After Clarity Act: Canadian Politics and the Québec-problem

Marcin Gabryś Jagiellonian University After Clarity Act: Canadian Politics and the Québec-problem Le présent article se concentre sur la question de la position problématique du Québec au Canada. L auteur se refère notamment au refus de ratification de la Constitution canadienne par le Québec en 1982, ainsi qu aux référendums dans lesquels les habitants de la province se sont prononcés en faveur de la séparation du Québec. Il décrit aussi des tentatives de définir le Québec en tant qu un état distinct au sein d un autre état. L auteur tente de délimiter les conséquences politiques des changements éventuels découlant d une autre définition de la position du Québec au sein du Canada. Indeed, there can be a nation within Canada. That is what we are proposing to you. That is not my first choice, but I would never insist that Quebecers form a nation only on the condition that they have a country, nor would I ever accept that we could be recognized as a nation only on the condition that we stay in Canada. We are what we are, period. Gilles Duceppe, Bloc Québecois ( Debate ) The Québec-problem has been a part of Canadian politics continuously for at least 50 years. In spite of many different approaches, so far politicians have not been successful in negotiating an acceptable solution for the francophone province - within or without the Canadian state. The issue has resurfaced recently. This time it has touched the question whether the French language, history and culture mark Quebecers as a separate people who should be recognised as a nation under the constitution. In my paper, I would like to show discuss this very complex issue of recognizing Québec nationhood, and take a closer look at the 2006 House of Commons resolution which stated that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada (Canada).

Introduction The debate on Québécois nationhood concentrates on the status of the province of Québec and its mainly French-speaking population. In Lord Durham's Report of 1839 one can find a phrase: "two nations warring in the bosom of a single state," ( Report ) and some would say that not much has changed since then. But obviously the meaning of the phrase Québec nation has evolved over the span of more than two centuries. The old sense of the term Québec nation is connected with the first phase of Québec ethnic nationalism, which lasted until the early 1960s, and which was close to the European experience of nationalism. That type of nationalism had it roots in French Canadian fears of being assimilated by a larger, English-speaking rest of Canada. In that period French-speaking Canadians were a homogeneous community, living in a separate territory (which they considered their ethnic homeland) 1, speaking common language, and cemented by the dominant position of the Catholic church (Kijewska-Trembecka 118). The contemporary meaning sense of the term has its roots in the 1960s when the concept of Québec as a nation changed and evolved due to new social and political conditions. New generations of young people in Québec, and, generally, in Canada as a whole, were coming to power and they brought new ideas and ways of defining what they wanted to achieve in politics. It was then than the term Québécois largely replaced French Canadian as an expression of cultural and national identity. The changes in nomenclature reflected an alteration in the nature of Québec nation. First of all, Québécois got rid of the ethnic components of the term nation. Territory and language became new uniting elements (Bélanger). They also redefined the position of their own group, from a minority to majority group, dominating in the province. The main goal of 1 However, the territory was somewhat ambiguously defined. Claude Bélanger wrote: the nation having been defined as French Canadian, and French Canadians having been scattered all across the continent, then it could not have a precise territorial element. (Bélanger)

the new nationalism was to build a new, strong Québec nation and to change the relationship with the rest of Canada, which, in Québec s view, also forms a nation. Before the Quiet Revolution, when the will of the minority French Canadian nation clashed with the will of the majority nation, the minority nation had to give way. (Bélanger, Kijewska-Trembecka 119). The new nationalism has challenged that pattern. The slogan of the Quiet Revolution in Québec was Two Nations (Deux Nations), which was a reference to the so-called compact theory of Confederation. The theory says that Canada was a pact between its two founding European peoples. The idea was quickly accepted by Québec s intellectual and political elites. (McRoberts 695). According to that view, the confrontation would be between two majorities. that outlook was of great importance for the unity of Canada. The new nationalists sought to use the Québec state more frequently to promote secular Québec French culture and language in the arts, education, and business within the province. This resulted in a movement towards more power for the provincial government which was limited by the practices of the federal government, and by the constitution. 2 Québec politicians divided then into two camps: the federalists in the Liberal Party of Québec argued for more autonomy within Canada, while Québec sovereignists, mostly within the Parti Québécois, argued for outright independence from Canada. Québec nationalists increasingly referred to provincial institutions as national, changing, for example, the name of the provincial Legislative Assembly to National Assembly in 1968. Trudeau and the idea of sovereignty-association 2 For example they wanted from the federal government a greater share of the taxes collected in the province.

The best known politician who did not accept the idea of Québec nationalism was Pierre Trudeau, the Liberal leader who became Prime Minister in 1968. 3 He was of the opinion that Québec was a province like all the others, which did not require extra powers or status. In response to the changes in Québec, Trudeau introduced a policy of bilingualism to increase the role of French-speaking Canadians in the federal government. Through many federal social programs Trudeau sought to create a unified Canadian identity, cutting Canada s last colonial ties to Britain in the new constitution based on individual rights. Trudeau's one-canada approach attracted young reformers to his cause, including, for example Michael Ignatieff (Sheppard). However, the Prime Minister s politics alienated many Québec nationalists who demanded constitutional recognition of the collective cultural identity in Québec. It was then that idea of Deux Nations changed into sovereignty-association. The ambiguous term coined by René Lévesque, the leader of the Parti Québécois, anticipated that Québec would be a sovereign nation, but in close association with Ottawa. The connection would include free trade between Canada and Québec, common tariffs against imports, common currency and some joint political institutions. ( Sovereignty-Association ). The conflict between the separatists and Ottawa culminated during the referendum on sovereignty-association in May 1980. It was rejected by 60% of Quebecers. Some observers say that it was a result of Pierre Trudeau s campaign promise to take account of Québec s wishes during the reform of the Constitution. (Sheppard). Despite the pledge, the subsequent patriation of the constitution took place in spite of the objections of Québec government. The new constitution had an amending formula in which Québec lost its historic veto. In return, the province, as the only one out of ten, did not approve of the document. (Dunsmuir 7) 3 P. Trudeau was an opponent of any kind of nationalism, especially of separatism. The idea that every minority should have a nation-state was absurd, ideology that ruins everything. Trudeau explained that every minority is internally divided, and those divisions (minorities) might also want to separate in the future. (Trudeau 158)

Mulroney and the distinct society The next Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, put it high on his political agenda to persuade Québec to sign the constitution. With a federalist ally in Québec Premier Robert Bourassa, Mulroney negotiated the Meech Lake Accord in 1987. It recognized Québec as a distinct society within Canada. That phrase had been coined by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the mid-1960s but soon after was largely forgotten. The distinct society was a reference to Québec s unique language, culture and the use of civil law, and the province s legislature was made responsible for with promotion and preserving these values. (O'Neal 6, 14-17). All provinces originally agreed, but Manitoba and Newfoundland failed to ratify the accord as a result of powerful criticism from Pierre Trudeau and the opposition of First Nations groups. Among supporters of the distinct society one could find Stephane Dion, now the leader of Liberal Party, then a Quebec academic. The Reform Party and Stephen Harper, Preston Manning's policy adviser, were also opposing it strongly. (Sheppard). Opponents drew attention to the ambiguity of the term distinct society. They argued that it could give Québec large and unspecified power. But others thought that the distinct society clause only restated the recognition that had already been contained in the constitution. This view coincided with the one articulated by a leading constitutionalist, who wrote that the distinct society clause was largely symbolic. For supporters of the distinct society idea, it represented a moderate and limited constitutional response to Québec s demands. (O'Neal 16-17). For some commentators the idea was a way of moving back to the era when Québec's national ambitions meant something other than separation (Sheppard). Prime Minister Mulroney often said that the distinct society represented a

sociological recognition of Quebec s reality. That argument was revived 19 years later in the case of Parliament recognizing Québec as a nation within Canada. The failure of the 1987 Meech Lake and the subsequent 1992 Charlottetown Accords generated a backlash in Québec and led directly to the creation of the Bloc Québécois and the end of the Mulroney government. Support for sovereignty exceeded 60%, and encouraged the Parti Québécois to demand outright sovereignty with no association with Canada. The nationalists lost Québec referendum in 1995 by only a few thousand votes. Following the referendum, support for Québec sovereignty decreased and the collective trauma of the 1995 referendum put the Québec nation debate on hold for a decade. Earlier, in 1993, the federal Liberal Party of Jean Chrétien came to power and advocated the status-quo on constitutional issues. In the West, the growing Reform Party smashed the Progressive Conservatives and opposed special legal status for Québec. (Patten 27) The use of the term distinct society has faded, and within Québec the term nation has come to be generally used to describe Québec, its people, and its political status. Federalist nationalists and federalists outside Québec started to use mainly the phrases different or unique society. 4 Chrétien and the Clarity Act The Québec-problem resurfaced once again when the federal government passed the Clarity Act in 2000. Stéphane Dion, then the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, was the main architect of the Act. The Clarity Act established the conditions under which the Government of Canada would enter into negotiations that might lead to secession following such a vote by one of the provinces. To Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the federalists, the 4 There were a couple of symbolic gestures, for example in 1995 the House of Commons voted a motion which recognized Quebeckers as a distinct society. That recognition asked institutions of government to take note of this recognition and be guided in their conduct accordingly. But the term is still absent from the Constitution. (O'Neal 21).

Clarity Act was among their most crucial achievements in federal politics. (Courchene 8). But waves of criticism came from all provincial parties in Québec, including Bloc Québécois. Numerous intellectuals from Québec and other parts of Canada signed an open letter supporting Québec s right to self-determination. ( Open ). Still, public support for sovereignty remained too low for the Parti Québécois to consider holding a third referendum. Instead, it followed the path of recognition of the Québécois as a nation through symbolic motions in the National Assembly. For example, the legislature changed the name of the Québec City area to the Capitale nationale and renamed provincial parks to Parcs nationaux (national parks). In October 2003, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion which reaffirmed that the Quebecers formed a nation. (Québec). A nation within a nation The Québec nation debate was revived in September 2006 by Michael Ignatieff, during the leadership race for the Liberal Party. Ignatieff backed a resolution from the federal Liberals Québec wing demanding official recognition of Québec as a nation within Canada. The status quo was violated when Ignatieff suggested that such recognition may need to reopen the constitution. ( Quebec ). The Liberals were divided over the issue. Stéphane Dion proposed his own version of a motion recognizing Québécois, which would not require a constitutional amendment. Both former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau s sons, Justin and Alexandre, criticized Ignatieff for lacking political judgement when declaring Quebec nationalism an outdated idea. ( Ignatieff ). Many influential elites in Québec enthusiastically endorsed the resolution. Canadian politicians avoided discussing Québec s role within Canada in order not to injure the fragile balance established in the province after the 1995 referendum. Until

November 2006 Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to use the word nation' to describe Québec. Suddenly, on Friday, November 24, 2006, the Conservative Canadian Prime Minister introduced a motion recognizing the French-speaking people of the province of Québec as a nation within Canada. That move was aimed at pre-empting the Bloc Québécois (Québec's separatist party) which had prepared its own motion. 5 But their motion did not include the words within a united Canada. Unlike the earlier Ignatieff s proposal, Harper s motion would not require any constitutional change. The main problem was whether the motion would change anything in relations between Canada and Québec and who exactly were the Québécois Stephen Harper was referring to in the motion? Are Quebecois forming a nation? Canadian Prime Minister was referring to the Québécois (in both his English and French statements) as forming a nation. In numerous interviews, Harper has said that his concept implied ties to the French language and the territory of Quebec. But he also added that it was impossible to precisely define who belonged to the Québécois nation, and it was up to individuals to decide whether or not they indentified themselves as Québécois. That situation stood in contradiction to the Canadian nation, which is defined in legal terms one is a citizen or not. ( Who s ). Thus the Canadian Prime Minister has been using the word nation in a cultural-sociological rather than in a civic sense. According to that view, being part of the nation requires sharing the same language and culture and sharing an attachment to the same history. What turns these features into a nation is the fact that they enter into the national consciousness of the members. Those who belong to the same cultural nation may have very different ancestral roots, but they are also individuals who are totally assimilated to a definite linguistic, cultural and historical community. (Seymour 6). 5 Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe knew that the motion would probably be rejected, but argued he could use this to show that English Canadians once again did not recognize the identity of French-speaking Quebecers. If the motion did pass, he could use it to make claims on Quebec sovereignty. ( Duceppe )

But it is only one of the possible ways of defining the Québec nation. I would like to draw attention to another theory, developed by Michael Seymour, one of the well known scholars interested in the problem. According to Seymour, Quebeckers have changed their self representation from the members of a cultural-sociological French Canadian nation, to see themselves as part of a Québec nation understood in the sociopolitical sense (Seymour 10). The sociopolitical nation, as Seymour defines it, is a kind of political community, similar to the nation in the traditional civic definition (based on a citizenship). But there are at least two important differences. First, this type of political community may or may not be a sovereign state. Second, this type of political community must contain at least a majority of individuals who share the same language, culture and history. This majority must also be the largest concentration in the world of a group of people sharing these different features. Moreover, it is in a second sense also a majority, since the majority of the people sharing these features must be located on the same territory. 6 (Seymour 7) Such a multitude of definitions makes Canadians puzzled. Another source of confusion is the fact that countries rarely recognize nations within themselves (which Stephen Harper proposed to do for the Québécois in Canada). The United Kingdom is a positive example here - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are considered to be constituent countries (or, in the context of sports, home nations) within one single state. They are referred to as countries in the U.K. census and the Office of National Statistics. All but England have their own devolved legislatures. ( Nations ). Canada as a multinational country Apart from politicians, the issue of Québec nationhood has occupied also some of Canada s leading thinkers and commentators. The majority of them still think of Canada as a 6 Seymour also added that the sociopolitical nation as a political community may contain, apart from the national majority, also national minorities and communities having other national origins. So contrary to the purely cultural account, the sociopolitical nation may also be pluricultural (Seymour 7).

single civic nation. For them the Canadian nation is the country as a whole. But since the 1990s a new term has become popular multinational Canada. The phrase indicates the existence of several nations within Canada. The multiple nations of the multinational state are supported by social conditions: language, culture, history, media structures, and communication networks. Unlike the nation of the nation-state, they are not the creations of the state. (McRoberts 683). Contemporary interest in the multinational state has been accelerated by the growing evidence that it is impossible to eliminate minority nations or historic nations from political life, even by violence. The twentieth century showed that the presence of multiple nations was one of the important features of politics. The theme has caught the attention of many important Canadian scholars: Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka, James Tully, Charles Blattberg and Michel Seymour (McRoberts 694). And multinationalism has quickly become an important paradigm in academic analyses on Canada 7. Scholars agree that Canada meets the requirements for a multinational state. Close to one quarter of Canada s population can be claimed to be internal nations. The term used by Kenneth McRoberts embraces all forms of nations which see their collectivity as being smaller than (or internal to) the state as a whole. (McRoberts 685). Of course, the Québécois form the biggest Canadian internal nation 8. Delimiting the social organization of the Québec nation can be made by identifying structures and organizations that are distinct. In many areas pan-canadian organizations are coupled with organizations that are distinct to Québec 9. Regardless of the work done by scholars to develop multinational state theories, many political scientists think that Canadian political life is at odds with these ideas. According to 7 Kenneth McRoberts drew attention to the fact that one of the first Canadian who wrote of a multinational state was Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1962. (McRoberts 691-692). 8 Other Canadian internal nations are Acadians or Aboriginal Nations. 9 Quebec often is presented as a model of the political autonomy for other states.

them, as Canada has become more and more multinational in its social composition, so long-established notions of sociological or minority nations have been effectively drained from Canada's political life (McRoberts 694) 10. Federal politicians rarely use the word nation to denote any nations other than the Canadian nation of the Canadian nation-state. Canadian Confederation, compact theory, binational are terms that have disappeared from politicians vocabulary. This may be the effect of many Canadians fear that recognizing nations is threatening to the integrity of the country as a whole. 11 Critics say that recognition of Québec as a nation - as a separate people, though not an independent state - may have short-term benefits for federalist politicians, but that the separatists may try to use federal recognition to strengthen Quebec's sovereignty claims on the international level. They are also afraid that Québec separatists would use the change to demand extra powers from Ottawa. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Michael Chong resigned over the vote, and claimed that the separatists would use it to sow confusion ( Québec ). As professor Errol Mendes from the University of Ottawa put it, the result of recognition may be similar to opening Pandora s box. He added that if only the request for amending the written constitution to entrench Quebec s specificity began the constitutional bargaining, the rest of the partners in the federation [would] rush to pile their specificities and imperatives into the written Constitution from the self-governance claims of the First Nations to the Western Canadian demands for Senate reform (Mendes 1). Mendes believed that no matter how reinforcing of Quebec s specificity motion was passed in the Parliament, it would not convince Quebec to sign the 1982 repatriated constitution. And it would not have any effect on the viability of the Canadian federation. Mendes showed the example of the German constitution that is still not signed by Bavaria (Mendes 3). 10 For example Aboriginal peoples have raised objections to the structure of the federal state in Canada. See Wherrett. 11 Outside Quebec, 77 per cent of Canadians rejected the idea the province forming a nation. (Perreaux).

The Quebec nation motion has been long expected by supporters of the idea of multinational Canada. They are of the opinion that recognizing the distinctiveness of the Québécois nation would encourage Quebeckers to feel more at home in Canada. Charles Blattberg, a professor of political philosophy at the Université de Montréal, in a famous political manifesto, cited the words of sir John A. Macdonald, who once said to English Canadians: Treat them [Quebeckers] as a nation and they will act as a free people generally do generously (Blattberg). The multinationalists also draw attention to the effects of the rejection of recognizing the Québec nation by Canadians. They think that indecision was responsible for the growth of nationalist sentiment among the population of Quebec. In Michael Seymour s words: Nationalism does not come out of nowhere. It is induced and fueled by the crude and cruel reality of exclusion. If it is not possible to get political recognition as a nation within Canada, then increasingly, Québeckers will rightly believe that they must achieve such a political recognition by becoming a sovereign state. (21) Many social thinkers are of the opinion that such a state of affairs has allowed the Parti Québecois to maintain that the Québec nation can exist only inside a nation-state. And if Canada is a nation-state, then Québec also must have its own one. Kenneth McRoberts was even convinced that political culture in Canada had lost the capacity to distinguish between a state and a nation and to imagine creatively the relationship between the two (McRoberts 697). Conclusion In that perspective, the 2006 motion recognizing the Québecois nation may be seen as the first step towards realizing the multinational structure of Canada. I think it is worth thinking of, also from the Polish perspective. Poland is currently a homogenous society, but we are not free from similar problems. Ustroń is a good place to recall the problem with the

recognition of Silesians as a national minority 12. And being the European Union member would probably add another layer to our national selfidentification. It is hard not to agree with Charles Blattberg, who wrote in 2005 that the way to end the longstanding clashes between Québec and the rest of Canada is to render an account of the fact that recognition of differences does not divide, but on the contrary, it reconciles and integrates. And it s better to have the country integrated than unified (Blattberg). That idea is not contradictive with Pierre Trudeau s outlook. He wrote in 1962: It is not the concept of nation that is retrograde; it is the idea that the nation must necessarily be sovereig. (Trudeau 151). Thirty seven years later in Quebec City the president of the United States, Bill Clinton, reminded the Canadian Prime Minister s political credo stating that federalism was the best of all worlds to peoples seeking recognition of their identity, without having to isolate themselves (Wallace). Works Cited Bélanger, Claude. Québec Nationalism: The Social-democratic Nationalism: 1945 to Today. Québec History. Marianopolis College. 23 August 2000. 11 Nov. 2008 <http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/québechistory/events/natpart4.htm>. Blattberg, Charles. I am English Canadian. Tolerenace.ca, 2005. 11 Nov. 2008 <http://www.tolerance.ca/article.aspx?id=68>. Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates. 39 th Parliament, 1 st Session, No. 087, (November 22, 2006). 11 Nov. 2008 <http://www2.parl.gc.ca/housepublications/publication.aspx?language=e&mode=1&parl= 39&Ses=1&DocId=2528725#SOB-1788846>. 12 As of 2002 there were 172,200 people declaring Silesian nationality. ( Raport ).

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Marcin Gabryś assistant professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, Jagiellonian Univeristy. His main fields of interest include Canadian-American relations and Canadian political system.