Debts to Pay: English Canada and Quebec from the Conquest to the Referendum

Daniel J. Robinson is a Ph.D. candidate in history at York University.

In this essay, completed soon after the 1992 constitutional referendum,
Conway attempts to reconcile English Canada’s aspiration for strong
federal institutions and Quebec’s desire for “special status” in
the form of enhanced provincial powers. A type of asymmetrical
federalism to promote Quebec’s cultural uniqueness is a “debt”
owed Quebec by English Canada because of the latter’s long-standing
“oppression” of the former. This, along with Senate abolition, the
end of official multiculturalism, and the introduction of electoral
proportional representation to ensure a greater regional presence in
both governing and opposition parties, are seen by Conway as necessary
remedies for Canada’s current constitutional and political malaise.

The book’s subtitle suggests a historical approach to this timely
topic. The result, unfortunately, proves disappointing. Drawing heavily
on the work of Quebec nationalist historians, Conway cites the standard
litany of Québécois historical “injustices”: the conquest of 1759;
the “war” of 1837–38 and the province’s subsequent
“re-conquest”; the conscription controversies; the October Crisis;
and, finally, Quebec’s “rejection” as manifested in the failure of
the Meech Lake Accord. Students of Canadian history may wonder at such
unsubstantiated claims as the idea that Confederation was principally
“a scheme hatched and carried out by the British Colonial Office to
salvage the fortunes and futures of the traditional colonial elites”
in North America, or that “the routine use of military force” was
directed against Quebec throughout its history. So too might one
question the charges that FLQ members imprisoned for bombings or bank
robberies were “certainly not criminals in the normal sense,” and
that “a large share of the moral and political responsibility” for
Pierre Laporte’s murder rests with Pierre Trudeau, Jean Drapeau, and
other supporters of the War Measures Act.

While a worthwhile summary of events concerning the Meech Lake Accord
and Charlottetown Accords, the polemical and overbearing anglo mea culpa
emphasis of this work impairs its usefulness for critical analysis of
the past and future nature of Quebec’s relationship to English Canada.