Socialist Worker 449, May 25, 2005 •
www.socialist.ca25 years since the first referendum
Quebec's fight for self-determination
It is 25 years since the first referendum on Quebec sovereignty, and suddenly, Quebec has returned as a central issue in Canadian politics. Belinda Stronach defected to the Liberals, in part because she was afraid of the Tories becoming "beholden to the separatists". Paul Martin and Jack Layton also accused the Tories of being "in bed" with the "separatists". These politicians are content to whip up anti-Quebec sentiments without paying any attention to the real issues behind the national question in Quebec. Here, BENOIT RENAUD tells the real story.
On May 20, 1980, the people of Quebec were consulted for the first time since the Rebellions of 1837 about their collective place in the world.
The vote was the culmination of two decades of a transformation of identity from the French Canadian conservative and catholic ideology, which took over following the failure of the democratic 19th century rebellions, to the new notion of the secular, progressive "peuple Québécois". The transformation was complete among most of the younger generation, and a majority of them voted OUI, although only 40 per cent of all Quebecers did so.
It was also the end of a period of intense social struggle, including three student general strikes, and two massive general strikes by labour in 1972, the only pan Canadian day of strike in history (against Trudeau’s wage freeze policy in 1976), as well as major breakthroughs in the struggle to win abortion rights and legal equality for women, among others.
This was the beginning of a new era, after the Viet Nam war and the worst of the confrontation between East and West.
After the long economic boom turned into a long slump, the main issue became competition between the most productive capitalist powers on the world markets, with Canada playing its cards with and against the US.
Trudeau’s economic nationalist policies, his massive reductions in corporate taxes and his anti-inflation wage freeze, together with low military spending, were all meant to take advantage of Canada’s strategic position in that context. It was the beginning of what we later called globalization.
In that situation, the Canadian ruling class was unwilling to make any compromises with the Quebec independence movement, especially because the Parti Québécois (PQ) relied heavily on recently radicalized youth, unions and community groups for its base of support.
Of course, the fears of a "Cuba North" were greatly exaggerated. The PQ leadership was very explicitly committed to maintaining good relations with the US and with English Canadian business. But the risk involved in opening that Pandora’s box was too great.
The 1980 referendum question itself was very modest in its proposal. It only sought a "mandate to negotiate" a new deal between Quebec and Canada.
It even included the promise of a second referendum to ratify the result of that negotiation. The starting point for negotiations was going to be the notion of sovereignty-association. This meant that Quebec would be sovereign, receiving 100 per cent of its taxes, making all its own laws, but also that a strong economic union would be maintained and managed by bilateral institutions.
The provincial Liberal party, with its leader Claude Ryan, responded to the PQ’s proposal with the concept of a renewed federalism, which would give more autonomy and some recognition to Quebec, but without breaking the institutional and constitutional continuity. The end result would keep significant authority with the federal government but with less potential for intruding in areas of provincial jurisdiction, including culture and language.
This renewed federalism was the official doctrine of the opposition party at the National Assembly, and therefore of the ‘NON’ camp.
But the true leaders of the campaign against "separatism" were the federal Liberals, under the leadership of Pierre Trudeau. They had just won 74 out of 75 Quebec ridings in the federal election in February and used that legitimacy to solemnly promise to change federalism, while remaining vague as to the direction of that change.
Scare tactics
But they spent most of the campaign trying to scare people into voting no. They told seniors they were going to lose their pensions. They told the poor they were going to lose unemployment insurance. As if a sovereign Quebec was not going to retrieve its share of existing federal taxes and create equivalent programs ...
Trudeau even said in one of the main speeches of the campaign, in reference to the unlikely scenario of a yes victory, that if necessary he would "use the sword". Less than ten years after the use of the War Measures Act, which led to 500 arbitrary arrests and terrorized a whole society, people knew what he meant and that he was not bluffing.
In the end, 41 per cent voted ‘yes’ and 59 per cent voted ‘no’. The French-speaking majority was essentially split in two, while other communities massively voted no. The older the segment of the population, the more they tended to vote no. But only in the region of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean did the OUI get a majority.
Many people were sad and disappointed that evening and took comfort in René Lévesque’s words about the "next time". And it only took 15 years before there was another referendum, on a similar question, with a very close result of 49.5 per cent ‘yes’ and 50.5 per cent ‘no’.
This was the result of the failure of the federalist camp to deliver on the promises of reform made during the 1980 campaign.
In fact far from reform, Quebec received a slap in the face.
Crisis for the Liberals
Trudeau "repatriated" the constitution in 1982, in spite of opposition from the key political forces in Quebec.
Trudeau’s constitution of 1982 was rejected by both main parties at the National Assembly because it didn’t recognize the specificity of Quebec or limit the power of the federal government.
Also, it didn’t give Quebec a veto over constitutional changes, something most Québec federalists considered to be essential as Quebec was the only province with a French-speaking majority and had the responsibility to protect French Canadians everywhere. Quebec still hasn’t signed on to the Canadian constitution.
Following what many saw as a betrayal, the leadership of the PQ and a good number of provincial Liberals gave their support to Mulroney and the Tories in the 1984 election, giving them 58 out of 75 seats in Quebec and a majority government.
The Liberals, who had dominated federal politics in Quebec since Wilfrid Laurier, still haven’t recovered a real base of support among francophones. With a hollow organization, the Liberals came to rely on ad firms to give them a profile in Quebec. This is the origin of the sponsorship scheme and the fraud uncovered by the Gomery commission.
Crisis for the Tories
Mulroney promised to bring Quebec back into the constitutional fold "honourably and enthusiastically". He teamed up with provincial Liberal leader and Premier Robert Bourassa to negotiate the Meech Lake accord in 1987.
That deal included all five of Bourassa’s minimal demands, including the veto over further constitutional changes and the recognition of Quebec as a "distinct society". The deal ultimately failed because of Trudeau’s campaign against it, which won the support of the Liberal government in Newfoundland and the Liberal official opposition facing a Tory minority government in Manitoba. Neither of those provinces ratified the deal by the deadline of June 23 1990.
When the deal failed, support for sovereignty in Quebec rose to an all-time high. It led to the formation of the Bloc Québécois, headed by Lucien Bouchard, a moderate sovereigntist who had participated in the Mulroney government from 1988. Also from its ashes rose the so-called "Reform Party", a Western Canada-based split from the Tories.
After the defeat of the Charlottetown Accord, a watered down version of Meech Lake on the issue of Quebec, in a pan-Canadian referendum, the Conservative Party collapsed under the opposite blows of the Bloc and the Reform Party.
Canada’s two historic parties of business, then, have both foundered on the rock of the Quebec national question.
They are not the only parties to fracture because of this. The Quebec Liberal Party — the historic party of federalism in Quebec — split over its support for the Charlottetown Accord, leading to the creation of today’s Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ).
A new referendum?
This enabled the Liberals under Jean Chrétien to win three straight majorities in 1993, 1997 and 2000, not because of enthusiasm for their policies, but because of the division of the opposition into multiple parties (NDP, BQ, PC and Reform).
Then the PQ came back to power in Quebec City and held the second referendum in 1995. During that campaign, the threat of partition was used by mainstream federalists like Stephan Dion.
Millions of dollars in private and federal government money were poured into the campaign, with no consideration for Quebec’s referendum spending laws. Once again, Quebec’s right to self determination was denied.
Will there be a third referendum following the sponsorship scandal and the current crisis in federal politics? If so, what scare tactics and frauds will the Canadian state and ruling class resort to in order to defeat the "separatist" threat?
Will the so called Clarity Act be used to deny a sovereigntist victory by arbitrarily placing the threshold just above what the yes side will get? Will the English Canadian left mobilize in defence of the right to self-determination to prevent economic sanctions and repression from being used against the Québécois?
This last question is one readers of Socialist Worker will be in a position to answer by their actions.
Follow the movement in Quebec. Subscribe to Résistance, French-language publication of Socialisme International. Just $12 for 10 issues. Make cheques payable to Socialisme International and mail to Socialisme International, C.P. 1102 succursale Hull, Gatineau,Québec, J8X 3X5. E-mail resistance@sympatico.ca.
Socialist Worker 449, May 25, 2005 •
www.socialist.ca