Too dreadful to contemplate
Bidding war in Quebec will only get worse
Seldom has “profitable federalism” seemed quite so … mercenary. The phrase, popularized by Robert Bourassa to describe Quebec’s emotionless relationship with the rest of Canada — an update on Duplessis’s “rendez-vous notre butin” — was always fairly grubby in intent, but typically appeared shrouded in the majestic purple of nationalist agitprop, in which Quebec is forever serenely approaching its inevitable destiny and all that.
But these days Quebecers seem less enamoured of inevitable destinies, so Premier François Legault made no attempt to dress up his list of demands for parties seeking his support in the coming federal election as anything more than what it was. The list included money to extend a subway line in Montreal; money to compensate his government for the costs of dealing with the influx of asylum seekers; and money for Quebec’s dairy farmers, to compensate them for the barely discernible opening of Canada’s milk market under the renegotiated NAFTA.
But what is money without power, so Legault also came armed with the traditional demands of Quebec premiers for more powers: more power over immigration, in which Quebec is already all but sovereign, notwithstanding its membership in a federation whose borders are controlled by the federal government and whose citizens are permitted to move freely about the country; and more power over the collection of income taxes.
Come again, you ask? Doesn’t Quebec already collect its own income tax, uniquely among the provinces, thus imposing upon its long-suffering citizens the obligation to fill out not one but two separate forms at income tax time? Yes: Legault’s proposed solution is for Quebec to collect the federal tax, as well.
There are three things to note about Legault’s list, beyond its outrageousness. One, it is only preliminary: Legault was at pains to note that there would be more. Two, even if fulfilled to the letter, it will not actually be enough to win his support — “I won’t support any federal party,” he said as he emerged from a meeting with the prime minister in Sherbrooke on Thursday — but only avert his active hostility.
And three: if his intent was to set off a bidding war among the federal parties, he needn’t have bothered. With the Quebec vote in play this election, thanks to the collapse of the NDP and the Bloc, in a way it has not been in decades, the bidding war started long ago.
Under Andrew Scheer, the Conservatives have expressed a willingness to pander to the nationalist vote that is pathetic even by Tory standards. On the issue of the income tax, for example, Legault was put in the unusual position for a Quebec premier of demanding something that had already been promised.
As long ago as last spring the Tories were signalling they would make this offering to the nationalist gods, undeterred either by its obvious effrontery — it was Quebec, not the federal government, who created the problem — or its ominous portents: it is not hard to imagine the potential for mischief, in the event of some future federal-provincial dispute, should the government of Canada have to depend upon the grace and favour of the government of Quebec for a fifth of its revenues.
At any rate, that is but one of the items on the list of offers Scheer unveiled Monday in Montreal — again, with the pledge of more to come. There, too, was the promise to “respect Quebec” by giving it “more autonomy” on immigration, though Scheer could not say in what regard Quebec lacks the needed autonomy today. There was also a promise to appoint a separate minister of Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (the various regional development agencies are currently grouped under a single minister) whose significance you can probably guess at.
Mind you, Scheer is offside with Legault on one thing: the Energy East pipeline — though since the project is probably a dead letter neither man is likely to find his professed convictions put to the test. The federal Liberals, on the other hand, have made clear that Quebec’s opposition to a pipeline is sufficient in principle to kill it — in a way that B.C.’S, say, is not.
On other issues, the Grits will find the pandering harder going. Legault’s declared policies with regard to immigration are twofold: to reduce it, at least temporarily, from 52,000 to 40,000, and to impose upon immigrants a language and “values” test, on pain of expulsion for those who fail. The first would seem contrary to the Liberals’ own declared policy of raising immigration, from 310,000 to 350,000 over three years; the second, to the Charter of Rights.
Yet rather than give these proposals the back of their hand — oh yes, Legault also demands the reduction in Quebec’s immigration levels be accompanied by an increase in federal funding — federal ministers will meet with their Quebec counterparts this month to discuss them. As the combined impact of each level of government pursuing its own chosen course would be to reduce Quebec’s share of the country’s population — unthinkable! — it would be unwise to rule out the possibility of more tail-wagging-the-dog solutions à la the federal income tax.
As for handing the government of Quebec control of the federal purse strings, the best argument the Liberals have been able to muster against it is that it would cost jobs at federal tax processing centres in the province. Unprofitable federalism, in other words.
It is only going to get worse; the federal election is still nine months away. What the NDP, whose current leader would seem less opposed to separation than most Quebecers, will put on the table can only be imagined. How this unseemly bidding war will play out in the rest of the country, on the other hand, is too dreadful to contemplate.