French election bad news for Quebec sovereigntists

It’s no surprise most of Quebec’s largely nationalist political class kept its distance from France’s defeated far-right presidential candidate. France’s rejection of Marine Le Pen’s ultranationalist platform, however, will place some pressure on Quebec political parties to take sides in a fundamental debate shaking western democracies — globalization.

A lack of preparation for it has sparked nativist movements denouncing job losses and economic disruptions that have resulted.

It’s a futile debate for any forwardthinking person even vaguely familiar with economics or history. Trade has been a staple of nearly all human civilizations, and a global economy is its natural result.

Fringe activists might have been able to better resist and delay globalization in some western societies had they been aware of its implications two decades earlier, and mobilized as vigorously as they have in recent months. But at this point, there is no undoing the phenomenon.

In France, globalization was a key election issue on which presidentelect Emmanuel Macron and Le Pen clashed throughout the campaign.

The French did well to choose Macron. Nationalists elsewhere are starting to regret their ill-conceived power plays. Some Brexit proponents in the United Kingdom felt remorseful hours after the vote on leaving the European Union; U.S. President Donald Trump is slowly coming to terms with the reality of trade pacts.

While anti-globalization movements may lack sophistication, they are attempting to cater to millennial voters who seem to be demanding more substantial arguments on issues like the decline of manufacturing or accessible postsecondary education (a related issue, given that investment in the knowledge economy should logically follow the decline of manufacturing).

Young Quebecers are disinterested in sovereignty, a tendency that does not bode well for nationalism more broadly. Their diverse generation is demanding cultural and economic openness.

Quebecers are very different than the French, but much of their disproportionally nationalist political class steadfastly refuses to acknowledge this, often taking cues from across the Atlantic, as with the Parti Québécois Charter of Values dress code.

It’s difficult to imagine the PQ or any sovereignty movement not being stuck on the wrong side of this globalization debate, as sovereignty is nationalistic by nature.

There are liberal democratic forces within the PQ’s oversized tent that are favourable to international trade and open to the world in general; leader Jean-François Lisée was ostensibly among them. But it is unclear if those forces can rein in the media-fuelled nativism that all nationalism inevitably produces.

Far-left Québéc Solidaire leans sovereignist, moderately nationalist and has cemented itself in opposition to globalization.

The Coalition Avenir Québéc, doubling down on economic and cultural nationalism lately, imported a Le Pen talking point last August with fierce opposition to religious Muslim swimwear (the burkini).

This leaves the ruling Liberals in the most advantageous position on these issues. They are led by an unapologetically federalist premier who is favourable to bilingualism, moderate on economic nationalism and eager to attract international investment. Former leader Jean Charest was instrumental in Canada’s signing of a free trade agreement with Europe earlier this year.

When Quebecers are faced with these questions in the future, expect millennials to continue gravitate toward globalism, pushing nationalists and sovereigntists to the fringes when they fail to adapt.