There is a lot of speculation going on about the upcoming
election in Quebec in April. It will,
once again, feature the threat of a referendum and possibly separation. As some
have said, Quebec will keep trying referenda until they get it right. The PQ
has brought in a “star” candidate and is making all finds of claims about how
good things will be after Quebec is a separate country, or maybe not such a
separate country, depending at which promise you listen to. There are also a lot of claims being made by
opposition parties and pundits. So let’s
look at some of these promises, threats and pontification.
There is no question that the PQ and Madame Marois appeal
primarily the old stock French Canadians.
By putting up the Quebec Charter of (misplaced) Values, she has shown
that she is willing to alienate ethnic and religious minorities to achieve her
ends. She must have a majority
government to ensure passage of the charter to satisfy her majority. But she could also use that charter for a
more forceful move. It is inevitable
that the charter will be challenged in court, and probably will make it to the
Supreme Court of Canada. That court will
likely find it unconstitutional (or at least Mme Marois hopes so). This will give her the perfect argument to
show how Canada is thwarting the desires of the Quebec people. This, she hopes, will be the leverage she
needs to win the referendum.
Mme Marois seems to have quite the view about how the world
will look after separation.
Supposedly,
the sovereign nation of Quebec will have no borders with the rest of Canada;
will continue to use Canadian currency, including a seat at the Bank of Canada;
and will enjoy unlimited free trade with the rest of Canada, and presumably
with the US through NAFTA. She assumes that
all of these other parties will just go along with her vision with no
objections or negotiations. You wonder
if she has jumped ahead on Justin Trudeau’s thoughts on decriminalization of
marijuana, and started to use it herself.
Does she really think that Canada is going to allow all this to
happen? That we are just going to sit
back and let this all happen?
Please! Let’s start with free
trade and work back from there. It is
unlikely that the US, and perhaps Mexico, will not require stiff negotiations
before it even considers Quebec for membership in NAFTA. Among other things, Quebec will have to
satisfy US considers about security and may demand some serious input into
Quebec law that regulates trade (Quebec has no such laws now except as they are
contained in Canadian law). At least
until such negotiations are completed, Canada will have to insist on borders
with Quebec, and may want to keep those borders permanently (I for one hope
so). In addition, Canada will have to be
very careful about allowing Quebec to use our currency. Any economic downturn in Quebec, which is
very likely after separation as they get their house in order and companies
figure out if they still want to have operations in Quebec, will have a
significant impact on the Canadian dollar.
Canada will have to think very carefully about how it will treat Quebec
when threated with separation. There is
no advantage to Canada to allow any of these “dreams”. In fact, allowing Quebec to have any control
over Canadian fiscal and monetary policy will be detrimental to Canada.
Some people have said that Quebec cannot afford to leave
confederation because of the loss of $8B in transfer payments, but that is not
necessarily so. As a country, Quebec
will have all of the powers of taxation that any sovereign country has,
including tariffs, duties and income tax.
So it can, if it wants, raise whatever revenue that the population will
tolerate. Quebec already has one of the
highest taxations in Canada so making up the shortfall may well be a price that
Quebecers are prepared to pay for separation.
What will not be tolerable is for Quebec to assume that Canada will
somehow forgive existing debt or help in paying off that debt.
In previous referenda and similar threats, the rest of
Canada has always been willing to react positively (remember “My Canada
includes Quebec”?) and cater to Quebec demands.
But people are getting tired of this game and you have to wonder if the
rest of Canada will just say, “If you want to go, go!” There might not be a backlash demanding
concessions and holding on to Quebec at all costs. In particular, if the present Canadian
government, with its western bias, is still in power it will undoubtedly be a
hard negotiator and not so federalist as other parties. And this could well be the situation since
some pundits are saying that Mme Marois will want to hold the referendum before
the next federal election so that the more Quebec oriented parties, the
Liberals and NDP, are not in a position to strongly advocate for federalism.
And to think that they are making all of this effort just to try and turn back the clock. The PQ and its followers say that they are trying to preserve the French language and traditional culture. But it is impossible to turn back the clock. The culture has already been changed by outside influences, whether by the impact of immigrants or the inroads of outside culture via television, radio, movies and the internet. As Quebec passes on some of its culture to the outside world, so the outside culture passes into Quebec in return. I doubt whether anyone could even describe the “old culture” with much success. It is gone. As for the French language, it will ultimately disappear as a dominant language in North America. Commerce, culture and travel will see to that. Quebec has to realize that they are a part of North America, and their French language speakers amount to only a 8 million in a continental total of over 350 million people; a mere 2.2%. Just as many languages in the past have gone from general use because of the influence of more dominant languages, so will French in North America. Sorry folks, but your days are numbered. No matter how much Quebec tries to preserve the French language with laws and demands, it will only prolong the inevitable.
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