National unity is an important election issue

If the NDP wins, its Sherbrooke Declaration is likely to revive separatism, William Johnson says.

A dangerous illusion spreads in this election campaign. NDP leader Tom Mulcair leads a vocal chorus of pundits and tweeting citizens who insist that national unity is not an issue. National unity is only about old quarrels. Nobody, now, is talking about secession.

I beg to differ. National unity is an important issue now. It was raised by Mulcair on June 23, the eve of la fête nationale, when he went to Montreal to recall that the 2005 Sherbrooke Declaration is the NDP’s official policy. Not only that, he proclaimed: “Cette offre politique demeure au coeur de notre approche auprès des Québécois” (“This political offer remains at the heart of our approach to the Québécois”).

For those who don’t already know, the Sherbrooke Declaration is entirely about national unity and Quebec’s secession. It says that Quebec has a right to secede, without any conditions or qualifications, if a separatist government obtains a 50 per cent plus one vote, in a referendum where the question and the rules are set unilaterally by the separatist government.

And Mulcair tells us, this is “at the heart of our approach to the Québécois.” Moreover, in the first leaders’ debate on Aug. 6, Mulcair kept prodding Justin Trudeau to name “your number,” that is, the percentage of the vote that Trudeau would consider decisive to authorize secession.

That, of course, totally distorts the doctrine on secession declared by the Supreme Court of Canada in its Aug. 20, 1998 reply to the reference on the secession of Quebec. The court did not discuss numbers because precise numbers are irrelevant. For the partners of the federation to come together for a serious discussion on secession, the court said, there must first be “a clear answer to a clear question”— that is, not the slightest ambiguity or shade of doubt about

Secession, no matter what the vote count, is not a right, the court said.

the true desire of Quebecers.

But that is only the first step. Secession, no matter what the vote count, is not a right, the court said. Much more important is the resolution of the conflicting rights of all the provinces, of the minorities and, above all, of the aboriginals. And secession can only be legitimately conceded by an amendment to the constitution of Canada by the existing amendment process.

So is it important to discuss the Sherbrooke Declaration now? Of course, because if Mulcair becomes prime minister, he will provoke a surge of revived enthusiasm and passionate commitment among separatists, with his promise of an easy, no-problem secession.

They will work twice as hard to bring to power their new leader, Pierre Karl Péladeau, the billionaire with the raised clenched fist, who withdrew from control of his business empire for one sole purpose: to achieve Quebec’s independence.

Some innocents believe that separatism is dead. No, it is only latent. On April 23 of this year, La Presse reported on a just completed CROP poll that indicated 41 per cent support for sovereignty:

“The score in favour of sovereignty often goes up and down in voting intentions. The Yes in a referendum would have scored 41 per cent this month, a gain of six points in comparison with March. It had reached that same score in September 2014, only to fall back to a floor of 31 per cent in December.”

So separatism is volatile. Nothing would so revive Quebec separatism as Tom Mulcair sailing to power on the strength of the Faustian Sherbrooke Declaration, which he claims is “at the heart” of his campaign promise to the Québécois. Only the naive would choose to ignore that issue.