Beyond Quebec: Taking Stock of Canada

Raymond B. Blake is director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount
Allison University and the author of Canadians at Last: Canada
Integrates Newfoundland as a Province.

This collection of essays, which stems from a conference sponsored by
the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University in the spring
of 1994, is an attempt to understand the “nature and
distinctiveness” of what for years has been known as English Canada;
here the nine, largely English-speaking provinces are referred to as
Canada Outside Quebec (COQ). By examining economic, political, social,
and cultural trends in COQ as it prepared for the possibility of
negotiating with a sovereign Quebec after the October 1995 referendum,
the contributors hope to determine how cohesive a unit COQ is. They
conclude that national sentiment in COQ is strong enough to preserve the
rest of Canada even if Quebec withdraws. The greatest threat to the
culture and economy of COQ will come not from Quebec’s separation,
they argue, but from the forces of globalization.

The contributors must be commended for their wide-ranging analysis and
interesting prescrip-tions for the future of COQ. However, given the
outcome of the 1995 Quebec referendum, readers may be tempted to keep
this book in cold storage until the next round.