February 2017. Jean-Marc Fournier had put himself in mind, at the dawn of the celebrations of the 150e anniversary of the Canadian federation, to “restart the dialogue” with other Canadians so that the parties can “get to know each other better”.
The minister of “Quebec allegiance” and “Canadian belonging” made a jump in the federal capital to make Justin Trudeau’s cabinet aware of Quebec priorities on the sidelines of the negotiations on the Canada Health Transfer.
The broadcast of the first episodes of the historical soap opera Canada: The Story of Us (CBC), in which the French figures, including Samuel de Champlain and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, were covered in grime, literally, will urge him to do it faster. “ Let’s talk about us ! he exclaimed, convinced that “recognition of Quebec national and, also, Aboriginal identities appears to be the natural outcome of the Canadian project”.
February 2023. The work has to be redone, notes the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet.
According to him, the Heritage Minute on the “distance or even [la] distrust” of Quebecers in relation to the religion delivered by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the 1er last February is far from being enough to remove the xenophobic label that unfairly sticks to Quebec’s skin in the rest of Canada.
“He was as sincere as I was when I took my oath to the king,” he says in an interview with The duty held in the West Block of the Parliamentary Precinct. “It was an exercise he had no choice but to do. He had to try to put out the fire around his appointment [d’Amira Elghawaby au poste de représentante spéciale du Canada chargée de la lutte contre l’islamophobie] “, he adds behind his desk, which he returned after having delivered a plea for the safeguard of the notwithstanding provision of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the House of Commons, where, according to him , “Quebec does not have many friends”.
Preserving the Quebec identity
In Quebec, Prime Minister François Legault repeated that the Quebec Parliament must “be ready to use it” to “protect our identity”, ” [nos] values”, “our language”, “protect what is different in Quebec”. It did so when the Act respecting the secularism of the State (Act 21) was adopted in the spring of 2019, then the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French (Act 96), three years later. These laws “have effect regardless of sections 2 and 7 to 15 of the Constitution Act of 1982”, determined the National Assembly even before they were challenged in court.
Yves-François Blanchet accuses the Trudeau government of seeking today to wrest a “piece of sovereignty” from the hands of the National Assembly by convincing the Supreme Court of Canada to cut short the preventive use of the notwithstanding clause, which shields a law from legal challenges. “Mr. Lévesque had invoked and installed quite comfortably the derogation provision in all of the laws adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec. There were a few strokes, but Canada survived them, ”he said in the chamber.
“If they break the notwithstanding clause, Quebec’s ability to preserve its difference will be more than seriously compromised. I wonder how we would do it. For the Quebec identity, it would be catastrophic. For the principle of democracy, too, ”he reiterates in his office. Candles glow and cello sounds echo behind him.
The catch: more than one Canadian voter — and more than one elected Canadian — does not understand why the National Assembly seeks to preserve its specificity in Canada, even if it means violating fundamental rights. “There is sometimes a tendency in certain media devices to play the spectacle of polarization”, explains Yves-François Blanchet.
Respond “as directly as possible”
Ready in turn for dialogue, the Bloc leader plans to travel to Toronto, New York, Washington and Europe in particular to debunk the myths about Quebec that persist there. “I don’t think that Canada, and in particular Ontario, and Toronto, would be so hostile to Quebec if we spoke to each other more directly. We talk to each other through politicians and we talk to each other through opinion pieces, and that polarizes the discussions enormously, ”he argues at the Duty.
He therefore promises to respond “as directly as possible” to questions from Canadians, Americans and Europeans about Quebec – including the “reasonable positions” he has taken in recent years – so that “in the short term and even in the long term, we have a better understanding of each other”.
“Out of respect for everyone”
Prime Minister François Legault chose to talk about what unites rather than what divides during his visit to Ottawa earlier this week.
Without thinking about it, he even started speaking in English to the journalists assigned to cover the federal-provincial meeting on the financing of the health care system. “ Thank you, Heather. So I’m happy…” he said after being invited to speak by his Manitoban counterpart, Heather Stefanson. Recognizing his mistake, he sketched a grimace. “I will go there in French…”
Then he cut the whistle to a reporter who had gone so far as to ask him a question about the latest developments in the Amira Elghawaby affair. “I will arrest you right away. Out of respect for everyone, I will just answer questions regarding health transfers,” he said.
Mr. Legault recalled that all the provinces agree that the federal government is underfunding the health network. “This is a problem that is the same in all provinces and territories. So it has nothing to do with other subjects like values, language, ”he specified, smirking.