Constitutional chatter about attracting nationalists

Few things excite the Quebec political class, if not the Quebec public, as much as the prospect of another national-unity crisis between the province and the rest of Canada.

So there was much excitement in social media on Wednesday evening after a somewhat hyped leak that Quebec would “re-launch the constitutional debate” the next day.

In fact, the Couillard government’s “affirmation” policy says there would be no constitutional negotiations until after the government laid the groundwork in a low-key, “pedagogical” exercise of explaining its position to anybody in the rest of Canada who might listen. There would be no timetable, no deadline, no ultimatums and, the government obviously hoped, no drama.

The excitement at the leak was short-lived. Four hours before the government’s tentative, gradual strategy was officially revealed on Thursday, the possibility of another unity crisis over the constitution appeared to have already received a mercifully quick death at the hands of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The prime minister scarcely broke stride as he breezily reiterated to reporters at Parliament that he had no intention of reopening the Constitution.

At least this time, the country won’t have to go through years of building drama for a Quebec premier to end up isolated.

In the patriation and Meech Lake rounds of constitutional negotiations, Quebec’s premier started out with counterparts from other provinces, or the prime minister, or both, as allies. In fact, both rounds were initiated and led by the prime minister.

This time, Philippe Couillard hasn’t bothered to line up any allies. And as long as he has the prime minister against him, there will be no negotiations.

Unity crises are not created by a single soundbite from the prime minister, however. It took several years of increasing acrimony between Quebec and English Canada, over language as well as the constitution, to create conditions for the secessionists’ nearvictory in the 1995 referendum.

Anyway, Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée is stuck with his commitment not to hold another referendum before 2022.

The PQ leader’s only consolation is that the federalist Liberals have provided him, in their policy document, with an admission that he immediately found useful: since their province has not formally accepted the constitution imposed on it, Quebecers are “exiles in their own country.”

That admission may be the only thing anybody remembers about the policy after it is consigned to the shelf of Liberal constitutional dead letters. (Remember the previous Liberal government’s Pelletier policy, calling for recognition of Quebec’s “specificity?” Neither does anybody else.)

There is some suspicion that the Liberals released the new policy to distract attention away from the latest damaging leak by police who, it is increasingly apparent, have a political agenda to bring down the government. The 194-page policy, however, represents a lot of work to expend on just one in a series of leaks.

A more plausible explanation is that the policy is intended for purely domestic consumption, as pre-electoral marketing for the Liberals as nationalists. Recent polls place the Liberals third in popularity among the French-speaking majority that decides Quebec elections, and the Liberals’ hold on power is currently threatened by the soft-nationalist Coalition Avenir Québec party.

It remained to be seen how the new policy would be received by Liberals at a party council meeting on Saturday. In recent years, Liberals have been uncomfortable with nationalism.

Anyway, the affirmation policy still leaves the Liberals as the least nationalist of the parties now represented in the National Assembly, so it was sure to be found lacking by the others.

To compensate cosmetically for that shortcoming, the Liberals, in their document, have innovated as the first party to refer to “la Nation québécoise,” with a capital N; the Liberals aren’t just nationalists, they’re big-N Nationalists. If size matters, maybe that will satisfy the exiles.

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly —Macbeth, on the murder of Duncan