On a key issue of national unity, folly from the NDP
Not one of the seven New Democratic Party leadership candidates present for a debate in Montreal this past weekend could muster the gumption to stand unconditionally for national unity by endorsing the Clarity Act.
Instead, they all lined up behind the revisionist NDP constitutional dogma known as the Sherbrooke Declaration. This was adopted at the urging of the party’s Quebec wing at an NDP national convention six years ago in hopes of courting Quebec nationalist voters.
It was a push that paid off in last spring’s federal election, when the party scored a historic breakthrough by taking not only more than one seat in this province for the first time ever, but sweeping a majority of Quebec seats on the way to becoming the official Opposition in the House of Commons.
Among other things, the Sherbrooke Declaration repudiates the Clarity Act passed in 2000 by Jean Chretien’s Liberal federal government. The act, which the NDP back then supported when it came to a Commons vote, imposes reasonable conditions for Quebec to be able to separate from Canada – conditions that had been backed by a Supreme Court of Canada ruling the previous year.
The Clarity Act stipulates that the federal Parliament has the power to decide if the question posed in a sovereignty referendum is sufficiently clear, and to determine whether any vote in favour of secession is a clear enough expression of Quebecers’ will. The plain implication is that more than a mere 50 per- cent- plus- one vote would be required.
The Sherbrooke Declaration, on the other hand, stipulates that in the event of another referendum, an NDP federal government would stand by and let Quebec’s National Assembly – presumably dominated by separatist members – dictate what the question would be, and would accept a 50 percentplus- one vote as a clear enough endorsement of secession. It is folly for a national party that claims to stand for national unity to take such a position.
The last sovereignty referendum demonstrated the need for the Clarity Act. The question Quebecers were asked was not only unclear, but decidedly misleading. Its convoluted wording suggested that an agreement was already in place for a new Quebec- Canada political and economic partnership in the event Quebecers voted yes to sovereignty. Such reassurance was critical in pushing the Yes vote to within a hair’s breadth of a simple majority.
A 50 per- cent- plus- one vote for separation falls below generally accepted international norms for acceptance of vote results. And even by sovereigntists it should be considered practically insufficient, since a razor- thin majority of support could readily fade in the face of the difficulties that would be involved in enacting a unilateral secession.
The Sherbrooke Declaration also calls the 1982 patriation of the Canadian constitution and the institution of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – over the objections of Quebec’s separatist provincial government of the day – “indefensible.” But recent polling shows that eight in 10 Quebecers approve of patriation and the Charter.
As long as the NDP endorses such folly, Canadians committed to national unity should consider the party unqualified to govern.