Gariepy wasn’t alone in speaking of Quebec as already independent. Provincial Premier Robert Bourassa said Saturday that the province would no longer take part in any forum including Canada’s other nine provinces. Instead it would negotiate bilaterally with the federal government on I issues involving its powers. “English Canada must understand that, whatever we say or whatever we do, Quebec is today and will always be a distinct society that is free and capable of assuming its own destiny and its development,” he said Friday. That was a far cry from secession. But it highlighted a national identity crisis that goes beyond the problem of accommodating the country’s French-speaking minority.
The immediate dilemma stems from Quebec’s refusal to accept the 1982 Canadian Constitution engineered by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau insisted that granting his home province special rights in recognition of its ethnic and linguistic differences would eventually undermine the Constitution. His successor, fellow Quebecer Mulroney, reversed course. He sought unity in surrender: Quebec would be declared a “distinct society,” as part of a 5-point package of constitutional amendments signed at Meech Lake in 1987 by Mulroney and all 10 provincial premiers. The provinces were given until June 23, 1990, to ratify the amendments.
Hard sell: It proved to be a hard sell. Since Meech Lake, new governments have come to power in three English-speaking provinces. Newfoundland rescinded its earlier ratification, and its provincial leader joined premiers in New Brunswick and Manitoba to question the accord on the same grounds Trudeau cited. Earlier, Quebec had irked Anglophones by banning English on commercial signs in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling. Bourassa and his ministers raised fears by describing “new powers” they would enjoy beyond the sphere of language and culture rights to regulate banking, for example. They even spoke vaguely of autonomy in international relations. Manitoba demanded a “Canada clause” defining the country’s essential characteristics. And the country’s native people clamored for special status, too. Meech Lake, Mulroney said Saturday, “became a lightning rod for discontent.”
As the June 23 deadline approached, Mulroney, a former labor lawyer, called the provincial leaders together and closeted them for a week of high-pressure negotiations. But New found land Premier Clyde Wells remained a holdout, saying he needed to test opinion among the province’s citizens in town meetings and to consult with legislators over the risks of contributing to Canada’s breakup. In Manitoba, Cree Indian legislator Elijah Harper launched a filibuster to block ratification.
The end came Friday when Wells called off a vote on Meech Lake, citing what he called “pressure tactics” by Mulroney that he said were aimed at making his province a scapegoat. In part, he was angry over a government plan to extend the deadline for Manitoba in order to end-run the filibuster. Newfoundland legislators also were unhappy over Bourassa’s refusal to entertain changes in the “distinct society” provision that would subordinate it to the country’s 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, similar to the American Bill of Rights. Meech Lake Wells said, “is wrong for the long-term future of Canada and wrong for the long-term future of this province.”
Canada must now ask what is right for its long-term future: further concessions to Quebec, or divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences? Secession would be costly on both sides. It would cut the impoverished Atlantic provinces off from the rest of the country. It might provoke English Canada to deny Quebec special access to Canadian natural resources and to the financial markets of Toronto. But separatist sentiment is growing among French speaking Quebecers and English Canada seems increasingly ready to let them go. At one rally in Ontario, pro-English demonstrators walked across the flag of Quebec. Lord Durham long ago spoke of Canada as “two nations warring within the bosom of a single state.” The country finessed the issue for more than a century. Now time is running out.
