Québec federalists prefer an non-Quebec anglophone

Here's an interesting letter in Cyberpresse/La Presse.  It lays the blame for lack of progress on the matter of Quebec's place in Canada on the Prime Ministers of Canada that have emerged from Quebec and governed for most of the past four decades.

Cyberpresse - What does Quebec want?: What does Québec want ? Il veut que soit reconnue non seulement son caractère de peuple fondateur du pays mais aussi son originalité francophone distinctive et qu'on lui donne en conséquence toute l'autonomie et les leviers nécessaire qui vont avec. Pourquoi s'obstine-t-on à toujours utiliser l'argumentaire qui braque le Québec contre le fédéral plutôt que de lui proposer une solution en douce qui en ferait un partenaire formidable pour le reste du pays !

Il y a fort à parier que le dialogue entre les deux solitudes serait plus harmonieux et compréhensif si le pays était dirigé par un anglophone. Les francophones ont fait leur temps !

The author concludes that for a real Quebec-Canada dialogue, it's probably better to have an anglophone Prime Minister from outside Quebec, because Quebec Liberal federalists have so much ideological and political baggage within Quebec itself that it makes it impossible for them to come to any accomodation with Quebec nationalism---they'd rather engage in corrupt behaviours than sit down at the table.  This accords well with my own observation that the debate in Quebec is as much an "internecine" feud as it is a disagreement with the ROC. 

The merits of the sorts of solutions proposed by mainstream, non-status-quo Quebec federalists are things I won't debate in this post, except to say that there are serious practical problems in the sorts of things they want, just as I think there are practical problems with sovereigntism.  Basically mainstream sovereigntism and mainstream Quebec (ie, non-federal Liberal) federalism are positions in between the Constitutional status quo and complete independence.   I'm not sure that there is a practicable position between these two positions given the way that Canada is presently constituted.  The biggest example of an anglophone non-Liberal PM matches the letter-writer's analysis---Mulroney---but Meech failed spectacularly.    I'm not at all convinced that Meech could ever have worked even without Mulroney, who, in fairness, was part of the problem himself.

And part of the problem is the analysis given in the letter-writer's post itself.  Meech would have worked if the ROC was the same English Canada it was 40 years ago, minus the anti-French bigotry.

Comments

[Simon Pole]

Interesting post. What about a francophone PM from outside Quebec? (A definate possibility in the near future).

[Mandos]

What possibility are you thinking of?

No, I don't think that in the viewpoint of the letter writer, any francophone, or any politician from Quebec will cut it. Quebec federalists and nationalists (there's a very large overlap) very much perceive any discussion as necessary between two solitudes. Entities whose solitudiness is blurry are not sufficient: only "absolute" members of a solitude suffice for their to be discussion under this intellectual framework.

So Stephen Harper is, for instance, more acceptable than Stephane Dion, who is the anti-Christ (but from an empirical standpoint a fairly effective anti-Christ when he is in the national unity portfolio, or so it seemed at the time.)

[Simon Pole]

I was thinking of Bernard Lord. If the Conservatives can actually manage to move to the center again after this election, perhaps, with Lord as the leader, perhaps they can become a palatable option again in Quebec.

New Brunswick has always had an interesting position in regards to constitutional wrangling. I believe it was N.B. who was one of the first to break with the other provinces and agree to repatriate the constitution in 1982. Perhaps Quebecers might find this "third way" of federalism palatable, if Lord can position himself as its champion.

[Mandos]

Would such a thing be palatable to the party's Reform base?

[Simon Pole]

That of course, is the open question. The Reforma-Tories do seem fairly muted during this campaign though. Perhaps they've given up.