Could we have avoided Quebec’s 1995 referendum?
It came to light after his passing that former prime minister Brian Mulroney had reconciled with his once dear friend, Lucien Bouchard, after a bitter more-than-30-year split.
Also revealed was an intriguing might-have-been.
Interviewed after Mulroney’s death, Bouchard, who led the proindependence side in Quebec’s 1995 referendum to the brink of victory, was effusive, praising Mulroney’s sincerity and arm-twisting capacity that convinced all of Canada’s premiers to recognize Quebec as a “distinct society,” the price for Quebec accepting the 1982 constitution.
Clearly, for Bouchard, if Mulroney’s Meech Lake accord had succeeded, there would have been no Bloc Québécois and no justification for Quebec’s 1995 referendum. And Quebec would have its long-sought say in the naming of senators and supreme court judges from the province, as well as a constitutional right to opt out of federal programs, with full compensation.
Bouchard wrote Brian Mulroney’s 1984 speech, promising to bring Quebec into the constitution with “honour and enthusiasm.”
Meech failed when two premiers not in office when Mulroney won his consensus in 1987, withdrew their support. Bouchard then turned on Mulroney.
The three-year delay between Mulroney’s winning over all 10 provinces and the 1990 date the agreement would come into force, allowed Manitoba’s Gary Filmon and Newfoundland premier Clyde Wells, both elected after Meech was accepted, to renege.
Bouchard and Jean Charest, Quebec’s pro-Federalist Captain Canada in the 1995 referendum, were united in their grief, in a RadioCanada interview the day news of Mulroney’s death in Florida broke, with Bouchard recalling a friendship with “Brian” that began when they were law students at Quebec City’s Université Laval.
Bouchard called Mulroney’s Meech Lake accord, a “great success.”
“He succeeded in convincing everyone,” Bouchard recalled.
“It would have been something extraordinary for our future,” Bouchard told Radio-Canada’s Céline Galipeau.
For Mulroney, the failure of Meech was “the worst moment of my life in politics,” and he told friends that if Bouchard came to his funeral, the ceremony was to stop.
Canada gained independence from Britain in the 1931 Statute of Westminster, adopted by the British Parliament in London, but Quebec held up returning Canada’s 1867 constitution — the British North America Act, which remained a statute of British Parliament until 1982 — seeking first recognition of Quebec as a founding partner of Canada, not just another province.
Quebecers elected a Parti Québécois (PQ) government for the first time in 1976, with a commitment to a referendum seeking political independence but a continuing economic partnership with Canada.
The PQ lost its 1980 referendum by nearly 60 per cent, encouraged by then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s promise that Quebecers would be heard, without spelling out what changes he had in mind.
Negotiations on Trudeau’s proposals were deadlocked in November 1981, with Quebec opposed; but ended with a surprise agreement between Trudeau and the provinces, excluding Quebec. Quebec’s PQ premier René Lévesque was furious. He would not sign the constitutional agreement and no Quebec premier since has accepted what became the 1982 constitution.
Mulroney, an English-speaking Quebecer from Baie-Comeau, was fluent in French and while firmly federalist, sympathetic with Quebec’s desire for greater autonomy. He won two majority mandates, but in the 1993 election his Progressive Conservatives were reduced to two seats, as Jean Chrétien’s Liberals returned to power.
Bouchard’s new Bloc Québécois won 54 Quebec seats and Bouchard became official opposition leader.
Two years later in 1995, touting the Meech Lake failure as a rejection of Quebec, PQ premier Jacques Parizeau called a second independence referendum.
Bouchard, a charismatic speaker who could move a crowd, became de facto leader of a campaign that almost succeeded, with a final score of 49.4 per cent for independence but 50.6 per cent against. Bouchard succeeded Parizeau as premier and began his “winning conditions” quest for a third referendum try.
Bouchard’s PQ won the 1998 election, with 76 seats over Jean Charest’s Liberals with 48, but the Liberals won more votes than the PQ, an omen that Bouchard could never reach the winning conditions de sought.
Bouchard stepped down as Quebec premier in 2001 but his breakup with Mulroney endured. That breakup was “very, very painful,” Bouchard confided, saying Mulroney wasn’t perfect, while admitting that his own “ego” was at play in his decision to end the friendship.
Meech represented “major gains for Quebec,” Bouchard said.
“We (Quebec) would have been part of the Canadian nation.”