As Quebecers’ National Day approaches, it is appropriate to reflect on our collective future, our future as a nation.
Quebecers form a nation and French is its common language. However, the Constitutional Act of 1982, imposed on Quebec in the ignominious circumstances that we know, denies the existence of the Quebec nation and Quebec’s right to be different. Canada is built on the basis of multiculturalism, official bilingualism and the equality of the provinces. Quebec, whose political weight is gradually becoming marginalized in the Canadian federation, remains just one province among others. In this constitutional and demographic context, Quebec seems condemned to die slowly as the only French-speaking nation in North America.
On another note, the Premier of Quebec has made obtaining full immigration powers nothing less than a condition for the survival of the Quebec nation. We all know that Quebec will never obtain these full powers under the federal system. Faced with multiple refusals from the federal government, François Legault lowered his demands. Does the Canadian federal framework allow Quebec to fully meet the challenge of integrating its immigrants in maintaining social cohesion? What can we say, for example, about Montreal, which risks losing its acute accent before our eyes?
The Legault government has also just announced the creation of a committee to increase the autonomy of Quebec within Canada. What will this committee teach us that we already know after decades of debate and a plethora of reports and studies? What credibility should we give to this Sisyphean approach? The CAQ’s so-called new nationalism is a dead end.
The CAQ aims to obtain new powers from Ottawa while Quebec struggles to defend and enforce those it already has, in particular because of the federal spending power resulting from the fiscal imbalance.
I don’t know if Quebec will one day become a sovereign country. I only know that if we had to give up this dream of freedom and independence, it would be like losing a part of our soul. The pragmatists and the resigned will tell me that I am wasting my time dreaming of an imaginary and inaccessible country. But “is it not in dreams, however, that most worthwhile projects are born”, as René Lévesque once said?
Happy National day !