Cartlanna Clibe: Caoibec (Québec)

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Language Wars – Coming To A Sign Near You Soon

Sign of Albain or Scotland

Alba – Albain – Scotland

More new from the Pax Anglia, via the Dunfermline Press:

“… councillor Dave Dempsey is proposing that road signs in Fife be in English-only.

His motion, “Council agrees that there is no need, point or advantage in road signs in Fife being in any other language or languages than English” went before fellow councillors yesterday (Thursday).

It was prompted by press reports last month of a £350,000 plan to promote Gaelic in Perth and Kinross and Councillor Dempsey now hopes to “lay down a policy marker”.

[Dempsey said] “Gaelic was never really spoken in Fife – it’s spoken in other parts of Scotland but not really when you get this far south and east.

“I understand the need to keep the language in existence but language is used to communicate and everybody can speak English.”

Yes, well colonisation does tend to end up with the natives foregoing their own language and adopting that of the overlord – just so they and their children, and their children’s children, can survive to see another day. Not to mention that there is little point in keeping a language in “existence” if no one is allowed to use it – because they are told that they must use English instead as Councillor Dempsey suggests.

Meanwhile some good news from Wales for at least one of the indigenous Celtic languages of the island of Britain. From a report in the Daily Post: 

“WELSH children are twice as likely to speak the language than pensioners or those of working age figures from the 2011 census reveal.

The figures show that across Wales, 37.6% of under 16s are now able to speak Welsh, compared to 15.5% of 16-64s and 16.2% of over 65s.

The discrepancy between different areas of the nation are evident, with 89.1% of Gwynedd children speaking Welsh –  compared with  22.7% in Merthyr Tydfil.

Interestingly, it’s also revealed that women are more likely to speak the language than men.

It’s also proven that national identity plays a large role on one’s ability to speak the language or not.

A quarter of people who identify themselves as Welsh, also classed themselves as Welsh speakers, and two-fifths of those who identify as Welsh and British can speak the language.

Unsurprisingly, the popularity of Welsh medium education has seen a huge rise in parts of the South Wales valleys, with children in Blaenau Gwent being 23 times more likely to speak the language than a pensioner in the same area.”

Wales Online has more analysis.

Québec

Québec

Finally from Québec an open letter published today in the English language Montréal Gazette written by the province’s Language Minister Diane de Courcy and the liaison with the Anglophone community Jean-Francois Lisée, both from the ruling PQ party. It deals with the wide range of opinions expressed in recent months around Bill 14 which will expand legislation protecting the rights of the province’s francophone majority and encouraging French language use amongst the English-speaking minority and new immigrant communities. Sensibly the new series of regulations will accommodate the concerns expressed by the anglophone and bilingual communities of some towns and municipalities.

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The Journey of Nishiyuu – Indigenous Rights In Canada And Québec

The Journey of Nishiyuu - Supporting the Idle No More movement in Canada and Québec

The Journey of Nishiyuu – Supporting the Idle No More movement in Canada and Québec

Some more news on the continuing protests by the indigenous peoples of Canada as they seek to build on the momentum created by the Idle No More movement and the recent hunger strike by the Theresa Spence. From the Star:

“On the frozen shores of Hudson’s Bay in January, a small group of Great Whale Cree strapped on their mukluks, pulled on their parkas and set out on an epic and frigid journey on foot to Ottawa.

Drawing inspiration from Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence during her fast more than 1,500 kilometres to the south, six youth and a 49-year-old master hunter decided they too wanted to do something to draw attention to aboriginal issues and joined the ad hoc actions of the Idle No More movement taking place all over the country.

Almost two months after they departed Whapmagoostui-Kuujjuaraapik, Que., in –40 C weather, the walkers have covered more than 1,000 kilometres and rallied about 100 people to join them from communities along the way. 

On March 25 the marchers expect to reach Parliament Hill, where New Democrat MP Romeo Saganash (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou) will gather a welcoming party to greet them.”

The Journey of Nishiyuu - supporting indigenous rights and the Idle No More movement in Canada and Québec

The Journey of Nishiyuu – supporting indigenous rights and the Idle No More movement in Canada and Québec

You can view more details here at the dedicated website, Journey of Nishiyuu, or at First Peoples World Wide.

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The Rising Stars Of Québec Nationalism

Québec solidaire

Québec solidaire

Interesting article on the two rising stars of political nationalism in Québec both of which have begun to challenge the traditional dominance of the Parti Québécois (PQ) when it comes to eliciting support from the province’s separatist-minded voters. The first is the left-wing Option nationale, led by Jean-Martin Aussant, a party that is attracting a younger more dynamic generation of pro-independence activists, not to mention some high profile defectors from the PQ itself. The other is Québec solidaire, led by Amir Khadir, another party to the left of PQ which is also enjoying greater success with younger voters.

Meanwhile this pointed description of his forthcoming visit to “Canada and Québec” by the French PM Jean-Marc Ayrault may signal an interesting turn of diplomatic attitudes in Paris away from the somewhat hostile anti-separatist approach favoured by former President Nicolas Sarkozy.

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Support For Hunger Striker Theresa Spence Grows

In support of hunger striker Theresa Spence, leader of the Attawapiskat First Nation of North America (Photo: Tamara Herman)

In support of hunger striker Theresa Spence, leader of the Attawapiskat First Nation of North America (Photo: Tamara Herman)

More news from Canada and beyond in relation to the hunger strike by Theresa Spence, leader of the Attawapiskat First Nation (one of the indigenous peoples of Canada), and the protests by Idle No More, the aboriginal rights’ movement. From the BBC:

“Protesters supporting a Native Canadian chief’s 23-day hunger strike have blocked a rail line in eastern Quebec.

While the Attawapiskat leader has continued her fast, First Nations protesters and others have rallied around her and Idle No More to protest a range of issues.

At Quebec’s Pointe-a-la-Croix, protesters on Wednesday blocked cargo transport but allowed passenger trains through.

Ms Spence has staged her protest in a traditional teepee within sight of the parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city.

Ms Spence has urged Mr Harper to “open his heart” and meet native leaders.

Instead, the Canadian government has offered a meeting with Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan.

“I know it’s hard for people to understand what I’m doing,” she told reporters on 28 December. “But it’s for this pain that’s been going on too long with our people.”

Ms Spence invited MPs and senators to visit her teepee on Sunday. High-profile visitors have included former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark.

Supporters of the Idle No More movement held marches, rallies and highway blockades across Canada in 2012, as well as “flash mob” protests with traditional drumming and dancing.”

Meanwhile The New Zealand Herald reports that:

“An indigenous protest movement, which has seen civil disobedience across Canada, has been joined by a group in New Zealand.

The Idle No More uprising, sparked by Canadian ‘first peoples’ incensed by inequality and treaty rights, has gained support from indigenous populations around the world.

It has now reached New Zealand shores, with a Maori women’s group organising rallies and calling for mobilised action.

A rally was held on December 28 on Waiheke Island, and a protest was held outside the Canadian Embassy in Wellington on New Year’s Eve.

An ‘Aotearoa in Support of Idle No More’ Facebook page has been launched, and organisers have warned of disruptions.

“We feel there has been a global assault on indigenous sovereignty,” said Marama Davidson, spokeswoman for the Auckland-based Maori women’s collective Te Wharepora Hou.

“This is the global call we’ve been waiting for. Now, we can join together and start looking at solutions.”

Flash mobs up to 400-strong targeted Christmas shoppers at malls across Canada, protesting against controversial government budget legislation.

The protesters say the legislation fails to constitutionally recognise and affirm treaty and aboriginal rights, and ignores legal obligations to consult and accommodate first nations.”

Is it not time for action in support of Thereas and Idle No More in Ireland and the other Celtic nations?

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The NDP – A Separatist In Federalist Clothing?

Interesting article in the Toronto Sun on the phenomenon of a party-within-a-party represented by the separatist inclinations of some Québec-based members of the ostensibly federalist New Democratic Party (NDP) in Canada. Since the party’s electoral landslide in Québec during 2011’s federal elections across Canada (which effectively knocked out the once dominant nationalist Bloc Québécois) accusations have circulated  that the NDP’s representatives from La Belle Province are not all that they seem.

“Is Thomas Mulcair’s New Democratic Party federalist in English-Canada while separatist in Quebec? The question could well become very embarrassing if the Quebec New Democrats keep sending mixed messages.

We all remember that many of the MPs elected in the May 2011 orange wave in La Belle Province were also separatists. Among others, Jack Layton’s successor as interim leader, Nycole Turmel, had to admit being a card-carrying member of the Bloc Quebecois and of the provincial radical left/separatist party Quebec Solidaire.

Like many voters in Quebec, many New Democrats don’t see any contradiction in supporting a federalist in Ottawa and a separatist in Quebec City.

Every time Rosemont’s NDP MP, Alexandre Boulerice, asks a question in the House of Commons, the Conservative MP for Nepean-Carleton, Pierre Poilievre, reminds us all that Boulerice has given money to Quebec Solidaire more than 30 times since its creation in 2006 (he continued even after he got elected) and demands that he reveal whether or not he’s a separatist.

I had Boulerice on my radio show two weeks ago and asked him three times if he would vote Yes or No on the question of separation and never got the beginning of an answer.

I know the issue may be difficult to understand for many readers in English-Canada, but being or voting separatist and federalist, back and forth, is not perceived as a contradiction in Quebec politics.”

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PQ Electoral Victory In Québec Sparks Political Violence

Québécois

A quick post to note the results of the election in Québec where the nationalist Parti Québécois (or PQ) under leader Pauline Marois has had a narrow victory over the incumbent Liberal Party led by veteran politician Jean Charest. However the PQ celebrations were soon interrupted by news of a lone-terrorist attack by an Anglophone extremist on a PC rally in Montréal where Marois was speaking.

From the Irish Times:

“A masked gunman shot dead one person inside the Montreal theatre where the leader of Quebec’s separatist Parti Quebecois was addressing supporters in the wake of a narrow election win in the Canadian province, police said today.

The incident was shocking for Canada, where crime rates are relatively low and political violence is unheard of.

The shooting eclipsed the news that the Parti Quebecois had only just defeated the ruling Liberals and would have to be content with a minority government, effectively ruling out another referendum on breaking away from Canada.

Pauline Marois, the first female premier of Quebec, had just told her supporters the province would one day be independent when her bodyguards rushed her from the stage. She later returned to finish her speech.

Montreal police spokesman Danny Richer said a man aged about 50 entered the back of the Metropolis theater at about midnight (4am Irish time) and shot two people. Police said a man in his 40s died on the spot, another was taken to hospital in a critical condition. The suspect also set fire to the back of the building.

He appeared to shout in French the phrase “The English are waking up”. Ms Marois had promised to strengthen laws designed to ensure the dominance of the French language, which has worried some in the minority English-speaking community.

The PQ won 54 of the 125 seats in the provincial legislature, ending nine years of rule by the Liberals.

The results showed the Liberals had won 50 seats, down 14 from the 64 they held at dissolution. Premier Jean Charest, who lost his seat, emphasised that the PQ had only won a minority.

The right-leaning CAQ, on course to win 19 seats with 27 percent of the vote, wants to freeze all talk of a referendum for a decade and focus on the economy.

The Liberals won three successive elections from 2003 to 2008, but became increasingly unpopular amid allegations of corruption in the construction industry that might be linked to the financing of political parties.

Preliminary results of yesterday’s election are as follows (figures in brackets show the number of seats at dissolution): PQ 54 (47); Liberals; 50 (64); CAQ 19 (9); Quebec Solidaire 2 (1); Option Nationale 0 (1); Independents 0 (2).”

More here.

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On The Hustings In Québec

Québécois

A guest article for An Sionnach Fionn by Jean François Joubert on the National Assembly election campaign in Québec: 

Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Québécois (the PQ), has had a rough week. In fact the party’s apparatchiks couldn’t be blamed for wanting to hide her until election day, September 4th. This is quite a paradox as Marois’ PQ is poised to become the next majority government in Québec and Marois Québec’s first female prime minister. Still the PQ is far from rejoicing. The problem the party has is one of “division du vote”. Twenty years ago the PQ was the sole democratic vehicle for independence, now the situation has become a bit more complex. The very high margin of error in the polls means almost anything could happen. However change is also about new opportunities and the situation may be more promising for significant change than it has been in any period since 1995.

FIRST, THE PLAYERS

Jean Charest’s Québec Liberal Party. The winner of the NO campaign in 1995, “Capitaine Canada” has been running Québec for the last nine years. When corruption scandals multiplied around him he had the good sense to call for the election during a recess of the public inquiry into the construction industry (and its ties with his party’s financing). His government is also responsible for Bill 78, the internationally criticized anti-demonstration law against student protests (le printemps érable). The Anglophone vote, the party’s traditional liberal base, is fractioning. He is largely seen as writing the last pages of his political book. However, there is a numeric possibility, not small, that he could win a sizeable minority or even a majority vote. The Érable Spring might turn into a year-long protest should that happen.

The Parti Québécois is leading the polls right now but Pauline Marois is criticized for her role in the student protests as a too late, half-hearted, politically motivated effort compounded by her position that once elected she will cancel the “Liberal“ hikes in tuition fees and begin an enquiry into the whole matter. She is also criticized for her referendum strategy which is: not until it’s the right time (well OK, if there is a petition signed by 15% of the population but the government has the last word and not likely in a first mandate anyway).

Another part of the PQ strategy is the belief that it is now time for the Parti Québécois to be back in power and that it is important not to divide the vote between sovereigntists (Québec nationalists). Additionally the PQ is positioning itself again as the defender of the French language and all things Québécois such as gender equality and the secular state.

THE NEW PLAYERS

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) led by a prominent former PQ minister, is a centre-right party that promises to clean up government and make it more efficient and, above all, not to initiate any referendums (the CAQ appears to be siphoning voters left and right equally: PQ and Liberal). Ironically, as was pointed out during the campaign, CAQ’s leader Legault would traditionally head the NO campaign should he be elected in the opposition and a referendum be proposed. He has said he would not take sides in any future referendum, whether on the yes or the no side. This promises to be interesting.

Targeting some of the PQ’s voters on the far left spectrum (as well as other parties like the Greens, the recently defunct but always marginal Communist Party and groups like la Marche des femmes contre la pauvreté) is the Québec Solidaire co-leader Amir Khadir, at one time the most popular politician in Québec. Québec Solidaire or QS has been influential in a great turnaround in Québec politics with a flurry of ideas, innovations and bold actions. Though putting left politics before independence QS emphatically denies it is anything but a party championing Québec independence. Its strategy to achieve this success is perhaps not matching its own strong convictions; it promises to hold public “constitutional assemblies” for two years and then have a referendum on the propositions therein. For an electorate already weary of referendums and debates on the issue of independence, their solution appears to be the worst of both worlds for some.

Finally Option national (ON) like QS plays on the left side of the field: they are in favour of nationalisation of resources, free education from kindergarten to university a unified government-administered Pharma-Québec for all prescription drugs. However, as ON leader Jean-Marin Aussant says, whether you are a liberal or conservative you have to “be” first. For independence the strategy is clear: ON proposes to have the National Assembly group all the powers it now shares with Canada (a sort of DEVO-MAX on steroids, voted right there in the Assembly) and then they will have a wide consultation on a constitution. It is that constitution that would be voted for by all citizens in a referendum. A win/win situation.

(Full disclosure: I support Option nationale)

This week though the media has been monopolized by the gaffes of the Parti Québécois.

GAFFE #1

PQ leader Pauline Marois proposed last week that linguistic tests would be given to all potential election candidates (whether francophone, anglophone or aboriginal) and that they would be banned from running if they didn’t speak French at an adequate level.

She then backed down somewhat saying it only applied to newcomers as people already here would have their rights maintained. Other members of the party reassured the population saying “it was not going to be done right away”. This somehow does not reassure me at all. This from a party that officially has promoted self-determination for aboriginal nations since 1977.

In an election where every point counts, consolidating your base is essential. Appearing so late in the game in this manner is proving to be just plain embarrassing. I will not argue against knowledge of French for public servants and even democratic representatives everywhere in Québec aside from aboriginal communities (a moot point since virtually everyone who is educated in Québec speaks French) but this plan appears ill-conceived, ill-explained and half-baked.

QS and Option nationale has stated in a straight-forward response that independence for Québec means that obviously they also support aboriginal nations’ rights for self-determination and promotion of their own languages. As for the PQ, on this issue it appears that this party has literally stood still for the past twenty years and has some evolving to do.

Other parts of the citizenship program would promote gender equality and a secular state by banning public sector workers from wearing headscarves and other religious symbols (a small cross was acceptable!). Though prepared somewhat for a debate (many of the ideas are in tune with the Algerian-raised PQ candidate Djemila Benhabib, an intellectual opposed to Muslim fundamentalism and a staunch defender of women’s rights) a constructive discussion could have ensued but was quickly avoided when other gaffes came to the fore such as should the cross which has been at the National Assembly be removed. YES! Says Benhabib. NO! Says Marois.

Sigh.

Again, an opportunity lost for intelligent discourse. One positive thing though, it appears the PQ has lost its fear of political characterization and is not afraid to stir up the largely hostile Anglophone press. Sadly, it has simply done very badly in the explaining, justifying and compassion department that could justify some of this stirring up of opinion.

GAFFE #2

During a debate, Legault reminded Marois all it took was 15 per cent of the population signing a petition to hold a referendum on sovereignty (actually this is quite a high number of people and it would be historic) and argues the hardliners would be in a position to decide the date of the referendum and force all of Québec like so many Caribou down a ravine. “Can you stop a referendum yes or no?” asked Legault. A stunned Marois replied not only petitions but even referendums were only consultations, they were not law. Many people would not agree in dismissing referendums as a strategy.

The next day her close collaborators had to remind her publically: it would be quite difficult to disregard a petition signed by 85000 people: the pressure would be enormous.

THE POSSIBLE OUTCOMES

With one week to go to September 4th, here are some of the scenarios: all bets are on.

My predictions are:

  1. Option nationale wins all its ridings and a referendum on a constitution is voted on before Christmas. OK, that is a long shot. Good for 2014.
  2. Liberals win a minority government, CAQ win minority government: unsustainable and would quickly be voted out by opposition parties.
  3. Quebec solidaire, minority-majority. Unlikely but possible. Québec is embroiled in free trade negotiations with Cuba and Venezuela (yes, it is part of their program) and people wonder what exactly will their priorities be from their very large party platform.
  4. PQ, a majority. I do not favour this outcome; though it is hard in our winner-take-all system to work against that. The PQ is not willing to initiate independence nor is it willing to argue for it. However pressure would mount on the AMs [Assembly Members] and perhaps like the dozens that have already left the PQ and Liberals for new parties the trend would continue.
  5. PQ minority with two QS seats and one Option nationale. Most likely outcome right now in a divided but surprisingly stable electorate. Bingo. I do believe that would be a winning combination. Warts and all. PQ pressured by ON and QS to govern from the left and get on with obtaining all powers to the assembly.

Exciting times ahead no doubt!

Finally, the latest poll is here. The results are:

2 QS

1 ON 

70 PQ 

30 PLQ 

22 CAQ

… Jean François Joubert

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The Election Campaign In Québec – The Expected And Unexpected

François Legault and the Coalition Avenir Québec

Last Wednesday Jean Charest, the head of the beleaguered Liberal Party government in Québec, called early provincial elections for September 4th amid a series of political crisis sparked by a slow drip of corruption scandals, unprecedented student protests and rising polling numbers for the opposition nationalist Parti Quebecois (PQ) and the centre-right regionalists of the Coalition Avenir Québec or CAQ.

Charest has been the premier of Québec since 2003 with a straight run of election victories for his Liberal Party but he is now neck-and-neck with rival PQ leader Pauline Marois, despite her generally poor political reputation. The latest polls place the Liberals on 31% and PQ on 33%. However the wild-card of the CAQ is also polling strongly at 21% and there remains the possibility of the party under its mercurial leader François Legault entering some form of coalition with one of its rivals. Given his party’s official policy of suspending any independence debate in Québec for at least a decade it is not insignificant that Pauline Marois has dodged the question of when a potential PQ government would stage one. Legault is a former PQ member and despite some animosity with old colleagues (and real differences on economic issues) a PQ-CAQ coalition seems a better fit than one with the Liberals.

Meanwhile the Coalition Avenir Québec has secured a potential coup with the nomination of high profile former Montréal police chief and anti-corruption czar Jacques Duchesneau for election. However, given Duchesneau’s sometimes mixed public record it is a strategy not without its own pitfalls.

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PQ Back In Power In Québec?

Québécois

With new elections to the provincial assembly in Québec expected soon the Globe and Mail carries what it claims will be the agenda of the nationalist Parti Québécois (PQ) should it regain power:

“With an election expected to be called this week, the PQ refuses to lay out a timetable for a third referendum on sovereignty in the event of a victory. Still, the PQ promises that it would immediately try and whip up popular support – possibly through a referendum on its constitutional demands – in a bid to obtain more powers and money from the federal government.

“I don’t see how we can lose,” Bernard Drainville, a PQ MNA and lead party spokesman on constitutional issues, said in an interview. “If Quebec wins, it becomes stronger. If Quebec is rebuffed, the demonstration is made that there is a limit to our ability to progress in this country.”

The issue of Canada-Quebec relations is guaranteed to play a part in the provincial election. The governing Liberals are set to campaign on a promise of constitutional stability, arguing that PQ Leader Pauline Marois’s priority is calling a third referendum on sovereignty and causing political chaos in the province. The upstart Coalition Avenir Québec, meanwhile, is trying to attract sovereigntist and federalist voters with its promise of a 10-year moratorium on constitutional battles, in order to focus on economic and social matters.

The PQ is refusing to box itself in on its timetable for a referendum on sovereignty, but vows to quickly make life miserable for the federal government after nine years of relative calm with the Charest government.

The sovereigntist party wants the federal government to turn over its powers and all related funding on matters such as employment insurance, communications and culture, and economic regional development. In addition, the PQ wants the language policies in Bill 101 to apply everywhere in Quebec, including federally regulated sectors such as banks and transportation.

“We want to move from a position of weakness to a position of strength with Ottawa,” Mr. Drainville said. “We will work to make gains for Quebec, to obtain a maximum amount of money and powers. We will work to obtain the largest possible number of victories for Quebec and Quebeckers, on all fronts.”

The PQ refuses to promise that it will hold a so-called “sectoral referendum” on its constitutional demands, but Mr. Drainville said that his party is ready to use “all means” at its disposal in its constitutional battles.

“We will not only rely on tribunals or letters to our federal counterparts. We will do it by involving the Quebec population in the process, by asking Quebeckers to support us,” he said. “We want the government’s demands to be the people’s demands.”

The PQ promises to negotiate in “good faith” with Ottawa, stating it will be up to Quebeckers to pass judgment on the federal government’s openness to the province’s demands in the events of a referendum on sovereignty.”

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No Democracy, Now!

Québécois

Right-wing Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne expresses a view in the National Post on Québec independence that I suspect many Canadians will agree with. For readers aware of Ireland’s historic relations with the so-called United Kingdom, not to mention any contemporary Scots striving to sever their relationship with the UK , the contempt for democracy and the rights of peoples will ring all too familiar:

“The country is “sleepwalking into a perfect storm,” the political scientist Donald Savoie writes, hetero-metaphorically. Others are more laconic. “A turning point may have been reached that makes the uncoupling inevitable,” writes the National Post’s John Ivison…

Fortunately, such a scenario is impossible. Not unlikely: impossible.

Even if the PQ [Parti Québécois] were to win the election, and even if it could persuade Quebecers to overcome their visceral aversion to another referendum, and even if it were to ask a clear question and to win a clear majority, the next stop would be nowhere. Whatever conditions the Clarity Act may impose on the federal government’s participation in negotiations on secession, the real obstacle is more profound. The federal government has no legal authority to negotiate any such thing. Nor does anyone: there is no duly constituted representative of “the rest of Canada,” nor any means of duly constituting one.

Suppose there were. Even to enter into negotiations on such an extraordinary matter as the dissolution of the federation would require — legally, arguably; politically, certainly — a referendum of the rest of Canada, to mirror the one in Quebec.

The negotiations, if begun, would have to reach agreement on a truly dizzying number of issues, all of them zero-sum, with demands for input at every stage from multiple parties. Even if these could be sorted out, the result would require ratification in every province, very likely by referendum. All this, remember, while a simultaneous set of negotiations was under way on the shape of what remained.

The next referendum, if it comes, will be unlike any previous. As the feds are legally barred from accepting the result of any but a clear question, they can scarcely participate in a referendum that did not ask one. But the PQ will never ask such a question, if no other reason than because Ottawa insists it must. We are far more likely, then, to see some sort of preposterous charade along the lines of “do you agree that Quebec should assume such and such powers” — no more illegitimate than previous questions, but without the sanction of precedent. In which event the proper response of federal leaders is to ignore it. It always was.”

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Better Apart

Quick post on two articles. One is an interview in the British left-wing magazine Red Pepper with Plaid Cymru’s progressive new leader Leanne Wood. She gets a fair degree of space to discuss her vision for Plaid and Wales. Normally the British Left is every bit as nationalistic as its right-wing opponents and quite dismissive of the independence movements of the “Celtic Fringe” (as they view it), but Wood seems to be a bit of a Guardianista-style darling at the moment.

Meanwhile over in Québec another nationalist movement seems to be in resurgent form if media reports and predictions are to be believed (though how much that is down to renewed separatist feelings in Québec and how much to the recent student protests and a decade of lacklustre Liberal governance is debatable). The Montreal Gazette has more.

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A Québec Spring?

 

Miriam Smith present’s a good analysis on ipoltics.ca examining the influences behind the current turmoil in Québec as students face off against the country’s centre-right provincial government under the federalist Québec Liberal Party and its leader Jean Charest:

 

“Another important ‘big picture’ factor in the current crisis is the role of Quebec nationalism. Quebecers tend to have a different view of the state and of collective responsibility than other Canadians. In part because of the role of nationalism in Quebec society and the sense that the francophone minority is on its own in a sea of English, collective institutions such as the church (first) and the state (later), have been assigned the role of cultural and linguistic protection.

This has spilled over into other areas of social policy. Generally, the Quebec government has been more generous than other Canadian provinces in providing services such as day care. As well, groups such as the women’s movement, trade unions, and student organizations have regularly engaged in institutionalized consultation with provincial governments and party allies such as the Parti Québécois. Therefore, there is more of a sense of social solidarity or the social model, as it is sometimes called in Quebec, than in most other Canadian provinces.

It’s also important to recall that francophones in Quebec were disadvantaged in terms of higher education prior to the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. The modernization of higher education in Quebec as well as various measures that encouraged the use of French in the workplace during the 1960s and 1970s contributed to an expansion of access to higher education for francophone students. Cutting off access to education has a different resonance in Quebec than in other provinces. While in Ontario higher education might be seen as a ticket to a middle class job or as a potential engine of economic growth, in Quebec, higher education is inextricably linked to cultural, linguistic and national identity.”

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Turbulence In Québec A Sign Of Radical Political Change?

So, it seems that the governing (and as we would say over here, “unionist”) Liberal Party in Québec is set on throwing away its chances of re-election in the upcoming provincial elections expected later this year or in early 2013. From the National Post:

“Montreal police brought the hammer down on student demonstrators Tuesday night, enforcing a controversial law that brought tens of thousands into the streets in a protest earlier in the day that drew international support.

By the end of a cat-and-mouse operation that marked the fourth straight night of clashes, police spokesman Simon Delorme said that at least 100 people had been arrested and two police officers had been injured.

Four other people were taken to hospital but the extent of their injuries was not immediately known.

Projectiles were thrown at police and gusts of pepper spray tinged the air as riot equipped police sent people scattering.

Skirmishes broke out in different sectors of the city, sending busloads of Montreal or provincial police to quell the disturbances. Police on horseback provided additional backup as did a hovering provincial police helicopter.

One of the tactics of the night-time marches has been to walk against the flow of traffic, which often gets honks of support but sometimes brings scowls.

Police declared the evening march — the 29th of its kind since the protest started 100 days ago — illegal when some projectiles flew through the air at them. And they invoked the controversial Bill 78 and a Montreal by-law that forbids masks during public protests.

Shortly before the evening demonstration commenced, supporters in central Montreal districts came out onto their balconies and in front of their homes to bang pots and pans in a seeming call-to-arms.

As well, the powerful Montreal transit union also gave protesters a boost when it called on its members to avoid driving police squads around on city buses during the crowd control operations. Montreal police have for several years used city buses as well as their cruisers to shuttle riot squad officers around to demonstration hotspots and as places to detain prisoners.

The night-time march snaked through several Montreal neighbourhoods after it kicked off from Parc Emilie-Gamelin, a spot where all the night marches begin and which is named for a beatified nun who gave comfort to condemned rebels in the 1837 Lower Canada Rebellion.

The chanting march had not gone far before pyrotechnical devices were thrown and were followed near the downtown core by beer bottles. Police flooded Ste-Catherine Street, the city’s commercial core where chain stores sit side-by-side with upscale boutiques and told everyone to get off the streets or face arrest for participating in a riot.

The daytime march was considered to be one of the biggest protests held in the city and related events were held in New York, Paris, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.”

Altogether remarkable and an electoral gift to the nationalists of Parti Québécois (and other nationalist parties) given recent events not just in Québec but in Canada itself.

Watch this space.

(More here)

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Polling The Future

Following on from yesterday’s post about the effects of the right-wing policies of Canada’s Tory-led federal government on the separatist-inclined province (or should it now be nation?) of Québec, some more news on recent polls there. With provincial elections in Québec expected before the end of 2013 or earlier, the province’s government, currently in the hands of the federalist (or as we would say, unionist) Liberal Party, may pass into the control of the nationalist Parti Québécois (PQ), albeit with a narrow majority or in coalition with other Francophone groupings in the regional assembly.

However nothing is certain and the turbulence in Québec politics witnessed over the last twelve months has only recently abated. From The Globe and Mail:

““Dogged by student strikes and the looming inquiry into construction-industry corruption, [Liberal Party premier in Québec] Jean Charest is nevertheless in a neck-and-neck battle with the Parti Québécois as the remaining lifespan of his government can be counted in months.

According to ThreeHundredEight.com’s seat and vote projection model, the Parti Québécois currently holds a narrow lead over the Quebec Liberals with 33.1 per cent to 32 per cent support. While this represents a significant gain for both parties since the end of February, with the PQ picking up 3.7 points and the Liberals three, it is a far closer race than was recorded by the polls only a few weeks ago.

Throughout March and the first half of April, the PQ was averaging a lead of almost seven points over the Liberals. A remarkable turnaround after almost a year of being on the brink of catastrophe, the PQ was on track to form the province’s next government with a majority. But with current levels of support, Pauline Marois [PQ leader] would have a tough battle just to land a minority.

François Legault’s Coalition-Avenir-Québec has dropped 6.8 points since the end of February and trails in third with 20.4 per cent support, though some recent polls show that the right-of-centre party might have a little more life left in it.

Québec Solidaire stands at 7.5 per cent while the provincial Greens are projected to have 3.9 per cent support. Other parties, including the hard-line sovereigntist Option Nationale, pull together 3.2 per cent support.

Based on these numbers, the Parti Québécois would likely win 60 seats in the 125-seat National Assembly, putting it three seats short of an outright majority. The Liberals would win 53 seats, down 11 from their current crop of MNAs, while the CAQ would win 10 seats and Québec Solidaire two.

A close result like this has the potential to make for a complicated post-election period. Both the Liberals and PQ could look to the CAQ for support in order to govern, while if the PQ and Québec Solidaire, both left-of-centre sovereigntist parties, managed to win an extra seat or two they alone could command a majority of seats.

Political support in Quebec has swung widely for the last 12 months, ever since the New Democrats demolished the Bloc [Bloc Québécois, the nationalist party at the federal level] and the PQ’s internal troubles sent them on a downward spiral (which only reversed itself earlier this year). The CAQ has gone from the government-in-waiting to also-ran and now to kingmaker status. Through it all, the provincial Liberals have staggered from crisis to crisis. Jean Charest has been waiting for an opportune moment to call an election, but with things so tumultuous in the province there is no telling which way the wind will blow when the next window opens.”

Meanwhile the National Post has some very interesting letters from a host of readers debating the merits, or otherwise, of Québec independence, or the breakup of the Canadian federation if you prefer (thanks to Laurent Desbois for the heads-up and link to the video featured below). Some pretty blunt stuff here, and quite a bit of it spells out the nastiness that lurks underneath the great debate in Canada (particularly it must be said on the federalist or unionist side: that is from Canadian Nationalists), but a few perceptive thoughts too. And here is a familiar one for Irish readers (and now some Scottish ones, too):

“Provided the conditions of the Clarity Act are met, some areas of Quebec may be allowed to secede from Canada. However, the majority of Quebec’s current landmass was added to the province by the British Crown long after New France/Quebec was ceded to Britain by France in 1763. These lands would certainly stay in Canada, as would other regions where federalist votes prevail. The issue is not the separation of Quebec, but its partition.

Michael Peacocke, Ottawa.”

And this:

“I’m not sure that a velvet divorce is in Canada’s future but more in all likelihood would be a rocky divorce. So let’s get on with it as Canada’s and Quebec’s future would best be served just like what happened with Czechoslovakia. Canada should keep the mostly English south shore and Quebec would get Baffin Island in return? Wouldn’t be nice not to be a bilingual (questionable) nation any longer as they will always be 95% socialist and we just 15%.

Charles Steele, Vineland Ont.”

Troubles ahead?

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The Canadian Right Pushes Away The Québécois Left

There’s a recent article in the Global Post examining the actions of the Conservative Party government in Canada and the fallout from its increasingly unpopular policies, particularly in the autonomous province Québec.  This time last year the nationalist movement in Québec looked like it had taken a major step backwards with the collapse in the vote of the province’s Bloc Québécois (BQ), the nationalist party at the federal level. There were very real worries that this would have a knock-on effect on its sister party, the Parti Québécois (PQ), which operates at the provincial level within Québec itself as it faced its own troubles (many of them down to internal rivalries or debates about the party’s future direction). 

Now things have turned around somewhat after a period of considerable (and at times turbulent) change within Franco-Canadian politics. BQ is no longer looking the spent force some believed (or in the case of Canadian federalists, hoped) it to be, and may be ready for a comeback as some Québécoise voters seem to be already disenchanted with the federalist National Democratic Party (NDP) who they unexpectedly turned to in droves last year, in preference to their traditional BQ loyalties. At a local level some polls are predicting a strong showing for the PQ in expected provincial elections in Québec this year or next, and the target of retaking the government of the province may be back in the party’s sights again. 

Meanwhile the Canadian federal government under right-wing Tory leader (and unapologetic Amerophile) Stephen Harper, celebrating a year in power on the back of a parliamentary majority, is continuing to enact a series of measures that seem almost purpose-designed to aggravate the traditional centre-left and social-democratic impulses of Québec’s population, both nationalist and federalist in nature. 

“Harper celebrated his anniversary with a speech vaunting policies he said will “sustain the economy of tomorrow.” Many in Quebec beg to differ. They see an attempt to remake the country into an austere capitalist bastion, where the interests of Big Oil trump environmental concerns, where “tough on crime” means soft on gun control, and patriotism involves reverence to the British monarchy.

It’s a version of American Republicanism meeting the European welfare state. The difference is that in Canada, the clash involves a province the federal government estranges at the country’s peril — one that has already held two referendums on independence, the last one, in 1995, coming within a few thousand votes of making Quebec a separate country. 

The warning signs are many, some coming from high-profile “federalists” — the term used for those who want to keep Canada united. The most noteworthy is Justin Trudeau, a federal politician from Quebec with the opposition Liberal Party. His father, the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was a long-time prime minister and stalwart in the battle for national unity. 

“There is a way of viewing social responsibility, openness to others, a cultural pride here in Quebec that is necessary to Canada,” the younger Trudeau told the public broadcaster, Radio Canada. “And I always say that if I ever believed Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper and we were going against abortion and going against gay marriage, and we were going backward in 10,000 different ways, maybe I’d think of wanting to make Quebec a country.” 

The statement made headlines across the country, largely due to Trudeau’s pedigree. He’s also touted as a potential future leader of the Liberal Party, which last ran the country from 1993 to 2006. That ended when Harper first gained power with a minority government. 

Separatist forces in Quebec sang hallelujah, while some federalists were shocked. In a later interview, Trudeau didn’t back down. 

“The separatist option is not the bogeyman it used to be,” he said. “You ask me what the bogeyman is? It’s the one sitting in our prime minister’s chair right now.” 

Quebec’s independence movement grew out of the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, a period when the province’s French-speaking majority shook off cultural domination of the Catholic Church and economic domination of the English-speaking minority. Since then, support for sovereignty has rarely dipped below 40 percent, and politics have been decidedly left of centre. 

Harper spent years wooing Quebec, recognizing that winning many of the province’s 75 seats in the federal House of Commons has historically been the ticket to majority government. He even passed a law describing Quebec as a “nation” within Canada. 

For almost two decades, Quebecers sent left-wing separatists with the Bloc Quebecois to parliament. Then, in the May 2011 federal election they suddenly gave most of their seats to the federalist New Democratic Party, which has socialist roots. Conservatives won only six seats in Quebec, but formed a majority government by capturing Ontario and the Western provinces. And the clash of visions began. 

Needles to say, Harper’s fascination with the British monarchy — restoring the “royal” designation to Canada’s air force and navy, hanging the Queen’s portrait in federal buildings and celebrating her diamond jubilee — doesn’t go over well in Quebec. It’s a province where license plates read “je me souviens” (I remember) — a reference to England’s 1759 victory against France in a battlefield near Quebec City, which turned Quebec into an English colony. 

The most bitter fight is over Harper’s new crime law, which imposes minimum mandatory sentences and gets tougher with young offenders. Quebec’s government, which prefers to stress rehabilitation and a more lenient approach to young offenders, has been scathing in its criticism. 

“I don’t recognize myself in this Canada,” fumed Quebec’s justice minister, Jean-Marc Fournier, after a recent meeting with his federal counterpart. 

All this is music to the ears of Quebec separatists, already honing their arguments for a provincial election that could come this year. “Quebec no longer exists for Ottawa,” said Bernard Drainville, a key politician with the Parti Quebecois, which held two independence referendums when it was in power. 

Harper’s majority government has only been in power one year. Already, many fear his greatest legacy may be the breakup of the country.”

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Québec Independence – Only A Matter Of Time?

Two fascinating reports today on the independence movements in Québec and Scotland and the effect both are having on each other. The first article is from The National Post:

“Former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says Quebec “eventually” will become an independent country and that a victory for Scottish separatists in an expected 2014 referendum will launch a new effort by Quebec nationalists to fulfil their sovereignist dream.

Ignatieff, an author and academic who left the Liberal leadership after his party was badly beaten in the 2011 election, made the comments in an interview being broadcast Monday on BBC Scotland.

He also said Quebec and the rest of Canada have little to say to each other and that the two already are “almost” separate countries.

Ignatieff told BBC Scotland that devolution of central powers, whether from London to Edinburgh or from Ottawa to Quebec City, likely will be only temporary.

“It’s a kind of way station. You stop there for a while, but I think the logic eventually is independence — full independence,” Ignatieff said in an interview in his home last month.

Asked by interviewer Glenn Campbell if he was referring to Quebec as well as Scotland, Ignatieff replied: “I think eventually that’s where it goes.”

The only area where “the union still holds together” is in fiscal and monetary policy, he said.

“But the problem here is we don’t have anything to say to each other anymore,” he added. “There’s a kind of contract of mutual indifference which is very striking for someone of my generation.”

Noting that he speaks French, Ignatieff said he couldn’t imagine Canada without Quebec.

“But that’s not the way most English Canadians now think of their country. They might have done 30 or 40 years ago when we thought we could live together in this very strange hybrid country called Canada.

“Now effectively . . . we’re almost two separate countries. Although Quebec does not have sovereignty it acts domestically almost as if it did, and that I think has produced this strange reality that I don’t think most Canadians I’m thinking of are happy about.”

Ignatieff, describing the United Kingdom as one of the oldest multinational states in the world, said a ‘yes’ vote for independence in Scotland will have reverberations around the world.

“I think if Scotland goes independent a lot of other smaller nations in Europe will start accelerating their quest for independence,” singling out national minorities in Spain and Belgium.”

Meanwhile the BBC is reporting that the:

“…SNP has sought advice from Quebec nationalists ahead of the referendum on independence for Scotland.

The SNP’s Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, travelled to Canada last summer to consult key figures in the Parti Québecois, which wants independence for the province.

The Quebec nationalists have fought and lost two referendums.

The last one was in 1995, where they fell just 53,000 votes short.

The SNP is keen to learn lessons to help the party win in 2014.

Two former premiers of the province say they were consulted, but it is not just the SNP which is drawing on the Quebec experience.

A senior Downing Street adviser also visited the dominion as the UK government considered its response to plans for a vote on Scottish independence.”

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Québec Nationalism On The Rise Again?

Canada’s centrist New Democratic Party (the NDP) has elected a new leader, Thomas Mulcair, following the premature passing of the previous incumbent, Jack Layton. Mulcair, who won through from a field of several candidates, is seen as a controversial choice by some journalists and commentators. Until relatively recently a member of the Liberal Party and generally considered more right-wing than the party has a whole (though that is debatable) the rivalry between Mulcair and his rivals was at times quiet bitter and a number of high-profile resignations have already taken place from within NDP ranks following his victory. On the other hand as a Québec-based candidate (with dual French and Canadian nationality) he seems best placed to build upon the party’s fragile electoral base. Though the NDP is a Canadian federalist group with grassroots support throughout the country, at the level of Canada’s federal parliament, the House of Commons, it is principally composed of MPs from Québec, a province where the party has little organisation and is heavily reliant on disaffected Québécois or Québec nationalist voters for support. It was the unexpected winning away of those voters from the nationalist Bloc Québécois (BQ) in the Canadian general election earlier this year that brought the NDP to national importance after a long history of being the also-rans of Canadian politics, giving it a slew of new MPs.

If the NDP wishes to remain as an active force in Canadian federal politics it needs to retain and expand its Québec vote. As it is, a number of recent polls have shown that the BQ’s provincial sister party, the Parti Québécois (PQ), which has traditionally governed Québec, seems set on achieving an electoral victory over its Liberal Party rivals in the province in the forthcoming May elections to form the next government in Quebec City. If that was to happen the presence of a Québécois “separatist” strain within the NDP may well come to the fore, allowing those sympathetic to the PQ’s aim of holding another referendum on independence for Québec to influence the party’s policies on the issue. The NDP has normally shied away from making its position clear on the controversial Canadian federal legislation that insists on a “clear majority” in favour of independence in any referendum vote held in Québec. Some local NDP members in fact continue to support the traditional democratic Québécois nationalist position of “50% plus 1” espoused, by amongst others, the BQ and PQ.

If the NDP, or a section of it, was perceived to be “unsound on the national question” (as we might say in Ireland), it might have fatal results for its electoral fortunes outside of Québec, especially in the party’s traditional heartlands in the west of the country. So Thomas Mulcair faces an uncomfortable balancing act between the electoral needs and self-interest of his own party, and the separate and at times competing demands of voters in Canada and Québec. But then he wouldn’t be the first Canadian politician to fall from a height when faced with that particular challenge.

One final question, though, for all my Québécois friends. Where are the Coalition Avenir Québec and the much-heralded brave new world of Québec politics? Neither federalist nor separatist, has the party’s identity crisis already doomed it?

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Some French Lessons

Bilingual versus monolingual? And it’s not Ireland!

Two articles from the National Post newspaper in Canada: one celebrating the nation’s dual French- and English-speaking character, the other condemning it. First to wade in, Professor Antonia Maioni:

“The meaning of Canada has changed since 1867, but a basic fact endures: The country was designed to allow the French language to survive, and to allow French Canadians to claim their own national character.

…Our country remains, de facto and de jure, a binational and bilingual entity, with all that this entails politically.

Take, for example, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was as much a political as a constitutional document. Politically, it attempted to counter the vision that only a sovereign Quebec could guarantee French language rights. The Charter asserted the federal role in the protection of language; under it, individual rights that were not necessarily territorially bound.

And yet, the Charter has done little to diminish the political imperative of the French fact in Canada. Indeed, it has consolidated the sense of the Quebec nation as a rampart for French language and culture.

Another effect of the Charter came from its attempt to reshape Canadian identity by promoting a pan-Canadian citizenship ideal that embraced multiculturalism.

In other words, what we have in Canada are two predominant cultural settings. Each is defined by its linguistic heritage and rooted in North American reality, yet each possesses a distinct national character.

The multicultural experience is real, but it is rooted in the prior existence of two distinct cultural and linguistic settings, even as it contributes to shape these two settings. As individual Canadians, we may “opt in” to a cultural sphere that revolves around French or English as the primary medium of communication. Thus, our attachment to either language (sometimes both) is a powerful defining element of our identity.

In sum, the stubborn facts remain: Canada is bilingual, binational and bicultural. We cannot airbrush the French fact out of Canada’s past and present, and we should not dismiss it from its future. We cannot deny that two national characters exist within Canada. And we should recognize, and even celebrate, that multiculturalism is rooted in two distinct cultural worlds.”

However his opponent, David Bercuson of the conservative Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, takes a very different view:

“Canada has two “official” languages, English and French. The Official Languages Act of 1969 provided the legal basis for this official bilingualism while the Constitution of 1982 declared it to be so in Section 16 (1). The impact of this official bilingualism is obvious nationwide: French is to be found co-equal to English in all federal facilities and properties, and in all interprovincial and international commerce. Our Corn Flakes boxes are printed in French and English. Our Chinese-made smart phones come with French and English instructions. Our airlines make sure that all cabin announcements, from the lengthy explanations of how to buckle our seatbelts to the terse announcements that the aircraft is not quite at the gate yet, are in English and French. And communities in Canada that have virtually no unilingual French speakers receive full-service radio and TV from our national broadcaster, courtesy of the taxpayer.

It’s also more than a little ironic that English-speaking Canada has been expected to embrace bilingualism when the very cause of so much bilingualism – to show francophone Quebecers that they are equal partners in Canada – has been scorned by Quebec itself, which postures as a unilingual French province.

Official bilingualism is a constitutional fact of life. Real, functionalism, bilingualism is rare in Canada; by and large, Canadians are not bilingual. As for biculturalism and binationalism, they are myths created out of whole cloth in a now decades-long process of wooing French nationalists in Quebec. How much longer that process will continue is anyone’s guess.”

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Speaking In Two Tongues

Do you know that you live in an officially bilingual Ireland?

Believe it or not but the Government of Ireland committed itself to a policy of “official bilingualism” across the country way back in 2006. In a statement issued six years ago, and supported by all the major parties in Oireachtas Éireann, the government pledged itself to implement new legislation and a series of programs to create a genuinely bilingual nation. The aim was a society where full equal rights would exist between Irish and English speaking citizens and where bilingualism would become part of the weft and weave of the nation (instead of being ghettoised in the education system).

Gone was the commitment to a purely Irish speaking Ireland, rejected on the basis of the utility of the English language in the global free market (that worked out well, didn’t it?). Instead all the major Irish political parties dedicated themselves to the much less ambitious policy of a bilingual Ireland (and with n’ery a sign of shame or embarrassment for their utter failure to do any better over the previous eight decades).

So, not an Irish Ireland but an Irish and English Ireland.

And how’s that going?

Well, not terribly well to be honest. Why? Mainly because most of the parties who signed up to the 2006 policy statement on the Irish language didn’t mean a word of it. In fact the same old prejudices and indifference that made them ignore our native language in favour of the language of the invader (for so the English language is however much some would rather forget it) continued unabated. No matter that 50% of the original policy statement consisted of aspirational airy-fairy fluff that didn’t mean a damn thing. Even the half that remained was a wee bit more than the establishment politicos could stomach.

In 2010 (four years after the 2006 Statement of Policy on the Irish Language) we got the “20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030”. Unfortunately it’s taken until this year, 2012, for the Strategy to actually start being implemented. However, guess what? We are still very much in the mode of discussions about discussions.

In Ireland the wheels of government move slow. Not sure about the steady bit though.

In Canada, another “officially bilingual” nation, they do things differently. Their political classes actually seem to mean what they say – or sign up to do. From the National Post we have an article by Canada’s Language Commissioner. He does the same job our Language Commissioner here does. Y’know, ensuring equal rights among all citizens regardless of which of the two official languages they speak? That’s the same Commissioner our Fine Gael Labour coalition government is determined to get rid of.

How’s that official bilingualism thing going for you, then?

“For me, it is a question of identity … I am Canadian — I speak French.” These were the words of Savroop Kullar, a French immersion student at the University of Ottawa, addressing an international conference on post-secondary immersion on Friday.

I thought of this remark reading David Frum’s argument that Canada’s immigration policies will mean the gradual disappearance of the political influence of French-speaking Canada in general and Quebec in particular.

Frum mentions a hypothetical Québécois who meets a girl from a Chinese immigrant background. What he neglects to mention is the enthusiasm that the Chinese community has demonstrated for sending their children to French immersion schools, perhaps inspired by former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson’s eloquence in both official languages. Many immigrants, like Savroop Kullar, see bilingualism as an aspirational goal linked to Canada’s identity.

(This is not unique to Canada; Irish language classes in Dublin are filled with immigrants from Eastern Europe who see learning Irish as a way of affirming their commitment to their new country.)

As Frum points out, Stephen Harper has won a majority government without strong representation in Quebec. But this has not stopped him from beginning every news conference in French, and speaking French at G-8 meetings in Washington and Beijing. This is partly his understanding of Canada’s identity, at home and abroad. But he also knows that, while 98% of Canadians speak English or French, there are 4 million French-speaking Canadians who speak no English. And he also knows that, in addition to the 75 seats in Quebec, there are 19 seats outside Quebec where French speakers represent at least 10% of the population — and he won 10 of them.

For the first time, six of Canada’s premiers are bilingual: A reflection of their interest in understanding national issues, but also the interest that premiers Charest, Ghiz, Alward, McGuinty, Selinger and Redford have shown in the minority language communities in their provinces. And those Canadians who want to understand the country as a whole — whether politicians, public servants, soldiers, academics, labour leaders, business people, judges or hockey coaches — have made a point of learning both official languages.”

If only the same could be said of dear old bilingual Ireland.

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More Parallels Between Québec, Scotland And Beyond

Some more lessons for Scotland and the SNP from the history of the independence movement in Québec? A Reuters report in the Chicago Tribune:

“Bernard Landry, who as deputy Quebec premier in 1995 helped prepare for independence, sees a strong parallel between Scotland and Quebec. “It’s not the same case, but the fundamentals are the same. Scotland is a nation. Quebec is a nation,” he told Reuters.

“A nation when it’s possible has the duty to be free, and that applies to Quebec and to Scotland,” said Landry, who went on to become premier and now teaches at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal.

The biggest difference between the two cases is that Quebec’s separatists were – and are – driven by language. French is the native language of four of five Quebec residents, whereas Gaelic is spoken by only about 1 percent of Scots.

Another difference is historic: Quebec, colonized by France in the 16th and 17th centuries, was conquered by Britain in 1760. Quebec and Canada are both creations of empire. Scotland, on the other hand, shared its monarch with England for most of the 1600s, and formed its union with the south in 1707 peacefully, even if many Scots opposed it.

Landry said he has long been interested in the Scottish question and had met Salmond many times over the years.

He spent much of the year prior to the 1995 referendum asking diplomats for recognition of Quebec in the event of a ‘yes’ vote. Most South American and French-speaking African countries told him they would recognize Quebec, he said, “so we were not anxious at all.”

The Quebec premier of the day, separatist Jacques Parizeau, made elaborate economic and political preparations, and reportedly told diplomats that Quebeckers would be like lobsters in a pot of boiling water if he got a majority.

He denied making the remark but later conceded that a unilateral declaration of independence was ready if he had won the referendum.”

The National Post carries a more hostile though perhaps in some ways more insightful piece by the veteran Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne on the political contest between the British and Scottish governments over the terms of the Scottish referendum on independence:

“…[British Prime Minster] Cameron has been bold enough to demand that the referendum be held much sooner, within the next 18 months, rather than subject the country to the three years of uncertainty of what he called, in an obvious bit of borrowing, Salmond’s “neverendum.”

Provided his conditions were met, he promised, he would accept the result as binding — which is to imply that if his demands were not met, he would feel free to ignore the result, as he is fully entitled to do. There has been no suggestion that Scotland could ignore the law and simply hold a referendum on its own, still less that it could declare independence unilaterally. Whatever comes to the United Kingdom, it will be by a decision of the British parliament, and carried out under the law.

…Cameron is playing this game more aggressively than most. I can’t imagine he would actually sit down to negotiate the breakup of the United Kingdom, three centuries after the Act of Union: no Prime Minister would. His promise to do so must therefore be regarded as a bluff. There’s a certain game-theoretic sense in this. Not only does he avoid accusations of high-handedness, but by making “clear” the consequence of a yes vote, he warns off strategic voters who might be tempted to vote no just to extract better terms of union.”

One wonders if Andrew Coyne is reading the situation correctly in terms of British government thinking and that of the British Nationalist and Unionist camp in general? Will the Tory-Lib Dem coalition in London really reject a “Yes” vote for independence from Scotland? I strongly suspect that they will but not explicitly so. Instead a deliberately protracted period of “negotiations” and fights over legal and constitutional rights will be used to undermine any separatist mandate for the SNP administration in Edinburgh. After all the British have a proven track-record in this area the last time the so-called United Kingdom faced a breakup. The refusal of the British state to accept the democratic wishes of the majority of people living on the island of Ireland to national self-determination, expressed by repeated mandates for their political representatives in Sinn Féin from 1916-1922, led to negotiations that eventually split the Irish Republican movement while securing independence for the greater part of Ireland and the Irish people.

Will we expect to see the same sort of political, legal and diplomatic tactics and ploys employed by the British in early 21st century Scotland that they employed in early 20th century Ireland?

But of course.

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