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CIAO DATE: 04/03
Canada Alert: Canada's Coup D'éclat
Christopher Sands *
Hemisphere Focus: 1998-2000
Series VIII, Issue 6
March 27, 2000
Overview
With two bold strokes last week, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien attempted to make the future of Canadian politics clearer. First, on March 16, his legislation defining the rules for federal recognition of the results of any future provincial referendum on separation from the rest of Canada was passed by the House of Commons. With this bill, to be known as the Clarity Act once it has received approval in the Senate and is signed by the governor general, Chrétien means to send Quebec nationalists a strong message in the wake of the near-miss independence vote in 1995—never again will they so easily come close to breaking up the country. Second, at a national convention of his governing Liberal Party of Canada held in Ottawa on March 17 to 19, Chrétien hoped to squash rumors that he would step down as party leader before the next federal election in favor of his popular rival, Finance Minister Paul Martin.
Yet in the aftermath of these two events—occurring in the same week—the future, if anything, seems even murkier for Chrétien, his government, and for Canada.
Clarity on Quebec
For Chrétien, and for the entire country, the 1995 referendum in Quebec was an historical watershed. Quebec voters chose not to begin the process of separation from Canada by the razor thin margin of 50.58 to 49.42 percent of the vote. Chrétien made his name in Canadian politics as then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's streetwise alter ego, battling separatists in the trenches during the 1980 Quebec referendum on sovereignty association with Canada. Fifteen years later, it appeared that Chrétien had nearly lost the country, and many of his critics—partisan opponents, pundits, and academics—and even some of his political allies began to question his leadership. He vowed, as much to himself as to the country, that he would not let the separatists get the better of him again.
One of the main findings in opinion polling following the 1995 referendum was that many of those who voted "Yes" to a change in Quebec's status held erroneous views about the consequences of their vote. Many believed NAFTA would continue to guarantee Quebec firms privileged access to Canadian and U.S. markets, that they would continue to use the Canadian dollar, and even travel on Canadian passports. In order to improve their chances, separatist politicians had crafted a deceptively mild referendum question to allay voter fears while planning, according to former Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau, to rapidly press for international recognition, establish a Quebec military with defectors from the Canadian Forces (who they hoped would desert with their weapons and vehicles), and make a unilateral declaration of independence to throw Ottawa on the defensive. Quebec's charismatic separatist leader, Lucien Bouchard, did much to inspire support for his cause, and to confuse voters about the real implications of their choice.
Chrétien reacted in September 1996 by invoking a rarely-used procedure by which the Canadian House of Commons may ask the Supreme Court of Canada for an interpretive ruling as guidance for future legislative deliberations. The reference asked the justices of the court for an opinion on the questions: Does a province have the right to secede under the terms of the Canadian constitution; Does a province have a right to secede from Canada under international law and; Is a provincial referendum result binding upon the federal government?
On August 2, 1998 the Supreme Court issued its carefully-worded ruling. The justices said, no, a province does not have the right to secede unilaterally, and must negotiate the terms of its secession with the rest of the country. No, international law does not confer the unilateral right to secede where democratic means for self-determination are available and respected under the law. No, a provincial referendum is not legally binding upon the federal government. But, significantly, the court said that if a "clear majority" of the people of a province expressed their will to alter their place in Canada in response to a "clear question" in a referendum, then the rest of Canada would be obligated to negotiate in good faith with that province's representatives. Both sides hailed the decision—the federalists because it rejected the destabilizing notion that a province could simply declare independence and lay out new threshold tests for taking a province out of confederation, and separatists because it compelled the federal government to negotiate with them if they won a referendum fair and square.
Three months later, the separatist Parti Quebecois government led by Bouchard was reelected to a majority of the seats in the legislature despite winning a minority of the popular vote—federalist votes for the Quebec Liberal Party are concentrated in the Montreal area. Soon after, Bouchard and others in his government began talking about holding another referendum, and casting doubt about whether or not they would abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court. Some suggested that a majority of Quebec's French-speaking population would satisfy the requirements for a "clear majority"—effectively disenfranchising the 20 percent of Quebec's population who speak English or another language. Others said that any question that the Quebec legislature deemed clear would satisfy the requirement of clarity imposed by the court.
Chrétien and his advisors debated for months how to respond to such statements to avoid losing the initiative to the separatist side. Then, on December 10, 1999, the Chrétien government introduced Bill C-20, the Clarity Bill. The legislation states that Parliament will decide in advance of a future referendum vote whether the question being asked satisfies the requirement of clarity. If it does not, Ottawa will consider the results of such a referendum legally meaningless. If the language of the question is deemed clear, then the House of Commons will consider the results and determine, "whether under the circumstances . . . there has been a clear expression of will by a clear majority of the population of that province that the province cease to be part of Canada."
The legislation was approved by a large majority in the House of Commons, having been supported by the governing Liberals, the largest party in opposition, the Reform Party, and the majority of members in the small parliamentary caucuses of the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party. Chrétien's supporters now claim he will leave the country more secure than ever before.
Neonationalism in Quebec
But will the Clarity Act work? The answer will depend upon the eventual character of the changing separatist movement in Quebec.
The modern nationalist movement took shape amidst opposition to the government of the authoritarian Premier Maurice Duplessis following World War II. It was socially liberal, anti-clerical, and proudly democratic. Deeply affected by progressive political movements elsewhere in the 1960s, Quebec nationalists embraced women's liberation, trade unionism, statism, social democracy, and even some of the rhetoric of the decolonization movements in places like Algeria.
In the 1970s, two important developments changed the tenor of Quebec nationalism. First, a small group of radicals formed the Front de Libération du Quebec (FLQ), which escalated a campaign of political violence from minor bombings of symbolic targets (such as mailboxes) to the kidnapping of a British diplomat and a Quebec provincial cabinet minister. The federal government imposed martial law in Montreal and support for the FLQ, never strong, collapsed. The FLQ pushed the nationalist movement toward moderation and away from violence. Later, the formation of an explicitly nationalist party, the Parti Quebecois, offered Quebec voters a moderate alternative for the expression of their hopes for Quebec society: the election of a socially democratic government committed to "sovereignty" for Quebec, which was variously defined as anything from a new relationship within Canada to outright independence.
In 1980, the first Parti Quebecois Premier, René Levesque, chose to seek a mandate from the Quebec electorate in a referendum on his plan for sovereignty association, a vague formulation designed to give him the freedom to negotiate a new relationship with the rest of Canada that might or might not lead to complete independence. His plan energized Quebec nationalists and their federalist opponents, and voters chose the status quo by a 20 point margin, 60 percent to 40 percent.
After the 1980 referendum loss, the nationalist movement in Quebec remained committed to seeking the public's endorsement in the form of a referendum before proceeding toward independence. There was no legal necessity in this—the Canadian constitution has no clause permitting secession or giving legal standing to popular referenda. Yet proposals to consider the election of a government that had campaigned in favor of independence as a sufficient mandate to proceed with negotiations with the rest of Canada were never seriously contemplated—Levesque had established a precedent for democratic nationalism that was respected by his successors, even in the aftermath of heart-breaking near victory in 1995.
The nationalist movement in Quebec is still led by the generation that came of age during the 1960s and 1970s. Its assumptions about the appropriate road to independence were drawn from direct experience with the debates of that period, and with the 1980 referendum campaign.
The future of Quebec nationalism will depend on future generations, and there are several reasons to question whether tomorrow's nationalists will follow the traditions of their forebears.
First, the international debate over economic models has shifted; today it is opposition to globalization, rather than social democracy, that motivates nationalists around the world. The commitment to using the Quebec government to build a distinct society with social programs slightly different than those devised by Ottawa already seems somewhat antiquated. Second, education and language policies designed to promote the use of French have produced fewer young people capable of functioning in English—the language of the millions of Canadians and Americans who consume the majority of Quebec's exports. Today, the young bilingual Quebecker is likely to seek work elsewhere in Canada, the United States, or elsewhere in the global economy. Young, unilingual Francophones have fewer options.
The migration factor contributes directly to a third factor: demographic decline. A low birth rate (below replacement), low rates of new immigration and worse rates of immigrant retention, and the departure of English-speakers and bilinguals has produced a population declining in absolute terms as the population of the rest of Canada and even the United States grows. The feeling of being a shrinking minority in a sea of English speakers is certain to find political expression by future nationalists. Fourth, repeated separatist rhetoric and the highest tax rates in Canada have kept foreign investment away from the province, leaving Quebec poorer and less connected to the global economy than it has been since the 1960s. Fifth, while young people elsewhere in North America have embraced the Internet economy, rates of Internet usage in Quebec lag behind the rest of Canada, suggesting that young Quebeckers are being left out of the global village.
What kind of nationalists will such young people become? It is too soon to tell, but Chrétien's Clarity Act may have the effect of persuading future nationalists that it is futile to attempt to win a popular mandate through a referendum, since Ottawa has now effectively stacked the deck against them. Instead they may claim that the mandate to form a government is enough to authorize them to pursue independence. Or, they may choose other, less democratic means. As governments elsewhere have discovered, measures to ban opposition parties or curtail the activities of opponents often have the result of driving that opposition outside the rules of the constitutional political process.
If this happens, the Clarity Act will be the decisive turning point that rendered the future of Canadian national unity less clear, not more so.
Clarity on Chrétien's Leadership
At his party's national convention, Chrétien made clear that he intended to lead the party into the next election campaign, despite pressure for him to step aside in favor of his rival, Martin. In his speech, he offered no olive branches to Martin or his supporters within the party, but neither did he articulate a rationale for his continued leadership of the party and the country. In the end, the convention failed to end the challenge to his leadership, and may have paved the way for an open conflict between his supporters and Martin's that could threaten the party's chances in the next election.
Chrétien is only 66, and became prime minister in 1993 as Canada turned to the Liberals to replace the Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who had led the country through a series of wrenching changes. His government was re-elected with a slightly smaller majority of the seats in Parliament in 1997, and Chrétien must call an election sometime before his current mandate expires in 2002. At the Liberal Party conference, Chrétien pledged to issue an election call sometime in the next 15 months.
One factor that has helped Chrétien enormously has been the fragmentation of the opposition benches in Parliament. In his first government, the party with the second largest number of seats in the House of Commons was the separatist protest party, the Bloc Quebecois. In an absurd situation indicative of Canadians' tolerance, if nothing else, the leader of this party became the Leader of the Opposition, an impossible alternative to the government that removed any serious challenge to the Liberals in the House. In 1997, the Bloc's role was taken over by the Reform Party, a conservative party with populist roots in western Canada, and the Chrétien government faced a more serious threat from the opposition. But the Reform Party's western Canadian constituency and its inability so far to win significant support in the east, particularly in Ontario, will prevent it from forming a government on its own.
There are signs that the Reform Party may be re-inventing itself. The party's founding leader, Preston Manning, has created a new party, the Canadian Alliance, to which he hopes to draw current Reform members as well as voters who have supported the PC Party in the past. Manning is running to lead the new party, but faces a serious challenge from Stockwell Day, who is currently the finance minister in the PC government of Alberta. A competitive race for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance is likely to increase public interest in the new party. Although it may not be enough to win a majority in the upcoming election, it may be sufficient to force the Liberals into a vulnerable minority government position (where the government commands less than fifty percent of the seats in the House of Commons, and is vulnerable should the parties in opposition unite against it).
Ghosts in the Machine
As Chrétien watches the progress of the Canadian Alliance, he seems haunted by the experiences of his predecessors. He speaks of matching the record set by his boyhood hero, Wilfrid Laurier, Canada's first French Canadian prime minister, who led the Liberal Party to three consecutive majority governments at the beginning of the twentieth century. His guarded comments about his future as party leader may reflect his memory of Lester Pearson, who was also a Liberal and prime minister when Chrétien won his first seat in Parliament in 1963. Pearson signaled his intention to retire before the next election and the squabble over leadership that followed cast a pall on his second government and his legacy.
Chrétien's rival, Martin, 61, has reason to remember the end of the Pearson government as well. At the time, his father, Paul Martin Sr., was the popular favorite to succeed Pearson as party leader and prime minister. The elder Martin lost the chance many felt he had earned to a more charismatic newcomer, Pierre Trudeau, who had the support of fellow Quebecker, Jean Chrétien.
At the end of the recent Liberal Party convention, Martin expressed his ambition to lead the Liberal Party, "if the position was available," stating his well-known ambition publicly for the first time, escalating the pressure on Chrétien to step aside. With his campaign to replace Chrétien now in the open, Martin may so divide the party that it cannot win a majority in the next election, thwarting Chrétien's ambition just as Chrétien has thwarted his.
History offers one further parallel for Chrétien to consider: Louis St. Laurent, a Quebecker who was a Liberal and prime minister in the 1950s. Like Chrétien, he had two successful terms, but ran a third time despite signs that his government lacked an agenda and that he was running out of stubbornness, arrogance, or both. As a result, St. Laurent was defeated by a populist conservative from western Canada, John Diefenbaker. By overstaying his welcome fromthe Canadian public, St. Laurent led his party to defeat.
Stay Tuned
The French word éclat can mean "brilliant light", but it also can mean "splinter," and the verb, éclater means, "to explode," or, in the case of a political party, "to break up." In the aftermath of Chrétien's attempts to bring clarity to the public debate about Quebec separatism and his own leadership, it remains to be seen which of these usages will seem more apt to historians looking back on these events from the perspective of the future.
Christopher Sands is a fellow and director of the Canada Project in the Americas Program at CSIS. Currently, he is on research leave from the Center, spending the 1999-2000 academic year as William J. Fulbright Visiting Fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. Back.
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