Sleep-Walking Into Separation

"[Separation] won't change our landscapes, that's for sure. We could continue to go visit the Rockies in the western part of the country and to visit Prince Edward Island ... and they could come and visit us here. There would be no borders and no tolls."
"We could circulate freely. But that doesn't necessarily mean there is no citizenship or that there is no passport."
Parti Quebecois Premier Pauline Marois

PQ leader Pauline Marois announces the party's stand on the provincial debt as Quebec treasury board chair Stephane Bedard looks on, Wednesday March 12, 2014 in Quebec City. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Clement Allard

Somewhat like reassuring fearful children, not wanting to be orphaned, forgotten and left behind by parents who separate, breaking up the family unit, the children feeling they had obviously done something dreadful to spur this familial dissolution. Paule Marois beams with happiness at the very thought of ridding Quebec of the spirit-onerous-burden of Canadian-ness. But we can be civil, she twitters happily, view one another as friends and visit from time to time.

"The choice is clear. Do you want a government that is going to focus on a referendum and the separation of Quebec or do you want a government that is going to concentrate on the economy, jobs, health care and education?"
"Every time they hint at a referendum, Quebec is weakened."
Quebec Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard

CLEMENT ALLARD / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Said Quebec Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard, a bit too obviously: "Have you noticed that I am speaking from the gut?"

The federalist Liberals recognize the harm the PQ imposes upon the province with its constant  venting of its frustration over their inability to convince enough old Quebec francophones who inherited their culture and language from the original French settlers and remain averse to integrating with the majority English population of Confederation to opt for separation. A separate Quebec would suffer economically but that concern is secondary to the euphoric notion of sovereignty.

Premier Marois, on the campaign trail heading for the April 7 election, rolled into the town of Lac-Megantic with its tragedy of lost lives and upended society still raw and emotionally fraught. In talks of the future of the town while campaigning and presenting the party's regional candidate, Ms. Marois let drop the information that her government would not aid financially in the building of a new rail line bypassing the town rather than cutting through it, as pre-disaster.

That her party would nonetheless be delighted to aid Lac-Megantic in its evaluation of all its possible options for the project. However, "we would turn to Ottawa" for the funding to make those plans reality. The federal government, averred Ms. Marois "is responsible for rail transport". Provincial-federal finances remain a very handy dipping pot for Quebec; reliance on federal funding is always front-and-centre.

And this is the province determined to go it alone, be free, untrammelled from federal constraints imposing themselves on the province's determination to do as it will. Would the brilliant minds associated with separation, including the new financial wizard Pierre Karl Peladeau have given a thought to trade and how they would sign on to the free trade deals that Canada has engaged in from NAFTA to the new Canada-EU and Canada-Korea deals?

They will not automatically transfer to include sovereign Quebec.

Have those aspirants to sovereignty even considered the legitimacy of what they plan? As, for example the Quebec mandate to secede unconditionally under a 2000 law introduced by then-Premier Lucien Bouchard, Bill 99...An Act respecting the exercise of the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the Quebec people and the Quebec state.

Challenged before the courts, Quebec authorities feel it is legitimate though it contradicts the Supreme Court of Canada's 1998 decision in the reference on Quebec's secession. The constitution and the Supreme Court declaration that secession is not a right but must be negotiated with all partners in the federation; Quebec and the other provinces plus the two Houses of Parliament.

To succeed, separation would require an amendment of the constitution. And frontiers would have to be negotiated of any future, separate Quebec. Territorial rights of aboriginals, for example. And a certain movement in Montreal to declare itself separate from Quebec, determined to remain within Canada.

What then, Quebec?