“There is a time when quiet courage and audacity become for a people, at the key moments of its existence, the only form of suitable prudence. If he does not then accept the calculated risk of the big steps, he may miss his career forever, exactly like the man who is afraid of life,” René Lévesque once said.
The national holiday is the privileged moment to collectively affirm our desire to live together, our desire to continue to assert the heritage that we have received undivided, to use the words of Renan.
We needed courage to defend and preserve our language and our culture, despite the British conquest of 1760, the abandonment of France and the various assimilation strategies of the conqueror. It took courage for our patriots of 1837 to defend the universal values of freedom and democracy at the risk of their lives. It will have taken courage and willpower since 1867 to defend our identity and our institutions in the context of dominating federalism. In a more particular and contemporary way, it will have taken courage to apply Law 101, despite economic blackmail and accusations of xenophobia or even worse.
English Canada is continuing its efforts to build a multicultural and officially bilingual Canada, based in particular on the equality of the provinces and the individual rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Quebec wishes for its part to protect its values, its own national identity, of which the French language constitutes the base. Law 96 on the official and common language of Quebec affirms that Quebecers form a nation and that French is the only official language of Quebec. To this end, provisions were added unilaterally by Quebec to the Constitution Act of 1867. These two visions of Quebec in Canada collide head-on.
Moreover, the specter of assimilation hovers more than ever. With the massive immigration policy envisaged by the federal government, it is the progressive marginalization of Quebec’s political weight within Canada as a whole that threatens us. Bill 96 is only a source of false security in the Canadian demographic and constitutional context.
Even by agreeing to play the game of Canadian federalism, Quebec must create a real balance of power against the federal government if it wants a future as a nation, or else resign itself to gradually disappearing. The CAQ government’s refusal to put the national question back on the agenda is reckless.
We must avoid a return to a defensive, masochistic and provincial nationalism in a demographic context that condemns Quebec to progressive marginalization. We need more than short-lived electoral rhetoric. The people must debate this existential issue. But above all, it is up to the leaders of the nation to fully assume their political responsibility in this regard. The establishment of a Special Commission on the Future of Quebec proposed by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon appears to be an essential step, at this time of our national existence. History gives us appointments that we must not miss, at the risk of disappearing.
Resignation is a reckless and disastrous policy when the very existence of the nation is at stake. We have a legacy to pass on to our children. From now on, we will have to reconnect with courage.