By Michael Den Tandt, Postmedia News June 28, 2012


Call it the law of threes, or just referendum fatigue. Either way, next time, there will be no candles lit in the window, or massive rallies in Montreal telling Quebecers we love them. More likely the quiet message will be: here's your hat, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Call it the law of threes, or just referendum fatigue. Either way, next time, there will be no candles lit in the window, or massive rallies in Montreal telling Quebecers we love them. More likely the quiet message will be: here's your hat, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Photograph by: Dario Ayala
Call it the law of threes, or just referendum fatigue. Either way, next time, there will be no candles lit in the window, or massive rallies in Montreal telling Quebecers we love them. More likely the quiet message will be: here's your hat, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
This is the worrying but not particularly surprising thrust of the latest Ipsos Reid data measuring popular sentiment about the French fact in Canada and the question of Quebec. The poll confirms what anyone who spends any time in coffee shops anywhere in the rest of Canada has long known: the ground has shifted since 1995. Nowadays just under 40 per cent of Quebecers would vote to separate, given a choice, which is fewer than in the early 1990s (though an increase from the late 1990s). But far more anglophone Canadians, about half, wouldn't mind if they did.
That means trouble for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for this reason: Pauline Marois and the Parti Quebecois are on track to replace Quebec's unpopular Liberal premier, Jean Charest, this fall or next spring. Now, Marois may torpedo her own boat: the PQ and its leaders have a knack for this. But the odds would be against Charest, even were it not for the Charbonneau Commission looking into corruption in Quebec's construction industry, which will resume sitting in September. If it weren't for that, there'd be the long-running student unrest. And it if weren't for both those problems, there'd be the march of time, and three terms in office. Canadians tend to recycle their politicians every decade, more or less.
So the question is, what happens if Marois becomes premier?
So far, she's been coy on the subject of another neverendum. If a majority of Quebecers remain apathetic or grumpy about the prospect of wrangling over independence yet again, she'll play a waiting game, just as Lucien Bouchard once did. But if she sees the "winning conditions" emerging, she may well go for it, believing it's her last chance. For despite the recent uptick in support for sovereignty, the long-term trend is down. Why not strike while her interlocutors in Ottawa, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, are as beloved as ticks on a dog in Quebec City and Montreal?
Last week Harper sought vainly to remind Quebecers that his government was responsible for Parliament's declaring them a nation within Canada, and for giving the province special status at UNESCO. The fact is that, for most Quebecers, the declaration of nationhood merely affirmed the obvious. The province has its own civil code, its own education system and its own language laws. It is also a net beneficiary of interprovincial transfers, to the tune of $7.4-billion in fiscal 2012-2013. Materially, Quebecers within Confederation have as good a deal as they're ever going to get.
It stands to reason, then, that if there is a renewed push for independence it will be about the intangibles. Are we Quebecers, fundamentally, or are we Canadians? And it will be about hard choices: are we (Quebecers) willing to pay the price of independence, including the economic price?
In fairness to Harper, any prime minister from any party would find this difficult to handle. Passions everywhere are bound to be inflamed to the degree that a victorious PQ begins visibly lining up the ducks for a referendum. Indeed, given that half the population outside Quebec is now indifferent to its departure, it's possible the critical next referendum battle won't be in Quebec at all: it'll be in English Canada, where popular movements will demand that the rest of us be allowed to declare, along with Quebecers, whether we want to continue facing national unity crises every 15 years.
There is no way, given the above, that the Harper government will be in a position to broker a new constitutional arrangement to mollify the PQ, even if it wanted to, (which it doesn't) and even if the PQ would accept one (which it wouldn't). Therefore the cross-Canada unifying forces, if there are any, will be inter-provincial and private-sector. Reform Party founder Preston Manning, who knows a couple of things about unity battles, has suggested stronger trade links between the provinces, especially Quebec and Ontario, and closer ties between energy industry players, especially in Quebec and Alberta, can offset separatist sentiment. But that, it seems to me, is a thin reed on which to hang the future of the country.
The upshot is that Thomas Mulcair and his New Democrats may soon get their turn at bat — not as critics but as the key (read 'only') federalist players with the numbers and sway among ordinary Quebecers to fight for Canada. That will require, above all, blunt speech about the potential consequences of separation on Quebec's borders and treasury, and on the Canadian dollar, among other things. Is Mulcair so inclined? So far it doesn't seem so.
All of which means that speculators in the Canadian dollar, or anyone who holds assets in Canada, should pray for the good health and political resurrection of the cat with nine lives, Jean Charest. If he loses power later this year or early next, we are in for a ride.
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