Staying Canadian: The Struggle Against UDI

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University, the
author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable Kingdom,
and the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste. Marie.

Keith Henderson is the leader of Quebec’s Equality Party, which was
created by Montreal anglophones after Bourassa’s 1988 use of the
notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Constitution left the impression
that the provincial Liberals were taking the anglophone vote for
granted. In the ensuing provincial election, the Equality Party won some
anglophone seats, but it was annihilated in the 1994 election.

A talented journalist as well as politician, Henderson notes the
emigration of some 400,000 anglophones from Quebec since René
Lévesque’s government introduced Bill 101 in 1977. Everyone in
Quebec, including francophones, has been adversely affected by the
emigration. Anglophones have seen their institutions and amenities
shrink or close, while the transfer of money out of Quebec and into
safer havens has hurt all ethnic groups.

The Equality Party, says Henderson, is the only party that challenges
the right of the Quebec government to implement and enforce a Unilateral
Declaration of Independence (UDI). Federal politicians and the Quebec
Liberals have been deliberately vague or overly optimistic that it will
never happen. Too many Quebec Liberals have aided and abetted the
separatist cause. Henderson also argues that if Canada is divisible,
then Quebec is as well.

Henderson is not the only contributor. There is a legal treatise by
McGill law professor Stephen Scott, who agrees with Henderson on most
issues. In addition, there are critical columns by, among others, Ed
Bantey and Don Macpherson of The Gazette. These columns are followed by
Hender-son’s replies to his critics, and their replies to him.

Most of the articles have already appeared in print. However, Henderson
is to be commended for assembling them into one collection.