Unity fears haunting Ottawa
A OTTAWAfew days spent here last week left me with an entirely unexpected impression: People seem to be less concerned about the election than about what may happen post- election in the next referendum in Quebec.
Normally, elections put all in Ottawa into a state of high excitement and alarm. Who’s up and who’s down is this city’s favourite — almost sole — topic of conversation. It matters, intimately and critically to people here, who has the real power and, even more important, who has, or may have, the patronage.
Yet talk kept circling back to, Whither Quebec? Some cautionary comments are necessary.
It’s possible to detect Liberal self- interest at work. During the election’s second, post- Christmas, phase, the Liberals are very likely to “ go negative.” Their pitch then will be less the wonderful things they will do for the country than the terrible things that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives will do to it. Among the many ways the Liberals will compare the Conservatives to Genghis Khan’s horde ( their imminent destruction of one- tier medicare goes without saying), will be that they will make national disunity certain because they won’t elect a single MP from Quebec. Asecond necessary cautionary note is that Ottawa would suffer by far the most severe collateral damage should Quebec separate. Thousands of Ottawa jobs would be at risk; real estate values would tumble. It’s not a sure thing that Ottawa would continue as the capital of a Rump Canada. These qualifications leave the core of the phenomenon unaltered. People are genuinely worried. The key event is two years or so away, when the next Quebec provincial election will be held. A real crisis will loom then only if the Parti Québécois’s attractive new leader André Boisclair defeats Premier Jean Charest.
Thereafter, another referendum on sovereignty would be certain, maybe in a couple more years or around 2010.
Still in doubt, of course, is the actual result of that hypothetical referendum.
Today’s events, though, are setting the stage for what are called the “ winning conditions” for the sovereignists. The Conservatives, after winning this election, would indeed not have a single MP from Quebec. They’d be fighting for Canada in a referendum with one arm tied behind their ( and our) backs. While the Liberals will make much of this as soon as the jingle- bell season is over, they, in a certain sense, may be the weaker national unity champion. These days in Quebec, the federal Liberals provoke not so much anger but, as is politically far more damaging, laughter. The price we all are paying for the sponsorship scandal is less that the pro- sovereignty Bloc Québécois is certain to win some extra seats in this election — and so become the overwhelming representative of francophone Quebecers — than that the federal government itself has lost credibility and respect in Quebec.
This isn’t the only tilt toward the negative in national unity terms. Since the last referendum, Canadians outside of Quebec have distanced themselves emotionally from the issue.
Guilt is long gone. Another, “ Please stay. We really do love you” mass rally is hard to imagine.
Far more to the point, “ other” Canadians today define themselves increasingly by the nationbuilding challenge of multiculturalism rather than by that of bilingualism, which now seems a bit old hat.
Alast, significant change in the equation is that Ontario, which in the past has paid most of the Save Canada bills, is now insisting, and guiltlessly so, on an open and balanced national accounting. These new potential “ winning conditions” do not mean that national unity is lost. But there are enough of them that those in Ottawa who worry more about what may happen after the election than who wins it, may well be right. Richard Gwyn’s column appears Tuesdays and Fridays. gwynR@sympatico.ca.