The Legault government would not have much trouble winning a referendum on the repatriation of immigration powers, according to a Léger poll carried out at the beginning of March, which credits the “yes” vote with 42% of voting intentions, against 28% in favor of “no”, with 29% undecided.
The question remains largely theoretical, since Mr. Legault has clearly indicated his lack of interest in such a consultation, even if he had not excluded it during the last electoral campaign. In reality, he probably never considered it seriously.
He knows very well that if the “strong mandate” that he demanded and obtained in 2022 was not enough to bend the Trudeau government, a referendum will not succeed either. On the other hand, he would then have to react much more firmly to a refusal from Ottawa than he is doing now.
This is precisely why Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is calling for a referendum. If Jacques Parizeau ended up supporting the Meech Lake agreement, after having ridiculed it, it was because he was betting on its rejection by English Canada.
For Ottawa to agree today to cede additional immigration powers to Quebec would be a hard blow for the Parti Québécois, as Meech’s success would have been one at the time, but Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon is also betting that Justin Trudeau will say no.
In their book entitled Conquering powerwhich retraces the genesis of the “third way”, Pascal Mailhot and Éric Montigny bring to life the dramatic rupture of 1992 between the Liberal Party of Quebec and the young liberals led by Jean Allaire, who would then found the Democratic Action of Quebec ( ADQ).
In the tense atmosphere of the PEPS at Laval University, where 2,500 activists were gathered, Mr. Allaire declared that the offer made to Quebec in the Charlottetown agreement was unacceptable, since it placed it in a position of ” beggar for temporary powers”, to the extent that they would be transferred to him by simple administrative agreements which could eventually be revoked.
In reality, this is still the position in which the nationalist “new project” of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) would place Quebec. During his meeting on Friday with his federal counterpart, Mr. Legault will beg again, even though the door has been slammed in his face for years.
If the desire to get rid of the Liberals constituted the main reason for the CAQ victory of 2018, the offer of a “third way”, which avoided having to choose between an irreformable federalism and the risks of independence, including undoubtedly contributed.
In the incessant quest for new powers that would allow Quebec to make its own choices, or even simply to preserve what it has acquired, it must be noted that the “progressive” approach proposed by the CAQ has not had more success than the “great maneuvers” of the past.
Having succeeded in inscribing in its internal Constitution that Quebec constitutes a nation of which French is the common language undoubtedly has a significant symbolic value and the adoption of a law on secularism is undeniably a gesture of affirmation which has deeply upset English Canada.
More concretely, however, Mr. Legault is the first to recognize that full control of its immigration is an existential question for Quebec and that Canada’s objectives are incompatible with its own.
We understand his hesitation to reopen the agreement signed with Ottawa in 1991, which remains advantageous for Quebec. Concluded less than a year after the failure of the Meech Lake agreement, it was intended to be a sort of consolation prize offered by Brian Mulroney. Someone else will perhaps one day agree to improve it, but Mr. Trudeau is clearly not in this mood.
In any case, it does not concern temporary immigration, which constitutes the greatest concern today. Mr. Trudeau will have no problem emphasizing to his Quebec counterpart that he is not even using the powers he already has to limit the appetite of companies lacking labor.
It is indisputable that Quebec has done more than its share to welcome asylum seekers in recent years and that it is entitled to compensation, especially since its financial situation has significantly deteriorated since then.
As always when a claim is addressed to Ottawa, the amount of this compensation will be the subject of fierce negotiations. Whether it is justified or not, the figure of one billion put forward by the government – the same sum that the CAQ once claimed to recover from specialist doctors – is likely to strike people’s minds, but we must not lose the essence of view.
Of course, Ottawa must pay fair compensation, but Mr. Legault often gives the impression of reducing the constitutional question to the money that can be extracted from Ottawa, through equalization or otherwise. It is difficult to reconcile this begging attitude with this “pride” that the CAQ claimed to reestablish.