National Post (National Edition)
Why would Quebec stay?
Post-national vision of Canada bland, soulless
Do you want to be Canadian? Quebecers may get to choose if the Parti Québécois wins the 2026 provincial election, as PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, who is leading in the polls, has pledged to hold a referendum on sovereignty if he becomes premier.
Polls suggest that roughly one in three Quebecers would vote to leave Canada. But federalists should not get too comfortable, as this is around the same proportion of Quebecers who indicated they would support sovereignty in 1994, only for the province to reject it by less than one per cent a year later.
Does Canada still have the same appeal almost 30 years later?
Everything in Canada feels like it's in decline. Health-care wait lists are tortuously long, car thefts have skyrocketed, inflation has ravaged the country, the economy is unproductive and housing is unaffordable. Meanwhile, our public institutions have been doing their utmost to weaken Canadian identity and tamp down patriotism.
“Je me souviens” (“I remember”) is the official motto of Quebec, and a call for Quebecers not to forget their unique heritage. Would this nation, as they are recognized by the Government of Canada, have any interest in remaining part of a declining country that appears eager to reject its own history and to despise its founders?
Surely, Quebec cannot avoid the spread of the “post-national state,” as described by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which rejects Canadian identity. Whatever its original intent, the “post-national state” has become author Yann Martel's grotesque notion of Canada as the “greatest hotel on Earth'' turned into national policy. The end goal is turning Canada into an unremarkable reflection of the wider world, with nothing unique to call its own.
CBC ads proclaim, “It's not how Canadian you are. It's who you are in Canada,” echoing the elite belief that a mainstream identity has no place in this country.
The post-national vision of Canada is not only soulless and vapid, but dangerous, as well. It will come for all cultures eventually — immigrant and Indigenous included.
Far from being the preserver of minority cultures, post-nationalism will melt them all down into a generic blend, with all the charms of an Earls restaurant and the spirit of an NGO.
In 1995, Canada had its fair share of problems, but it was not official government policy to denigrate everything Canadian that originated before 1982. When the Confederation Bridge opened in 1997, the federal government insisted on having its name honour Canada's founding. It even overruled a committee chaired by the premier of Prince Edward Island, which proposed naming it the Abegweit Crossing.
Around the same time, in 1994, Molson debuted its “I am Canadian” ad campaign, which glorified Canada's history and heritage through grainy images of the Canadian Pacific Railway being completed, soldiers going off to fight in the Second World War and the 1972 Summit Series. “I am Canadian” was corny, jingoistic and delightful. Most importantly, it reflected the widespread belief that Canada's existence made the world a better place.
In 2024, that consensus has been arbitrarily shattered. Canada Day is no longer a day of pure celebration. Nowadays, no Canada Day is complete without a barrage of cloying confessions of guilt for the country's past wrongdoings. The Port of Vancouver even renamed its July 1 celebration “Canada Together” and permanently cancelled its fireworks show.
Institutions like the Canada Council for the Arts slander the country's foremost artists, such as the Group of Seven. For the crime of painting Canadian landscapes in watercolour, the Group of Seven were charged and found guilty of colonialism and erasure.
War of 1812 re-enactments at the Fort York historic site in Toronto have been defunded in the name of inclusivity. There is little point in rehashing what “woke” means, but its aims can be boiled down to: if it exists, it is almost certainly morally flawed, and must thus be destroyed.
Quebec has long defined itself by its linguistic and cultural differences with the rest of Canada, but now even its own heritage has been affected by this post-national disease.
There is great controversy in Quebec over the changing nature of Montreal, a city of ever-growing diversity and culture.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet recently lamented that the province's largest city was becoming culturally detached from the rest of Quebec.
Quebec's nationalist premier, François Legault, has expressed his fear that Quebec may one day resemble Louisiana, where French surnames are common, but the language itself is rare. There has also been controversy over Québécois culture and identity becoming a subject of mockery in Montreal's public schools.
Canada's economic trump card in the sovereignty debate has weakened since 1995. The biggest strength of the federalist cause at the time was that Quebecers would be economically better off remaining within Canada.
In 1995, Canada ranked fourth on the Human Development Index. In 2021, it had dropped to 15th. Whether it be affordability, productivity, crime or health care, practically everything in Canada suffers from a thick layer of unavoidable malaise.
The biggest economic draw may be the generous equalization payments delivered to Quebec, which amounted to $14 billion last year. Yet the post-nationalist Canada has turned equalization into usury, with the interest paid in a fraying national culture.
CANADA DAY IS NO LONGER A DAY OF PURE CELEBRATION.
In 1995, many Quebecers were swayed by the pragmatic economic argument to remain within Canada, rather than the cultural one. But at least people in the rest of Canada still proclaimed their love for the flag that they begged Quebecers not to leave behind.
If another referendum on sovereignty is held, the federal government's pitch may amount to nothing more than: “Almost everything about Canada is worse than last time, and we'd love to assimilate you into the post-national project, but please stick around for the equalization payments.”
There is no common ground between Quebecers who are determined to preserve their culture, and those in the rest of Canada who are told to disregard their heritage. If culture and identity are dominant themes in a future referendum, “the greatest hotel on earth” will have nothing to offer.
Canadians want to be inspired, and the post-national agenda cooked up by Ottawa will never accomplish that. It deserves to be crumpled up and burned, and its ashes spat upon and forgotten. The alternative is Canada's disappearance in all but name, either through a slow death, or the end of Confederation.