A few weeks back Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe did a western swing and a comment he made has been whispering around in my mind ever since.
Now, Duceppe has often been mocked by his opponents, and having once been a Marxist-Leninist, it’s relatively easy to portray him as being off-the-wall, but by most assessments he was the most articulate of all four federal party leaders during the 2004 federal election campaign.
And, as for his Marxist-Leninist period, most of us have either said, or done, some pretty foolish things during our lives.
What the Bloc leader said that has been whispering in my mind during his stop-off in Calgary and other points West, was that what passes for English-Canada would be much happier in the long run if Quebec were an independent country, and that Quebecers would certainly be much happier. Both of us would have a much better, more friendly, relationship.
I’m starting to believe Duceppe may well be right.
Now, for a long, long time I was hauled into the ‘Quebec is part of my country’ idea and aghast when someone suggested maybe we should let Quebec go.
My reasoning partly being (A) Quebec is a part of Canada so why hand it over to a bunch of radical separatist fanatics, and (B), that the rest of the world is coming together—the borderless European Union, of which I am a great supporter being perhaps the best example—so why would Quebec want to go in the opposite direction?
Wanting to become a rather small, insignificant entity rather than being part of a large, supposedly world-respected entity hardly seemed rational.
But in recent months, an awakening has started to happen to my thought processes on ‘La belle province,’ and I can’t really see why we should spend yet another decade exhausting ourselves in order to try and continue to buy off one province.
This growing mood really hit home this past week when a new poll showed 54% of Quebecers surveyed would now vote for separation, up a dramatic 10% in the past year. Significantly, 37% of those polled said the inquiry under the auspices of Mr. Justice John Gomery into the Liberal AdScam affair has been influential in either hardening their support for separation or shifting their views on the issue.
We in English Canada often think French-Canadians believe patronage, bribes, payoffs and kickbacks are all part of the game. That they see nothing dishonest in these tactics.
Worth noting then that it is Quebec where the Gomery inquiry has had its worst fallout. French-Canadians have been glued to their TV sets day-after-day and week-after-week watching the revelations of Liberal perfidy unfold from the inquiry as if it were some top-rated soap opera.
They are not amused—indeed, they are incensed by what Jean Chretien’s and Paul Martin’s Liberals have been doing.
So incensed, an increasing number of them—rational ones, too, not just separatist radicals—do not want to be part of such a rotten system any longer.
The irony is for several decades the hypocritical Liberal party and its governments have contended they are the only ones who can fight separatism and ‘save’ Canadian Confederation.
Today we see that because of Liberal corruption—and the grab of provincial rights from Quebec—which also echoes in Alberta’s fury towards Liberal Ottawa—it’s the likes of Pierre Trudeau, Chretien and Martin who have spurred disenchantment in Quebec and across Canada.
In last year’s federal election the Bloc took 54 of Quebec’s 75 seats, and the Liberals 21. It’s suggested in the coming election Duceppe’s party could win all but half-a-dozen seats.
This coupled with the almost certain defeat of Premier Jean Charest’s provincial Liberals, would mean Quebec would be governed and represented in both provincial and federal politics by the two parties whose main objective is independence.
How realistically could a smattering of provincial governments in English Canada, and English-language MPs sitting in the House of Commons, fight such forces.
Perhaps we have to accept what Duceppe and his supporters believe is inevitable (and what many in English Canada believe, too).
Maybe we really would both be happier separate, but with the same kind of trade, economic, military and various alliances other independent nations share with each other.
Think about it—and without emotion—because no number of Liberal platitudes, hucksterism—and certainly not bribes—are going to bind Quebecers to Canada now.
Copyright ? 2005 Paul Conrad Jackson.
Click here to read Paul Jackson’s full and fascinating biography. Paul Conrad Jackson is one of Canada’s most distinguished and thought-provoking journalists. He is currently senior political commentator for the Calgary Sun and other related newspapers, after being both Editor and Associate Editor for a number of years. Mr. Jackson has interviewed such world famous political figures as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau, Yitshak Rabin and Benjamin Netanyahu.
- Suzuki playing gutter politics - Sunday March 4, 2007 at 10:41 am
- Grit record terror-ible - Tuesday February 27, 2007 at 9:51 am
- Britain’s Blair takes tumble - Sunday February 18, 2007 at 10:53 am
