The Written Word
for October 14, 2001

It was with a sense of relief and joy that loyal Canadians noted that last week the Parti Quebecois lost two by-elections out of four and damn near lost another. This, piled on another by-election loss earlier in the year and the less than brilliant showing of the Bloc Quebecois in the last federal election, surely must mean the beginning of the end for the Bernard Landry government and, dare we think, of the Parti Quebecois itself? After all, the PQ is really a one issue party and since the desire for sovereignty is so low in Quebec, what does it have left to offer? Here comes the knight in shining armor, Jean Charest! We’re saved!

If that’s our analysis, we must be smoking something illegal.

Let’s go back a decade or so when appeasement of Quebec was official federal government policy. First there was the Meech Lake Accord, that died in the Manitoba Legislature in 1990 followed quickly by the Charlottetown Accord which was killed by the public of Canada in 1992.

The Charlottetown Accord was sold to Quebeckers as being Meech Lake Plus! Plus! Plus! by an exuberant Brian Mulroney. There were three principal elements that were supposed to sell Charlottetown to Quebeckers – the designation of the Province as a "distinct society", a veto for Quebec over all proposed constitutional changes and a permanent 25% of the seats in the House of Commons. In the result, it’s critical to note, this proposal was rejected by Quebeckers as not going far enough and by the rest of Canada as going too far.

Since then there have been two constitutional moves. First, the post 1995 Referendum resolution of Parliament that it would recognize, for federal purposes, that Quebec was a "distinct society" with the promise that the federal government would veto any constitutional change opposed by any "region" of Canada, Quebec, of course, being a region, and, second, the Calgary Declaration by the Premiers which, by the time the B.C. Legislature got though with it, was dead, never to be heard of again.

The hard, cold fact is that in the Far West at any rate, and probably in other parts of the country, the notion of an official constitutional veto for Quebec, her official designation as a "distinct society" and a permanent 25% of the seats in the House of Commons is simply not on. The Chretien government knows this, which no doubt accounts for its deafening silence on the question of constitutional change.

Now fast forward to the next Quebec election. There will be, of course, the usual domestic issues but you can’t have an election with the government party being separatist without constitutional questions being in issue. Liberal leader Jean Charest is already firmly on record as supporting the promises of the Charlottetown Accord as the very minimum Quebec could, without being mortally insulted, accept.

If Mr Landry wins the election, the constitutional issue will remain a separation referendum "when conditions warrant". He’s not interested in re-visiting Charlottetown. If, however, Jean Charest wins, he will have pledged to achieve for his province a constitutional veto, "distinct society" and a permanent 25% of the seats in the Commons. He will then, soon after his election, say to Prime Minister Chretien "there you have it. I saved the nation from the threat of Quebec separation and it’s time to redeem the promises I had to make".

This will put the constitutional cat amongst the provincial pigeons. Mr Chretien will be faced with two choices – "insult" the Province of Quebec and its new premier by refusing to bow to its "reasonable" demands, thus forcing Mr Charest closer to the sovereigntist position, or convene a constitutional conference which he knows can do no better than produce another "Charlottetown" Plus! Plus! Plus! - to be massively rejected in British Columbia and Alberta, if not by others as well.

It’s rather like a conjuring trick – what you think you see happening isn’t necessarily what is happening. A Premier Jean Charest, looking to the rest of the country as the saviour of our national integrity would be, in fact, the man who would re-start the process of its unraveling.

If we want the constitutional question to be in the very safest of hands in Quebec’s National Assembly, Canadians across the country would be wise to rally to the side of Bernard Landry and the Parti Quebecois.