I’ve written that, before any couple starts to plan a honeymoon vacation to Europe, they should visit Quebec.
That goes for a lot of other would-be world travellers, too.
In Quebec, we have what amounts to a foreign country—a slab of continental Europe—right on our doorstep.
Quebec City is the most historic and beautiful capital in our country, the Gaspe is marvelous, and the Laurentians magnificent.
Yet, since the currency is the same no one will gyp you, drinking the tap water won’t make you sick, and if they can, and many can’t, Quebecers will speak to you in your own language.
I’ve spent a lot of happy times in Quebec, especially in old Montreal, and it’s all rather enchanting.
Setting the scene for this column in this way will, I hope, prevent anyone from labelling me anti-French Canadian or anti-Quebec.
After all, the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin Liberals are ever eager to hurl slurs at people. Particularly so when it comes to Quebec, which is a charade, since those of us with an ounce of common sense now know the sudden surge of separatist fever in la belle province has been spurred by the Chretien/Martin clique itself, and by the shameless looting of the taxpayers’ money as evidence by revelations coming out of Mr. Justice John Gomery’s inquiry.
In “Divided we stand” (Apr. 30) I recounted how I believe those seeking an independent Quebec are going to win and separation is inevitable.
Finally, I’ve thrown in the towel in the exhausting fight to keep Quebec in Confederation.
There appear to be three classes of thought on the issue: (A) Keep tossing billions of dollars at Quebec in order to keep it in Confederation; (B) Let the French-Canadians go if they so want, but let’s do so with rancour and hold them to their share of the $500 billion federal debt; (C) Let history take its obvious course, and let Quebec go, but let’s still remain friends, though with no special concessions or final payoffs on some mysterious debt.
Put me in the third category—and treat former Bloc Quebecois leader Lucien Bouchard’s demand that when Quebec leaves it will have to be compensated for the loss of such national assets as Banff and Jasper national parks with the contempt it deserves. Or maybe English Canada would need to be compensated for the loss of the aforementioned Quebec City, the Gaspe and the Laurentians.
Actually, we should not even hold an independent Quebec to the demand that it owes Canada roughly 25% of the national debt. Write it off as a goodwill measure.
For, without Quebec, and the huge continuing expense to taxpayers in the rest of the nation of bribing it to remain, our federal coffers would be overflowing and we’d soon wipe out the entire $500 billion debt, which would be a tremendous boost to our economy.
English Canada would need some 25% fewer federal government employees, there would be no more need to continue to pay hundreds of millions of dollars into sinkholes like Bombardier, the headquarters of Air Canada, plus a stack of federal government agencies now located in Quebec, could be relocated.
That Hull, the other half of the so-called national capital region, would be a ghost town of empty buildings which would be the Quebec government’s problem.
Just as Europe, with a notable exception being Britain, has the common currency of the Euro, Quebec would be free to still use the Canadian dollar, but with no input into what the Bank of Canada does, or opt for the U.S. dollar.
Quebecers would not be able to have Canadian passports, or any other attributes of Canada.
Why would they, though?
An independent Quebec could negotiate its own trade and foreign relations deals with various nations, and it would be up to Washington to decide if the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade pact still included Quebec. Canada would not negotiate on behalf of Quebec in any sphere.
Again, why would we?
Throughout history nations have risen and fallen.
Poland was once the largest nation in Europe.
A smattering of new, independent nations came into being with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia split into four nations in the 1990s.
Bangladesh came into being in 1971, after being part of Pakistan, and previously part of India.
In the coming election, it is likely Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Quebecois will take all but a handful of the province’s federal seats.
Provincially the Parti Quebecois looks like it will topple Jean Charest’s beleaguered Liberals.
The scene is surely set for an epoch-changing shift.
History is unfolding, as Pierre Trudeau once said, it should.
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.
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