After the Marie-Victorin disaster, it is pathetic to see the Liberals scrambling like the devils in holy water to try to save the day in the general election on October 3.
After having vainly begged the Legault government to correct the blunder it committed by proposing, under the horrified eyes of its English-speaking constituents, to amend Bill 96 to force students enrolled in English CEGEPs to pass three courses given in French , now the PLQ is trying to revive the specter of the referendum.
To a motion presented by the government to condemn the unilateral patriation of the Constitution, in 1982, the PLQ wanted to add a paragraph acknowledging that “Canadian federalism has enabled Quebec to succeed in its national construction project”, which the government has refuse.
It was enough for the Liberal MP for LaFontaine, Marc Tanguay, to attribute to Mr. Legault the intention of holding a new referendum and to conclude that the PLQ was the only party to defend federalism in the National Assembly.
The maneuver was so crude it was laughable. Obviously, no one suspects Mr. Legault of being a lover of the Rockies. But if he does not even dare to confront his deputies who tremble at the idea of extending Bill 101 to CEGEP, he is far from the referendum.
One can understand the liberals to have the nostalgia of the time when it was enough to pronounce the word in s – separatism! — to mobilize their troops. It was so much simpler than having to come up with a constitutional policy that spares the goat and the cabbage without appearing totally tasteless.
The last QLP convention, last November, remained completely silent on the issue. We wanted to avoid any slippage at a time when Dominique Anglade was in the midst of a nationalist turn and when discontent was mounting among his English-speaking clientele. She had promised to make her proposals public by the next general election; we are still waiting for them.
The PQ just as much regret this blessed time, when everyone clearly chose their side without having any illusions about the possibility of a “third way”. Three of them — former leadership candidate Frédéric Bastien, constitutionalist Daniel Turp and former Johnson MP Étienne-Alexis Boucher — are seeking to rekindle the debate by challenging the legality of the Constitution Act in court. from 1982.
While it is true that the Lévesque government had played its cards wrong at the time, the patriation of the constitution and the entrenchment of a charter of rights that diminished the powers of Quebec without its consent was nonetheless a real political scam. In his book titled The Battle of London (2013), Mr. Bastien had also highlighted the connivance of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the time, Bora Laskin, and Justice Willard Estey with the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Without wishing to assume the reception that the courts will reserve for the challenge undertaken by these three new musketeers, it seems however doubtful that it will rekindle the fires of constitutional passion.
In English Canada, we like to believe that the virtual disappearance of the PQ has put an end to 50 years of turbulence and that Quebeckers have finally understood, like Marc Tanguay, how advantageous federalism has been for them.
Of course, everything is perfectible. On the occasion of the 40and anniversary of the Constitution Act, 1982, the Environics Institute of Toronto, in collaboration with various organizations promoting federalism, conducted a wide-ranging survey to find out how Canadians would prefer to go about improving it.
Two options are proposed: 1) resume constitutional negotiations; 2) improve things as much as possible within the framework of the current constitution. We then try to measure the importance of the various issues: the reform of the Senate, the presence of the Queen, the status of Quebec, the division of powers, equalization, Aboriginal rights.
Even if the opinion “French-speaking Quebecers” is the subject of specific attention, the pollsters did not consider it useful to assess how many are not at all interested in reforming federalism and would rather prefer to leave the federation. It is to believe that the sovereignists have completely disappeared. It borders on smokey.
Trying to resurrect the dream of renewed federalism is necromancy, in the same way as the resuscitation of the referendum specter. Interest in reopening the constitutional file is practically non-existent in the country, and Ottawa’s encroachments on provincial jurisdictions are the only observable changes.
You might as well ask Canadians if they would prefer to take a direct trip to Mars or a stopover on the Moon.