Fruit of the collective effort of the Quebec solidaire deputation, the essay What binds us. Independence for the environment and our cultures was published last month on the sidelines of the congress devoted to the preparation of the next electoral campaign. Under the editorial direction of Sol Zanetti, the authors reaffirm in the book their support for the independence project through short thematic chapters presenting the advantages of this option, but fail to assert the immediate necessity.
From the outset, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois evokes in his text the need to imagine independence outside the usual quarrels between Quebec and Canada. However, we have to admit that using the federal government as a foil is too useful a strategy to do without. So we learn in What binds us that the destructive exploitation of the territory is mainly the responsibility of Ottawa, while the Quebec “efforts” in this area are overlooked. It should be remembered that forest management remains under provincial jurisdiction. In the same vein, as imposing as it is, the Canadian colonial project cannot make us forget that the massive colonization of Abitibi in the wake of the economic crisis of 1929 was planned from Quebec.
This propensity of the members of Quebec solidaire to attribute to external forces the origin of the evils experienced here is convenient in that it makes it possible to avoid a potentially painful introspection. As such, the insistence on the deleterious action of multinationals has the effect of masking “ordinary” inequalities. No need, in fact, to be a billionaire to contribute to the pauperization of the population, but the party has every advantage in sparing the sensitivities of the wealthier classes whose votes it now wooes. In the same way, if it is often question in the work of environmental protection, the texts are sparse of details concerning the sacrifices to be made by virtue of this new relationship with nature.
The most fruitful idea of the publication consists in presenting the independence of Quebec as promoting the empowerment of indigenous peoples, among other things through the possibility offered of bypassing the federal Indian Act. It is, however, a pity that this new alliance project is not explored further apart from the texts signed by the artist Natasha Kanapé Fontaine and the activist Michaël Ottereyes, especially since it is initially presented as central.
Why did you choose to bring together a series of measures under the theme of independence, the majority of which can be achieved within the current federal framework? Seeing the names of the outstanding figures of the Parti Québécois scroll along the reading, whose history we celebrate in passing, we understand that it was above all a question of occupying the former niche of René Lévesque’s party, leaving to postpone the task of identifying what really binds us together.