Québec-Canada: What is the Path Ahead?

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.

In January 1996, academics, journalists, and politicians met in Ottawa
to discuss the previous October’s Quebec referendum. Most of the
proceedings of that conference appear here—some in French, some in
English, some in both.

While Ottawa’s John E. Trent wonders whether the Meech Lake and
Charlottetown Accords were “failures” or “stepping stones,”
various Quebec academics explain the “yes ”side’s near-victory.
Prince Edward Island’s David Milne and Laval’s Louis Balthazar find
it unrealistic to attribute the outcome to the wording of the referendum
question. Those who voted “oui,” they say, understood what they were
doing.

Alan Cairns of UBC says that the referendum was to the Rest of Canada
(ROC) what the rejection of Meech was to Quebec. Both events produced a
“palpable change of mood.” Calgary’s Roger Gibbins says that the
referendum hardened attitudes in Western Canada and guaranteed the
Reform Party as a permanent fixture. Westerners were not pleased at the
Liberal government’s advice not to participate in the future of their
own country, and they were doubly displeased when the outcome was so
close. If Ontario embraces Reform, warns Gibbins, Quebec may leave, but
if Ontario rejects Reform, the West may leave. Yet Quebec participants
Michel Vastel—the journalist who revealed Jacques Parizeau’s secret
intentions—and Montreal’s Gerard Boismenu argue that only an ROC
offer of unprecedented generosity can prevent the separation of Quebec.

The contributors see a new mean spirit in Canada. The referendum made
Quebec’s departure a real possibility, if not a probability.
Toronto’s Sylvia Bashevkin fears for Canada the kind of polarization
that led to the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Some note the cruel attitudes of Alberta’s Ralph Klein and Ontario’s
Mike Harris. McGill’s Charles Taylor sees intolerance toward
minorities in all parts of the country. Thomas J. Courchene of Queen’s
University demonstrates that each province (except PEI) trades more with
the rest of the world than with the rest of Canada. Trade patterns and
spending cutbacks render the federal government increasingly irrelevant.
Is it any wonder that former NDP leader Ed Broadbent is pessimistic
about the future of his country?