For the past generation, the Liberal party has conducted itself as if it owns the file on Canadian unity and the Constitution.
This mentality predictably pushed Paul Martin—fearful of a possible Conservative win in this election—into raising the spectre of Quebec separatism.
Then, in a gesture of desperation thinly disguised as statesmanship, Martin dropped a constitutional gambit into the second English-language leaders’ debate in Montreal, proposing removal of the “notwithstanding” clause from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms—a move that would leave the country to the unchecked wisdom of Supreme Court justices appointed by (mostly) Liberal prime ministers.
While all Canadians, including Quebecers, are agonized by threats to Canadian unity, the arcane subtleties of constitutional discussions do not generally grab them as matters of urgency.
Canadians instinctively understand the federal arrangement of this vast country, though bound together by common sentiments of shared history, is one where differences between regions and communities are respected and provide for strength in diversity. They trust their leaders to negotiate what divides them for the common benefit of all.
Yet despite Liberal party claims, a cursory glance at Canada’s recent history—beginning with Pierre Trudeau winning the 1968 federal election—illustrates how Canadian unity gradually worsened under Liberal rule, and through Liberal opposition to constitutional agreements negotiated by Conservative PM Brian Mulroney.
Liberal power in Ottawa has worked as a red flag for Quebec nationalists to broaden their campaign within the province to make Quebec a sovereign entity.
Among the “what ifs” of history is the fate of Meech Lake Accord reached by Mulroney and 10 provincial premiers in June 1987—which would have brought Quebec to sign the 1982 Constitution that Trudeau had patriated from Britain and then-premier Rene Levesque had opposed. Trudeau prodded the country to repudiate the agreement because it recognized that “Quebec constitutes within Canada a distinct society.”
Trudeau found Meech reprehensible, and appearing as a witness in the Senate in March 1988, argued at length that “there is no national will left” for it. His parting shot was “we have to realize that Canada is not immortal; but, if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than a whimper.”
Though Meech was officially killed by the lone dissenting vote of Elijah Harper, a First Nation member in the Manitoba legislature, Trudeau and his Liberal acolytes provided the centralist argument by insisting the interests of the people were at odds with those of the premiers.
But if Trudeau had remained silent in retirement and the accord had been ratified, Canada likely would not be where it finds itself today on the subject of unity and Quebec separation.
It is unlikely that Meech, despite the imagined fears of its opponents, would have sapped the affection of Canadians for each other, nourished over centuries.
Jean Chretien grovelled over the post-Meech effects in Quebec. The best he could do to counter Quebec’s 1995 referendum was what the country now knows as the AdScam scandal, and further disclosures of Liberal scheming—e.g., Option Canada—place Canadian unity under greater duress.
Canadians will do better for this country’s unity, given the Liberal record, by not paying heed to Paul Martin on a subject on which his credibility diminishes by the hour.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
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