François Legault dreamed of a four-year mandate devoted exclusively, if not mainly, to the economy. Of course, he knew that the question of identity would catch up with him, when Laws 21 and 96 were challenged before the Supreme Court. But he thought he had a few years ahead of him. He was wrong.
Less than a month after his election, it exploded in his face, following Ottawa’s decision to receive 500,000 immigrants a year.
Let’s not be surprised: Canadian elites have been dreaming about this scenario for some years now, in the hope of making Canada a country of one hundred million people by the end of the century. They have just moved from dream to action.
Demography
These 500,000 immigrants per year correspond to the vision that Canada has of itself, that is, a post-national country with no common identity, except the Charter of Rights and a facade of bilingualism where the English language dominates.
The thesis of the two founding peoples, to which some Quebecers still relate, has long been, in English Canada, stored in the attic of dead ideas.
Ultimately, Canada’s only identity is its cult of multiculturalism, which it presents as a celebration of diversity, which may even lead it to celebrate the niqab. He is engaged in an unprecedented ideological experience.
For Quebecers, the situation is radically different.
Quebec is a nation, and has a future only insofar as the historic French-speaking majority that composes it retains a clear demographic preponderance.
Only in this way can it manage to Frenchify immigrants.
His position is already compromised. The current thresholds, which are 50,000 (without taking into account “temporary” and illegal immigration), are already leading to a radical regression of French.
If Canada increases its thresholds as expected, linguistic and demographic regression will pick up speed.
These thresholds of 500,000 per year are delusional and herald a demographic drowning for Francophones, to use René Lévesque’s expression.
Our integration and francization capacities are not infinite.
Within the Canadian framework, Quebec is caught in a fatal trap.
Either it increases its thresholds, to keep pace with the rest of the country, and avoid its loss of political weight. But then, he suicidally consents to an extinction of his French-speaking character.
Either he refuses the increase in the thresholds, but he is then condemned to political marginalization.
Federalists
In Quebec itself, the weight of Francophones has begun to decline to the point where a party like the PLQ can become the official opposition with less than 10% of the vote among Francophones.
The autonomy of François Legault hits a wall. He has no means of impeding this movement.
Many federalists will have to ask themselves this question.
When will they judge that the situation of Quebec is now demographically untenable in the federation?
If they don’t even have the courage to ask it, it’s because they’ve already consented to our disappearance.