Vancouver Courier
for May 6, 1998

Well, folks, the chickens have started on their slow, but deadly sure, return to the roost. It's only modesty which prevents me from saying, "I told you so!"

A little rewind and replay if I may.

A couple of months ago, a spontaneous movement, so it was said (by the politicians and we know how reliable they are), sprang up with the brain wave that national Tory Leader Jean Charest would, if leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, become the Premier of Quebec and thus the land would be saved.

In a nutshell, I took this position. Far from helping the cause of unity Mr Charest would seriously hurt it. If he leads the Quebec Liberals into the next election, Lucien Bouchard will force him into taking constitutional positions which run diametrically contrary to what other Canadians, especially in B.C., are prepared to concede. I reminded all who would listen that there must be a referendum in British Columbia before any constitutional amendment can pass and that if Charest promised a veto for Quebec, a referendum on the issue would surely fail - badly.

This, of course, was considered an unpatriotic approach which only compounded my "treasonous" earlier opinion that passing the Calgary Declaration, while an act of warm and fuzzy patriotism, would lead Ottawa to believe that B.C. would approve a "distinct society" designation for Quebec, "distinct" being cheek by jowl in your Thesaurus from "uniqueness."

Well, some things have happened. Last Friday in the Financial Post, William Johnson asked Mr Charest when he was going to mention the dreaded "c" word? Johnson assumed that the issue of Quebec's incessant demands for "distinct society" and a veto over all constitutional changes would soon be on the front burner, so what was Mr Charest waiting for?

We learned last week in a widely circulated news story that Mr Charest felt that the "uniqueness" clause specifically and the Calgary Declaration in general fell "far short" of what Quebec demanded as a minimum.

(Never fear all of you who think they've heard this song before - Charest is a posthumous clone of Robert Bourassa and you have heard it all before and will hear it again.)

In last Saturday's Toronto Globe and Mail appeared an article by Rheal Seguin headlined "Bouchard plans to press Charest on federalism. This is not idle threatening. Premier Bouchard plans public hearings on the "Calgary Declaration" - no prizes for guessing how they will turn out.

What will all this mean?

It's so simple that everyone but Prime Minister Jean Chretien has figured it out.

The Charest Liberals will have to respond to this initiative, whether it's by active participation or simply measured responses is irrelevant.

And what will those responses be?

Again no prizes for assuming that Charest will condemn the Calgary Declaration as being in general vague while utterly unacceptable insofar as Quebec's distinctiveness is concerned. Moreover, Mr Charest will not only demand "distinct society" as a minimum but a veto for Quebec over all constitutional changes.

The next Quebec election will not be fought on the basis of the "good guy" Charest fighting the "bad guy" Bouchard but on who promises more independence for Quebec. This is the natural dynamic in Quebec politics and one which has served them well over the years. If Mr Charest were to take the position that the Calgary Declaration was just peachy, especially the part about "uniqueness", he'd be a joke. If he were to say he supported the present amending formula and rejected the idea of a Quebec veto, he'd be laughed right out of the race.

British Columbians may not like to deal much with the constitution - only lawyers like that kind of stuff - but they know that it's the glue which holds the country together. They're also a quick study, as the Charlottetown Accord Referendum demonstrated. The notion of making a veto for Quebec all right as long as B.C. gets one too insults the intelligence of a province that knows that vetoes are for preventing change not making a country better. They'll see it, as they saw Charlottetown, as a not-very-clever way of making sure that Central Canada runs the country their own way forever more.

Of course there are things Ottawa can do. It can stop telling Canadians what's good for them and ask them instead - not through traveling road shows chaired by a tame politician cherry picking the intervenors so as to meet a preordained result, but through a Constituent Assembly.

Surely it's long past time when we the people should select the best amongst us to deliberate, at length and with support resources, then recommend to us how we can reestablish our national community on a basis which is not only fair for today but adaptable to tomorrow.

Sure, it's probably too late. But like the person falling from the 30th floor, flapping your arms may not help but it sure as hell beats doing nothing.