Nostalgic sovereignists aim to relight the flame
It was 20 years ago today, Canada teetered on the brink.
If the memory of the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum has faded — many Quebec youth have no idea what the fuss was all about — the event is alive and well in the minds of the many players of the day.
In fact, it haunts them.
On the sovereignty side, there is some solace in the knowledge that they came within a whisker of fulfilling the dream of statehood but bitterness because in the end they failed.
For federalists, it was a brush with death for the country they would rather forget. The man in charge at the time, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, took plenty of heat for grossly underestimating the strength of his adversary.
But, on Oct. 30 in 1995, Quebec was a province split down the middle. The result of the vote to separate from Canada could barely have been closer: 50.58 per cent for the no, 49.42 per cent for the yes. The difference was 54,288 votes.
The issue gripped everyone, splitting not only the politicians but families and friends. The participation rate for that vote, 93.25 per cent, has never been topped.
There were casualties but some came out of the process ahead. It ended Jacques Parizeau’s political career, but gave new life to Jean Charest’s.
Perhaps the most remarkable part of that debate so long ago was that it was relatively civilized and peaceful. After it was over, Quebecers breathed a sigh of relief, shook their neighbour’s hands and life went on.
Today, neither side of the great divide plans to pop champagne corks, not in public anyway. With a vote that close, there’s just not much for anyone to crow about.
This has not stopped a flurry of nostalgia; on radio and television, in books and articles, polls and university conferences set up to re-examine the whole period.
On Thursday, the Parti Québécois and five splinter groups in favour of independence got aboard the oldies’ bandwagon, announcing plans to sell, at $19.95 a pop, reproductions of the hugely popular 1995 “Oui, et ça deviant possible,” posters that dominated the Yes landscape in the campaign.
Quebecers are being urged, as was the case in 1995, to hang them on their homes and off apartment balconies to show their sovereignist colours. About 5,000 copies have been printed and are being sold by Montreal’s Société SaintJean Baptiste and other independence groups.
The poster announcement, at a Quebec City news conference, was significant in other ways.
It is one of the first times a crosssection of sovereignist groups sat down in the same room; a tacit admission that the years they have spent working on independence in their little corners — effectively splitting the vote and dooming their own interests — have not been helpful to their cause.
Besides the PQ being represented by leader Pierre Karl Péladeau, attending were the leaders of the Bloc Québécois, Option nationale, Mouvement national des Québécois (MNQ), the Organisations unies pour l’Indépendance and the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste.
“What’s important to note is that this unification is started,” Péladeau told reporters. “We want it to get stronger and solidify even more.”
“We will work to re-found the magnificent coalition of sovereignist forces that we witnessed in 1995,” added Bloc president Mario Beaulieu, elected to the House of Commons in last week’s federal election.
United in nostalgia, they nevertheless each had an agenda. That is particularly true for Option nationale, which is already out there competing with the PQ for the independence vote.
Conspicuously absent was proindependence Québec solidaire MNA Françoise David who refused to participate in the poster event because she said she had not been given enough time to consult her membership on the merits of getting closer to the PQ.
Her party is officially against any formal political alliance with the PQ.
Option nationale vice-president Sol Zanetti was pretty clear about what he’s after.
“We will need to find a way to work together, without hampering each other,” he said. “What we want to put at the centre of any coalition is a clear commitment to make independence happen between 2018 and 2022.”
Péladeau has yet to go down that path saying only that Quebecers will know, before the 2018 election, whether a potential PQ government will hold a referendum or not.
As is his habit, Péladeau Thursday pleaded for more time to yank the movement out of hibernation.
“We have three years ahead of us,” (before the 2018 election),” Péladeau said. “Three years to talk about independence. I am not hiding the fact there are challenges ahead of us; challenges linked to the alienation on the part of youth.”
Playing optics to the hilt, after the news conference Péladeau led his caucus outside the legislature to the spot on the grounds where the statue of PQ founder René Lévesque stands facing the Hilton Hotel. They laid a wreath and had a moment of silence.
This year marks the 28th anniversary of Lévesque’s death on Nov. 1, 1987.
It’s not surprising, but Péladeau subscribes to the sovereignist line that the Yes side was robbed in 1995 by dubious and illegal tactics in the No camp. The No camp levels the same kind of accusations at the Yes folks.
“The referendum was stolen, pure and simple,” Péladeau told Radio-Canada journalist AnneMarie Dussault this week when asked about the 1995 vote.
In fact, 20 years after the vote, a kind of cottage industry on referendum conspiracy theories — whole books exist on the subject — still abounds in Quebec.
But in some ways the PQ faces modern versions of the same hurdles Lévesque did, namely convincing a majority of Quebecers that statehood is in their interests. Péladeau’s current populist spin is it will make Quebecers richer.
And Péladeau says the dismal results for the Bloc in the federal election don’t count because that campaign was a referendum on Conservative leader Stephen Harper, not about sovereignty.
So where does the option stand today?
Start with the latest public opinion poll, conducted by CROP, for the Chaire de recherche sur la démocratie et les institutions parlementaires, a think tank connected to Université Laval.
To the question, “Do you want Quebec to become an independent country,” 34 per cent of Quebecers say Yes, 60 per cent say No. Among youth, aged 18 to 34, 62 per cent are for the No.
That’s the first PQ hurdle, Chaire executive director Éric Montigny said in an interview this week
“Historically it was always the young generations who pulled the sovereignty movement forward,” Montigny said. “It is no longer the case. On the contrary, voters who support independence are getting older and they are not renewing themselves.”
But Montigny says, digging deeper, the poll reveals an evolution in Quebecers’ attitudes to Canada and their own identity that points to a new cycle in the apparently never-ending debate about Quebec’s status.
For one thing, even if they reject sovereignty, 58 per cent of Quebecers consider themselves “above all,” Quebecers. Only 42 per cent say they are “above all,” Canadians.
The youth number who consider themselves Quebecers first is higher, 66 per cent. Only 34 per cent of youth consider themselves Canadians first.
A mere 29 per cent of Quebecers think the status quo constitutional status is fine. The poll says 44 per cent think Quebec should stay a member of the federation based on some kind of new undefined pact with Canada.”
On the other hand, only about half of those who believe in independence (54 per cent) think their dream will actually happen one day. Overall, less than one Quebecer in five (22 per cent) believes the independence project will happen.
A sign of the current tough economic climate, only 47 per cent currently believe Quebec has the economic moxie it takes to go it alone.
The Internet poll was conducted from Oct. 15-18 and is based on the responses of 1,000 Quebecers.
Voters who support independence are getting older and they are not renewing themselves.