For all the times he is criticized for his empty sentences, this time, Justin Trudeau had the merit of being clear.
It’s no. No to giving more immigration powers to Quebec.
“Quebec already has more powers than any province,” he said.
François Legault may well be sorry, he has condemned himself to failure by clinging to this symbolic request.
Strongly threatened by the rise of the Parti Québécois, he played the game of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon by so publicly renewing his demand for full powers in immigration.
The lobster cage
Whatever Quebec nationalists say, the federal government will never agree to cede more ballast to Quebec on this front.
This would be opening a Pandora’s box that cannot be closed. All other provinces would claim such a privilege.
- Listen to the Latraverse-Dubé meeting via QUB :
François Legault pleads for the Quebec exception, the right to a unique privilege to defend our language, our identity and our nation.
The problem is that the rest of Canada no longer has any appetite for this kind of reasonable accommodation.
The Parti Québécois understands this well and that is why it takes great pleasure in forcing the hand of François Legault.
Each time he is told no, Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon reaps an additional argument in favor of the sovereignist project.
Every time François Legault clings to the promise of “openness” to settle contentious issues, the leader of the Parti Québécois can ridicule the compromise that leads to compromises.
Its dizzying drop in voting intentions having deprived it of its balance of power against Ottawa, the CAQ is stuck.
Hope
He therefore clings to the hope that Justin Trudeau also needs victories in Quebec, hence this “openness” that Ottawa would demonstrate.
Openness to a tightening of visas, opening to faster processing of applicant files, a tightening of temporary workers, a requirement to speak French.
After months of pressure, a mandate was finally given to negotiate compensation for services to asylum seekers.
A step in the right direction, certainly. But we remain a thousand miles from the original claims.
Louisianization, breaking point, survival of the nation, François Legault nevertheless had no shortage of alarmist epithets to challenge Ottawa.
He does not have the luxury of settling for technocratic and intangible solutions.
Elsewhere
François Legault bet on a third way. Neither sovereignist nor federalist, but rather demanding nationalist.
However, 6 years later, this elsewhere is taking him nowhere.
Because the third way does not exist in Canada. Neither does the appetite to honor Quebec nationalism.
He who seemed so convinced of wresting a new form of autonomy from the federal government at the start of his mandate, finds himself forced to return to the drawing board.
It is the avenue of these “options” that he is dangling to us. A new lever to force the game.
New mirage or real nationalist alternative, we will know by June 30, he tells us.
He set the bar very high. Its room for maneuver is tiny.