The election in Quebec today is evidence of the famous quote, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Plus ça change, in other words. The CAQ government will now be exchanged for its ostensibly more separatist version, the Parti Quebecois, with threats of a new referendum (although there is virtually no chance of success), and a renewed, and guaranteed shakedown of Ottawa and indirectly the rest of Canada, to promote a statist, xenophobic agenda.
Quebec is a taker. Bravo to billionaire Andrew Lutfy, CEO of Groupe Dynamite, along with Alain Bouchard of Alimentation Couche-Tard, and Laurent Beaudoin and Paul Desmarais III, for finally calling it out. It was Lutfy specifically who last week said:
“We’re very good at talking about distributing wealth in Quebec, but where will it come from? At some point, we need to talk about wealth creation, too.”
I am torn when it comes to Quebec. My family’s roots are there, my mother coming from Quebec City with a family history going back to the first years of New France, and my father’s family having grown up on the South Shore, most of all of them having left for Ontario, Alberta or the US. Montreal remains my favourite city in Canada. My hockey team is there. My basement is a temple to Les Glorieux, with signed jerseys, a chair from the Forum signed by Le Gros Bill, and my children know that we have two favourite hockey teams: the Habs and whoever plays Toronto.
I think I would have liked to grow up in Montreal. I would have gladly been bilingual, not because it was dreamed up by Pierre Trudeau as a good idea (for the record he had no good ideas), but because Montreal has always been a city where French and English get along. Other than trying my “Franglish” out to order a beer or food, or in the pre-Uber days, directing a taxi driver on where to turn, I have never run into the language issue in Montreal. However, the perpetual list of historical grievances and ensuing demands in my mind has reached a zenith and needs to stop.
Quebec’s government refused to consent to the 1982 Constitution. I understand why. As a Burkean conservative who believes that enumerated “rights” only empower an activist judiciary, and who believes in the supremacy of Parliament (notwithstanding clause) I do not agree with it either. However, Quebec’s opposition comes from the other political pole. They have since the Quiet Revolution replaced one master with another. The days of adherence to Catholic doctrine and control over much of francophone society has been exchanged by genuflection to government. Quebec, in my opinion, is the most regulated and over-governed province in Canada. The spirit of individualism, so essential to a flourishing democratic society, has been surrendered – the result being a statist, radically secular Leviathan.
The rise of separatism has only made things worse. The Quebecois population for the most part line up to vote for the next demagogue who promotes “defense” of the French language but instead creates more initiative-choking regulation. While defense of culture is laudable, in its sensible form – and we could use a dose of that across Canada where our current national ethos is defined in the negative – Quebec has become xenophobic, harkening back to darker days.
I admit, as a curmudgeon and historian, that my views are not in the mainstream. I am proud of that because I believe in critical thinking. My critics in the Elbows Up Lemmings Society tend to hurl insults rather than engage in a discussion of facts, but with regards to Quebec, I am of the mind that we are now no longer a country that is founded by two cultures. One of those cultures has very little to do with the other and now extorts the other.
My visits to Calgary, which, like the rest of Canada, has healthy representation of the Quebec diaspora, could not be more different than Quebec. In Calgary, common sense is the rule. You can have a sensible conversation about Canada, and for that matter, independence. It is my contention that most Albertans who will vote yes this month are in fact federalists, who have simply decided to jettison the old, tired approach of going to Ottawa on bended knee looking for something as simple as equality.
Quebec will now accelerate demands for greater autonomy, with the automatic and linked demand for more money. The West will be diminished because of this, because those who have set national policy, but for a few brief years, reside in the East. There will be no national pipeline, there will be no withdrawal of gun confiscation legislation, there will be no elected Senate. There will be only more demands, and surrender to them.
The government in Quebec City will not, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, one day announce that the language police will be disbanded and that other cultures, notably English, may enjoy the freedom to conduct their lives and commerce in the language of their choice. Instead, more Kafkaesque language rules will come, more restrictions on education are likely, more entrepreneurs will leave, and the rest of Canada will foot the bill.
The answer is simple. Realize that Quebec is not, and hasn’t been, a true part of Canada for a generation and put the question to them; in or out, yes, or no? It is time to end the charade and generational shakedown of a country to placate a “nation” that no longer wants to be here.
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