"English Canada" Speaks Out

Graeme S. Mount is a history professor at Laurentian University.

This book’s 29 writers (lawyers, journalists, political scientists,
historians, economists) share a “common commitment—to the worth of
the Canadian experiment.” They also want to preserve a strong federal
government and to debunk myths, including the one that “English
Canada” should feel guilty over the fate of Meech Lake. In the words
of Richard Gwyn, “The Meech Lake affair was about as close to a
political crime as it’s possible to get without consciously setting
out to commit one.”

The “English-Canadian” writers include people named Meghji,
Greschner, and den Hertog. Tony Hall writes from an Amerindian
perspective. Others come from the Maritimes, Ontario, and the West, and
from Quebec’s anglophone minority.

The book is somber. On the basis of Canadian history and foreign
parallels, Kenneth McNaught thinks violence a real possibility should
Quebec try to secede. Patrick Grady foresees economic disruption,
particularly in Quebec. J.L. Granatstein and Thomas Walkom describe a
variety of unpleasant scenarios. Several writers think that the Cree and
Inuit of northern Quebec have at least as much right to secede from
Quebec as Quebec has to secede from Canada. Practically everyone sees
Mulroney as the arch-villain for praising the constitutional accord of
1982, then reopening the matter with hyperbole that gambled with the
fate of the country. “In order to peddle his remedy,” says Bryan.
Schwartz, “Mulroney helped to create the disease.” Everyone agrees
that his government has no moral authority to speak for Canada in any
Canada-Quebec confrontation. Bourassa’s insensitivity to Native
issues, anglophones, and the environment make him another target.

Yet, some one-liners are highly memorable. “We should not be
embarrassed to admit,” says Rosalie Abella, “that yelling ‘Fire’
in a crowded theatre is fundamentally different from yelling
‘Theatre!’ in a crowded firehall.”

Unfortunately, the book’s shelf life will be short. It is already too
late to create the constituent assembly recommended by Tom Kent or to
heed Richard Gwyn’s warning to ignore Quebec’s “self-interested
timetable.” Before this review is published, referenda in Quebec and
elsewhere will have rendered other chapters obsolete. Granatstein’s
scenarios of President Bush’s reaction to the Quebec crisis of 1994
and of President Quayle’s to that of 1995 will lose their impact as
time passes. When Granatstein wrote his article, Gorbachev was still
president of the Soviet Union and Mike Harcourt a mere
“premier-in-waiting.”