User:Liberlogos/The Case for a Sovereign Quebec
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- JACQUES PARIZEAU, of the Parti Québécois, is the prime minister of Quebec.
The problem with Canada can be summed up in one question: How many nations live in its midst? For Quebecers, who have spoken French on this continent since 1608 and who make up 25 per cent of Canada's population, the answer is obviously two. That is the understanding upon which Canada was founded in 1867. The two nations would share some powers in a central state, but they would also coexist in strong provincial governments with substantial autonomy.
The notion of Canadian duality has been at the center of Canadian unity for more than 100 years. Fifteen years ago, when Quebecers were first asked to vote in a referendum on sovereignty, opponents argued that there was no need for independence because new ways would be found to strengthen Canada's duality and to protect Quebec's distinctiveness within Canada.
But then that promise was broken. The contract that linked Quebec to the rest of Canada was changed in 1982 by the federal government and the nine English provinces. A new constitution was imposed upon Quebec against its will, and it reduced Quebecers' ability to govern themselves on matters such as language and education. All parties in Quebec's parliament, the National Assembly, denounced the action, and all Quebec governments elected since then have refused to ratify the document.
More than just a breach of contract, the 1982 constitution brought about a change in the nature of Canada. It embodied and propelled a strong Canadian national will that now negates the very existence of Quebec as a nation. In an attempt to repair the damage done in 1982, the Canadian prime minister and the premiers of all 10 provinces drafted amendments to recognize that the 7 million Quebecers, with their own history, language, culture, and laws, at least made up a "distinct society" within Canada. The effort aroused tremendous opposition in English Canada, and it failed. This past winter, a typical poll. showed that two-thirds of English Canadians believe that Quebecers are not a "distinct people" within Canada. Not a single political leader outside Quebec will now consider touching the issue, and the federal government has pledged to propose no reform of Canada's fundamental law at any time in the foreseeable future.
That is the crux of the issue. Quebecers, who have a strong sense of their identity, live in a country that refuses to acknowledge their existence. They are told either to conform with a vision of Canada they do not share or to leave.
That is why a great number of former defenders of Canadian unity have now sided with the advocates of sovereignty for Quebec. Chief among them is former Canadian ambassador to France and former Canadian environment minister Lucien Bouchard. In the 1993 federal election, Quebecers elected so many candidates of his pro-sovereignty party, the Bloc Quebecois, that Lucien Bouchard is now the leader of the opposition in Ottawa. Marcel Masse, minister of defense in Brian Mulroney's government, also announced recently that he could not defend the new Canadian view of the country and had "no choice" but to support independence.
The increased support for sovereignty is not just evident among political leaders. Whereas 15 years ago fewer than 20 per cent of Quebecers favored outright separation for Quebec, the figure is now more than 40 per cent. Over the last five years, support for our proposal for sovereignty-with maintenance of a common market association with Canada-soared to 65 per cent of the population of Quebec and has since then gone back and forth over the 50 per cent mark. We are confident that this year, a clear majority of Quebecers will choose to give themselves a real country.
The case for independence does not rely solely on Canada's refusal to compromise with its French component. It draws strength from the federal government's incessant infringements on Quebec's jurisdiction and from the decisions of the Canadian Supreme Court to shorten the list of Quebec's powers. The court did so again just last year by denying Quebec any say in telecommunications policy, whether or not it is linked to cultural content.
Quebec's determination to become a member of the family of nations ultimately stems from its own successes. When upwards of two-thirds of your economy is owned by domestic interests; when you export 47 per cent of everything you produce; when your labor force is skilled enough to get world-class mandates for local General Motors and IBM plants; when you have a well-educated adult population that is the most bilingual in Canada or the United States and that has developed strong bonds with both American and European cultures; and when your subways, airplanes, songs, plays, circus, and cinema are a part of the fabric of international life, you have no desire to turn inward. You have no desire to close doors. Rather, you want to open them wide. You want to step out and be yourself, talk for yourself, and deal for yourself, directly and without any intermediary.
Trading with Quebec
Quebecers have demonstrated that they are strong supporters of free trade. Without Quebec, there would not have been enough support in Canada to enact either the Canada-United States free trade deal or the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The sovereignist movement has always been at the forefront of the free trade movement, and it still is. Our parliament will be the first among the Canadian provinces to pass the enabling legislation putting into effect those portions of the NAFTA agreement dealing with provincial jurisdiction.
Obviously, the agreement reached at last December's Summit of the Americas, which proposes to complete hemispheric free trade within 10 years, is very good news for us. Quebec is the United States's eighth largest trading partner, with its trade amounting to 40 per cent of the total U.S.-Mexican trading relationship. As a sovereign country, Quebec's gross domestic product would rate among the GDPs of the strongest members of the Organization for Economic
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Notes
*: The ghostwriter of this text is Jean-François Lisée.
1. This article was taken from the Foreign Policy political review (Summer 1995, No.99, pp. 69-77).