Harper's Crown

Until this past week, the Harper government’s infatuation with Canada’s royal connection seemed mostly harmless, if a little creepy. The Queen’s portrait to be displayed prominently in all embassies, the insertion of the word “Royal” in the Canadian Air Force’s and Navy’s official designations: these initiatives were embarrassing in a minor key, at once laughable and cringe-making. They had the perhaps remote potential of increasing the disconnect between francophone Quebecers and anglophone Canadians, but it’s not as if the majority of the latter were either of English origin or all gung-ho for Rule Britannia: for the most part, nobody cares, and so be it. It was easy to believe that these royalisms didn’t matter.

This all changed on Tuesday, January 24^th, as the “Crown-First Nations Gathering” convened in Ottawa. This was a highly ritualised meeting between Prime Minister Harper and several of his cabinet ministers, on the one hand, and hundreds of Native chiefs led by the Assembly of First Nations’ National Chief, Shawn Atleo on the other. I’m not actually concerned with the meeting’s lack of substance, although much could be said about the on-going scandal of Canadian governments’ contempt for Indigenous peoples. There was and there remains a wide gulf between the government’s approach and that of the First Nations, in particular, and the “Gathering” changed nothing.

What I’m troubled by right now is the name that was given to the event and the way in which the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is framing the federal government’s role as that of “the Crown.” In the history of meetings between federal officials and First Nations, the use of this label is more than a little unusual. The opening lines of the PMO’s Outcome Statement offer this context for the event: "Since first contact and the issuance of one of our founding constitutional documents, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the evolving Crown - First Nations relationship has helped shape modern-dayCanada (sic). First Nations fought as allies of the Crown in the American Revolution (1775-1783), the War of 1812; and have continued their support ofCanadain (sic) every major conflict since. (...) In this year, the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 and with next year being the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, it serves as an appropriate time to reinvigorate the Crown-First Nation relationships."

Forget the poor writing, the non-existent copy-editing, the obsession with military conflict, and even the wildly incorrect linking of "first contact" with the 1763 Royal Proclamation. The insistent invocation of "the Crown" - not "Canada," not "the Canadian people" - tells us that there was nothing casual in the naming of the January 24th event as involving "the Crown."

But the federal cabinet is not “the Crown.” Neither is the Prime Minister – it’s bizarre to have to write this, but it seems apposite. So, what happened this week in Ottawa was emphatically not a meeting between “the Crown” and First Nations. Surely, Stephen Harper and his minions know this. How, then, should we understand that framing? First, it is now clear that these past months’ royalty-affirming moves were anything but weird little prime ministerial whims: they were early expressions of something much bigger, although it’s not yet clear what the royalist rhetoric will amount to.

Second, we might want to remember how Harper prorogued parliament in the Fall 2008 to avoid a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons, shortly after an election that had produced a hung parliament. The opposition parties had announced their intention of defeating the Conservatives in the House within days, and of asking the Governor General (GG) for the opportunity to form a new government. Instead, GG Michaëlle Jean acceded to Harper’s requested prorogation, allowing him to govern for several months without the support of the House – and indeed in the face of the opposition’s stated intention to bring him down. In acknowledging that he might not have obtained his request, Harper had noted that he would use all legal means to stay in power – but while some such means may be legal, they are not necessarily democratic. He didn’t say so, but Harper thereby called on the 17^th century precedent of the absolutist king Charles 1^st, who dismissed four parliaments and ruled for eleven years without recalling it rather than bend to its budgetary authority. Charles 1^st’s absolute rule led to civil war, which was followed by the lasting compromise of a parliamentary monarchy. What would soon emerge as the democratic principle has thus been associated with parliament as counterweight to the Crown’s executive authority. In the British tradition, in other words, democracy has emerged and developed against the Crown.

Third, from his first days in office as a minority Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has not been shy about using his considerable discretionary power and making very little case of voices that oppose him and his government. This government has sought, often successfully, to curb democratic spaces within and outside parliament; it has ignored Supreme Court decisions that it finds inconvenient (eg. on the necessity of consultation with farmers on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board; on the obligation to consider alternative sentencing for aboriginals convicted of a crime); it is eliminating public financing of political parties, in a blatantly partisan move to cripple opposing parties, etc..

Answering a reporter’s question on the weakened state of the other parties after the May 2011 election, in which 60% of voters had not backed the Conservatives, and the passing of NDP leader Jack Layton, Harper said that "the government is prepared to adapt and to listen to the Canadian population when necessary." (emphasis added)[1] No doubt the Prime Minister thought himself magnanimous in saying so, which makes the statement all the more remarkable: how is it that a democratically elected government would care to listen to the people only "when necessary?" We might also ask what it is that will count as necessary, and who will decided that listening has indeed become necessary. The answer to the latter questions is painfully obvious: the Prime Minister will not think that listening is often necessary.

It is in light of these features of Harper’s rule that his government’s increasing use of royal markers should be seen. While British monarchs have come to accept a much reduced role, “the Crown” as such has never been a democratic institution. It’s not a stretch, then, to suggest that Stephen Harper is keen to surround himself with the Crown’s aura so as to create an air of undisputed and indeed apolitical authority. Harper’s people evidently perceive a gravitas in “the Crown” that, once harnessed, would propel the government and the Prime Minister himself beyond politics, into the realm of sovereign statecraft. At this point, we may think of crossing the Channel to borrow from a French king the appropriately authoritarian motto for Stephen Harper: L’État, c’est moi.

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[1] Gloria Galloway, Layton’s death alters political landscape for Harper, in The Globe and Mail. August 25, 2011. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/laytons-death-alters-political-landscape-for-harper/article2142562/. Accessed on August 25, 2011.

Les femmes autochtones et l'indifférence

Les femmes autochtones sont assassinées, violées, kidnappées et généralement violentées à un rythme effarant au Canada. Au moins 582 ont disparu ou ont été assassinées depuis 30 ans, selon l’Association des femmes autochtones du Canada.  Amnesty International a publié un rapport très documenté et critique en 2009. On s’indigne de temps en temps dans les média et la classe politique, et puis on passe à autre chose.

Il y avait un bon dossier d’Isabelle Hachey dans La Presse à ce sujet cette semaine (http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/201111/07/01-4465568-des-centaines-de-femmes-autochtones-tuees-dans-lombre.php?utm_categorieinterne=trafficdrivers&utm_contenuinterne=cyberpresse_B4_manchettes_231_accueil_POS4) (c’est de là que vient le chiffre ci-dessus). Le problème, c’est que Hachey n’avait rien de nouveau à nous apprendre. Elle nous a mis à jour sur la disparition en 2008 de deux jeunes filles de Kitigan Zibi, dans la Haute Gatineau, et sur la frustration de leurs proches. Elle nous a rappelés des cas classiques, au Manitoba et en Colombie Britannique. Elle a souligné le contraste surréaliste entre le cirque médiatique à l'occasion de la fuite de Kitigan Zibi d’un jeune lion, aussi en 2008 (que lui a rappelé le Chef Gilbert Whiteduck), d’une part, et l’indifférence dans laquelle baignent généralement les disparitions de femmes autochtones, d'autre part.

On imagine qu’Isabelle Hachey a travaillé fort pour convaincre ses patrons de la laisser travailler sur le dossier, et ensuite de le publier en bonne place; elle mérite sans doute des félicitations pour ces efforts. Et paradoxalement, ses textes dans La Presse portent presque autant sur le silence et l’indifférence des média que sur les femmes autochtones elles-mêmes.  Elle répète que ces femmes sont « assassinées depuis 30 ans… (d)ans l’indifférence des médias, de la police et de la population en général »; que « la réponse était toujours non, non et non » quand les familles demandaient aux média de parler de leurs filles et sœurs disparues; que « les médias ont largement ignoré la nouvelle » de l’assassinat de Tiffany Morrison, de Kaahnawake; que « presque personne n’est venu » à une conférence de presse à Kitigan Zibi.

Rien de nouveau, donc, dans La Presse. On n’apprend rien, strictement parlant. Alors pourquoi le dossier? Isabelle Hachey a l’air de trouver ça important, et peut-être quelqu’un d’autre aussi dans la salle de rédaction du journal. On peut voir le dossier comme un effort pour y mettre fin, à l’indifférence générale. On peut penser que cet effort ne peut sûrement pas faire de mal. Mais en fait, et encore paradoxalement, le dossier peut faire du mal – et il en fera s’il n’a pas de suites dans La Presse et si d’autres médias n’en prennent pas non plus acte. S’il est le début d’une campagne de presse pour faire la lumière sur ce scandale, il aura fait du bien. S’il n’est suivi par rien d’autre que le retour du silence et de l’indifférence médiatique, il n’aura servi qu’à donner un alibi à La Presse et à faire vendre des copies le 8 novembre. L'indifférence se nourrit de moments comme celui-ci: elle se donne bonne conscience en se scandalisant de l'horreur, et elle retourne à ses affaires.

Moderation and the slow boil

If you’re the frog that’s been boiled slowly in a pot that started at room temperature, are you any less cooked than the one that was thrown in an already boiling pot? The story goes that, in fact, the other frog jumped out: of the two, you’re the only one that ends up dead and cooked. There is, in other words, nothing moderate about the goals of the smart cook who put you in tepid water and gradually turned up the heat: you are going to boil, baby!

So, long-time CTV correspondent Craig Oliver was right this week when, in conversation with the CBC’s Anna Maria Tremonti of The Current, he burst out: Stephen Harper « is very determined to change the nature of the country, very determined. » (Nov. 1^st, 2011) And there clearly is nothing moderate about that Harper goal. Contrast this with Andrew Cohen’s column of the same day that can’t seem to differentiate between gradualism and moderation: almost everything in this piece is on target, except for the headline that calls Harper’s majority “timid” and the last sentence that characterizes the Conservative government’s approach as “moderation with a message.” (see http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Harper%2Btimid%2Bmajority/5635688/story.html.)

I was being too nice to Cohen, just now. I’m not pleased, in fact, by his casual assents to Conservative militarism, crackdown on immigration/citizenship standards and goals, and rightward turns in the promotion of Canadian historical knowledge. Truth be told, Cohen’s timeline also deserves some tweaking – in particular the notion that the government’s monarchism “makes 2011 look like 1961.” He probably picked this ancient (!) year of 1961 more or less at random, figuring that 50 years into the past was long enough.  In fact, you have to go back to before WWII to find the proper analogue, that is, before Keynesian economic policy and the development of the social state. Considering the current global economic crisis and this government’s continued neo-liberal preferences, you have to think that Harperism would be right at home in 1932: in the throes of global economic catastrophe, a Canadian government that can think of nothing better than giving market forces free rei(g)n and keeping public economic intervention to a minimum.

In context, these are minor complaints. The thrust of Cohen’s piece is that the government aims to create a Conservative Canada, and is going about it “step by step, through soft, incremental change, a long march of patience and persistence, hoping your idea gains purchase over time. “ This is almost exactly right. I’d quibble with “soft” and I would add that if the ideas don’t “gain purchase over time,” well, too bad but the Canadian state will have changed anyway, bringing along society’s material relations. Three outcomes can ensue: after further delay, the ideas will gain purchase; or the Conservative party will be defeated and its policies will be rolled back; or the gap between the governed and the government will grow and harden… until something snaps.

Cohen’s last sentence about the Harper government: “moderation with a message is their mantra.” But gradualism is not a synonym for moderation. Harper is not being timid; he’s being prudent and deliberate.

I have been increasingly puzzled over the past couple of months by the absence of a big blow-up that would have prompted me to blog. It’s tempting to say that, having gained his majority, Harper has calmed down and finally succeeded in avoiding the impulsive rightward jerks that cost him so much in his years as a minority Prime Minister. But I’m not sure, now that I think about it, that it’s Harper who is acting differently. It might rather be that Conservative jolts are being absorbed differently by the opposition and the media (and me, among others): with no possibility of another election soon, the opposition doesn’t muster quite the same degree of indignation, perhaps out of resignation or of a sense that these things just don’t matter all that much; and the media can’t get quite as interested as when even small mistakes can cause the government to fall.

There have been, clearly, a number of issues debated in and around Parliament that are relevant to this space’s concerns and that display the Conservative government’s radical colours at their shiny best . To name just a few: the government’s completely irrational crime bill that will force big expenses by the provinces and that is being fiercely resisted by a number of provincial governments, including (of course) Quebec’s; the elimination of the long-gun registry and the destruction of all its accumulated data, and the government’s refusal to allow provinces (including, of course and particularly, Quebec) to maintain access to those data; the nomination of a unilingual (English, of course) Supreme Court Justice and, this week, of an also English-only Auditor General; I’ll pass on such petty but significant things as the attack on Justin Trudeau’s insufficiently obedient Catholicism.

All that and more, and I haven’t blogged. Blame (or credit) part of it on the academic calendar, but really the main reason is that none of it has gotten me aggravated enough to start writing. I guess it’s time to pay more attention to the pot’s rising temperature. Andrew Cohen might want to jump out too, right about now, before he is fully cooked.

Poll update: life after Jack

Yesterday's Huffington Post Canada made a big deal of an obsolete opinion poll that indicated that the NDP might be weaker without Jack Layton (see my previous posting). Today, it's making a smaller deal (but still) of stronger NDP numbers in a poll done during the week of mourning after Layton's death. Who knows how robust these numbers are and how long they will hold but, as of now at least, they're not obsolete. Today's HPC article is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/31/ndp-support-surges-jack-layton-death_n_943377.html.

Harper in Quebec: the non-story

For sheer insignificance, it's hard to beat the notion that Stephen Harper's popularity "jump(ed)" in Quebec after Nycole Turmel became the NDP's interim leader in July. And yet, this is what the Huffington Post's Canadian homepage is trumpetting today, backed by an Eric Grenier article that "analyzes" the latest CROP opinion poll (at http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/30/layton-harper-quebec-leadership-crop-poll-numbers_n_940562.html).
The poll was taken August 17 to 22, just before Layton's death. If you were CROP and were contracted to do a poll during that week (by Montreal's La Presse - whose own website is silent today on that poll,) you would do your job and ask your usual questions - which they did. In a June poll, Layton had scored 48% among Quebecers to Harper's 16% on the leadership question, as who would be "the best person to be Canada's prime minister." In mid-August, with the very sick Layton replaced by Turmel, Harper's leadership numbers were an underwhelming +5, to 21%. Turmel scored 11% and Bob Rae 10% (+6 vs June). Most of the change, in fact, went to a huge increase in "none of the above" and "don't know," which together went up by 23%.
On the basis of the difference between the two polls, Grenier writes that "it is clear that the NDP's position in the province could be fragile." It's tempting to answer "Duh!" Since the very night of the election, commentators have harped on the possibility that the party's Quebec gains could be a one-hit wonder, tied to Layton's personal popularity. In any case, with little tradition in the province, heavy responsibilities in Ottawa, and complicated internal dynamics, the road ahead was bound to be difficult for the NDP. With Layton gone, things will be exponentially more challenging.
But there are two key points against Grenier's article and (even more so) against the HPC frontpage. First, the numbers racked up by an interim leader, whether Turmel or Rae, against Harper are pretty much meaningless: it is when a new, "permanent" leader is chosen that we will need to pay attention to "the best person to be Canada's prime minister" numbers. It makes no sense to assess the NDP's prospects in Quebec, or anywhere else in the country, on the basis of a Turmel vs Harper confrontation.
Second, even more importantly, this particular mid-August poll was rendered severely obsolete within hours of being completed, as a result of Layton's death. It's a cliché (!) to say that a poll is a snapshot of the electorate's feelings, but the usefulness of polls is that, on most days, the political world is not turned upside down. On most days, what was true on Monday remains the case on Tuesday; and may well remain true for a number of weeks or even months. But once in a while, something happens suddenly that changes the whole landscape. "Jack"'s death on August 22 was one such event.
You can't blame CROP for having done its job, but you have to wonder what in the world is going on at Huffington Post Canada. There has been a steady stream of media stories ever since May 2nd, that attempt to plant in our heads the notion that the NDP is not up to the job, that it's a flash-in-the-pan, and now that it may not even survive Layton. But these have tended to come from conservative sources such as The National Post, Sun Media outlets, and The Globe and Mail. But Huffington Post is supposed to be left-leaning. So, what's up with them?

When Jack became bigger than politics

It is beyond remarkable how Canadians are reacting to Jack Layton's death. The state funeral, the orange CN Tower, the orange Niagara Falls... These are the most visible, institutional expressions of a country-wide explosion of grief and affection, the scale of which could hardly have been expected. There is a way in which the outpouring of emotion is feeding on itself: the more people see what a big deal Layton's passing is for their friends and neighbours, and especially for the every-wo/man shown on T.V., the more they pay attention to the story, and to the media's portrayal of the man who wrote them this farewell letter - "... My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world." (The letter is reproduced in full at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/laytons-last-words-love-is-better-than-anger-hope-is-better-than-fear/article2137381/. This last paragraph is circling the world on social media, and is finding its way on t-shirts.)
Jack Layton used to be well-liked, but for most of his political life he was only a minority's favorite. He had, after all, been the NDP's leader since 2003, and was making moderate, incremental progress from one election to the next. But he was not seen as fundamentally different from other politicians. Then, this year's electoral campaign happened and Layton caught fire. The man himself did not change for the occasion, really. Rather, people responded differently to "Jack." They started seeing "le bon Jack." What they started seeing, by the way, is beautifully rendered by Susan Riley in an Ottawa Citizen column at http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/Layton+left+army+political+orphans/5309953/story.html. But Jack Layton, the good man, happy, optimistic, caring, sensible, thoughtful, etc. had been there all along - or at least for quite a while. But why didn't people see it? What happened now to make them see?
I want to suggest that, broadly, two factors were at play: political circumstances and the way in which Layton was seen to handle his prostate cancer and repaired hip. But we must first remember that the NDP's performance in 2011 was bifurcated: in English-speaking Canada, incremental improvements continued, as the party went from 36 seats to 44, its percentage of the vote rising strongly from 20.3% to 28.2%; and in Quebec, where Layton led something of a revolution, all but eliminating the Bloc Québécois, going from 1 to 59 seats, from 12.2% to 42.9% of the vote. In other words, Quebecers saw "Jack" during the campaign and responded. Other Canadians started to take notice as a result of Layton's Quebec performance and then, in quick succession, they were shocked to see and hear a desperately sick Jack in late July, followed less than a month later by news of his passing, and then hours after that, the letter. The response to Layton's death that we are seeing now was built out of that series of shocks.
The question needs to be rephrased: how is it that Quebecers started to see "Jack" during the electoral campaign? So, two factors. Let's deal first, quickly, with political circumstances, two components of which can be distinguished. First, what political scientists refer to the "political opportunity structure;" in other words, what the alternatives were to Layton and the NDP. In Quebec, the landscape was dismal: the Conservatives were not an option, Ignatieff disappointed while the Liberal brand remained damaged, and the Bloc Québécois ran a terrible campaign. Ducepped seemed grumpy, Harper was his usual sourpuss, Ignatieff failed to connect - and there was happy, positive, optimistic Layton. A second political component was also important, that added substance to Layton's sunny disposition: over the previous few years, the NDP had made a concerted effort to attract Quebecers by emphasizing its Quebec-friendly policies, and Layton never backtracked from those. As a result, if Quebecers could only start to pay attention, Layton and the NDP had something attractive to offer while pretty much no-one else did.
Ironically, and in the end tragically, it is Layton's failing health that made people sit up. Or, rather, it is the way he handled himself in relation to both his prostate cancer and to his repaired hip that transformed - indeed, transfigured - his public image.
Layton had always been a happy politician, "on" at all times; he liked politics, a lot. And for a long time, this wasn't helping him a whole lot: many people felt that he liked politics just too much. I happened to be his (and Olivia Chow's) neighbour across the hall in a housing co-op, around 1986-1988. Layton was a municipal councillor and Chow was beginning her career as school councillor. He was already a local NDP star, and very much the same happy Jack that he remained to the end. He was popular, his supporters loved him, but he was also seen by many as too much the politician, power-hungry, ready for any stunt that would help his career. He softened a number of edges over time, but Layton was always Layton. And after all, if politics is the dirty business that many people believe it to be, how can you trust someone who likes it so much? Layton was in politics, and was perceived through the distaste that so many people have for that career and enterprise. While he was likeable enough, the problem was that he was a politician.
But then Jack came through cancer, the iconic killer of our death-denying times, universally feared, indifferent to privilege. His (unrelated?) hip surgery then left him with the cane that became the visual marker of his health issues. It is the combination of his smile, energy, optimism and the cane that, in the circumstances, transfigured Jack Layton - first in the eyes of Quebecers, and then for people across Canada. Layton was no longer merely a politician: here was someone who had just fought for his life, was still weakened, and who was carrying a message of hope, love and optimism. "Jack" transcended politics. Canadians now love him, evidently. They love him for all those things in his character, but also for somehow being bigger than that nasty game that so few people have a taste for. Jack became bigger than politics.

Pandering and democracy when "numbers are implacable"

With the Turmel affair behind us, for now at least, the first substantive Quebec-Canada clash in our new post-Bloc Québécois dispensation is set to begin: the Harper government will add House of Commons seats for Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, while maintaining the number of Quebec seats constant. As Susan Riley writes in The Ottawa Citizen: "This overdue rebalancing will lessen Quebec's clout, not as a hostile strategy, but as the byproduct of simple math. Quebec now has 24 per cent of the seats in the 308-member Commons, and 23 per cent of the population. Because its population has not been growing as quickly as that of other provinces, its influence should, inevitably, wane. Numbers are implacable." (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Scratching+wounds+Quebec/5276019/story.html#ixzz1VUQhuutX) But the NDP is resisting this rebalancing, which leads The National Post's Lorne Gunter (among others) to denounce the New Democrats as - you guessed it - "pandering" to Quebec and undermining democracy (http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Putting%2Bpandering%2BQuebec%2Bahead%2Bdemocracy/5275650/story.html).
There is a real issue here, which won't go away by ignoring it or by calling it "old-style thinking" (a reader comment on The Toronto Star website, about my article on the Turmel affair). The House of Commons is an institution that is supposed to obey "Representation by population" criteria, and so it makes sense to reduce Quebec's relative weight as its population becomes relatively smaller. But if Quebec is a nation (or, as the House of Commons put it a few years ago, Quebecers form a nation) within Canada, it would also make sense for this characteristic to find its institutional expression(s) in the country's political-constitutional system. Canadian democracy as we know it is a complex multi-institutional construct, in which the federal government, the House and the Senate, the Supreme Court, and provincial institutions interact according to their own logics. (On top of this, civil society organizations and citizen involvement do much to breathe life in the institutions.)
The question is this: as the House of Commons rebalances Quebec downwards, how is Quebec's distinctiveness as a the national home of Quebecers to be expressed and protected in the system as a whole? This is essentially the question that the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords tried to answer a generation ago. Their failure, combined with the result of the 1995 referendum, put the question in abeyance. And it could stay there as long as no-one fiddled too much with the existing balance within and among the institutions. But, as Riley writes, "numbers are implacable:" the House eventually has to be rebalanced.
(Ironically, Paul Martin's prime-ministership was destroyed in its infancy by the sponsorship scandal because he felt it necessary to recall Parliament in early 2006 in order to pass re-districting legislation that had been put in limbo by Prime Minister Chrétien's unexpected prorogation in late 2005. Chrétien wanted to pre-empt the release of the Auditor General's report to Parliament until after he retired. Martin thought that, for the sake of democracy, re-districting was necessary before an election - in which he was hugely favorite to win a majority - and so he re-opened Parliament. This allowed the presentation of the AG's report, and the rest is history.)
Quebecers will not accept that their province's "influence should, inevitably, wane" (Riley). "Influence," however, is the wrong word: Quebecers don't care very much how Manitoba or British Columbia are governed, they don't seek to influence that. What they will not accept is that the representation of their interests, in federal institutions, be eroded. Hence, in the short term, the NDP's attempt to forestall the change in the House. But this cannot be a long-term solution. The House is properly a "rep-by-pop" institution, and therefore the continuing expression of Quebec's distinctiveness must be found elsewhere. This means some sort of constitutional change. And if Canadians outside Quebec cannot countenance this, if they - largely through their politicians and media pundits - can only denounce "pandering," they will guarantee the return of the sovereigntist movement, with a vengeance.
I know that many people hear this kind of talk as a threat: do what we want, or else... And I understand how it can sound like this. But it is a fundamental misunderstanding of Quebec's perspective. Quebecers know, as a basic fact of their political life, that they want to have the means to express, protect, and enhance their nationhood. And they are open to a variety of means to achieve this goal. So far, the majority believes that it can be accomplished within Canada. But if it comes to believe that it cannot, well, all bets are off. This is not a threat to Canada. It is, in fact, a remarkably open way of dealing with something that can become an existential threat: how do we ensure our continued existence as a people (a nation, dixit the House of Commons), given our small population - a population that is getting proportionately smaller every day?