincial parliament.
“We don’t hate Canada. It’s just that ... we don’t have a place in this Canadian vision any more. It doesn’t fit in with the aspirations that Quebec has for itself,” she told Reuters.
A Parti Quebecois government introduced Quebec’s last referendum on sovereignty, which took place on Oct. 30, 1995. In the final tally, just 54,000 votes separated the pro-Canada camp from the separatists, who gained 49.4 per cent support.
The close result was a huge shock to the federal government in Ottawa, which pumped government advertising money into Quebec to try to ease separatist feelings and thereby ensure Canada never lived through such drama again.
Yet 10 years later many in the province of eight million people remain unhappy with their place inside a predominantly English-speaking Canada of 32 million.
Uneasy relations between the two communities stretch back to when the French, the first to settle what is now Canada, were forced to hand over control of their territory to Britain in the mid-18th century.
Canada gained its independence in 1867, but Quebec francophones complained they were second-class citizens in a province dominated by English-speakers.
It was not until the mid-20th century that francophones started to press seriously for their rights and in 1976 they voted in the first Parti Quebecois provincial government, which moved aggressively to promote French language and culture.
The attractive narrow streets of Quebec City are now alive with French, which by law must dominate even store signs.
Separatists admit their culture is on sturdier ground than it was before 1976, but they say Canada’s federal system still gives Ottawa too much control over taxes and legislation.
“I feel like a teenager in a house with very strict parents who won’t let me out to experience life properly,” said delivery man Jean Lesage. “We have a strong industrial base, vast amounts of hydroelectric power and lots of resources — who says we couldn’t survive on our own?”
The federal Liberals, wary of clashing with separatists over sensitive topics such as culture and language, are also happy to use economic arguments. They say an independent Quebec would be crushed in an era increasingly dominated by giants like China and India.
“I don’t believe that anybody’s children, given the opportunities that we have as Canada, are going to (want to) be in a country of eight million people,” Prime Minister Paul Martin told Quebec journalists this month.
Martin’s approach reflects another challenge for the separatists, since there is little chance the federal government will be as complacent as it was in 1995.
Jean Chretien, prime minister at the time, was absent from the stuttering pro-federal campaign and seemed oblivious to the dangers. When he finally realized the separatists could win, he broke down and cried in front of his parliamentary caucus.
The government subsequently pushed through legislation making it harder for provinces to break away.
But ironically, it was a more subtle policy that boosted secessionist sentiment.
Ottawa poured money into Quebec through a sponsorship programme designed to boost the federal image, plastering the province with the maple leaf flag and sponsoring trade shows.
The programme was deeply flawed and, in a scandal that still dominates Canadian politics, C$100 million ($84 million) was funnelled to firms with close Liberal ties. Quebecers were outraged.
“There was a visceral reaction that we were deceived, that they stole our money and tried to steal our identity,” said Maltais.
But Benoit Pelletier, intergovernmental minister with Quebec’s increasingly unpopular governing Liberal party, said the Parti Quebecois ran the risk of being overconfident.
“We are also confident of winning the next election ... We’re very confident that up until that moment we’ll (continue to) win support and there won’t be another referendum,” he told Reuters.
The Parti Quebecois — notorious both for infighting and the hefty influence from hard-liners who will brook no delay in pushing for independence — is looking for a new leader.
The favourite is 39-year-old Andre Boisclair, a charismatic legislator who could be damaged by the admission he used cocaine while the party was last in power.
“The cause of sovereignty is even stronger in 2005 than it was in 1995 ... It’s impossible to manage Quebec with the tools we have in the province,” he told Reuters.
Surprisingly, this message is now under fire from a most unlikely source.
Lucien Bouchard, the firebrand separatist leader who almost pulled off victory in the 1995 referendum, said last week Quebec should focus on problems such as high taxes, low population growth and an enormous debt.
“If you’re saying to me that we must achieve sovereignty first to settle this, that’s not what I think,” Bouchard, who quit politics in 2001, said after launching a manifesto calling for radical changes to the way the province is run.—Reuters
