The political
crisis which has erupted over the revelations of the Gomery
Inquiry has once again brought Canada’s
constitutional crisis to the fore. The fortunes of the Liberal Party in Quebec, the only viable federalist option, have plummetted and it is expected that the Bloc Quebecois will
sweep Quebec
in the next federal election which will probably be held within the next year.
The unpopularity of the Quebec Liberal government and its neo-liberal policies
of cutbacks to social programs is also expected to
lead to the election of the Parti Quebecois (PQ) in
the next Quebec
provincial election. This, in turn, is likely to lead to another referendum on Quebec sovereignty.
The roots of Canada’s
constitutional crisis go back to 1867 and Canadian Confederation. Confederation
was pushed through in the most undemocratic manner without the support of the
vast majority of the people in British North America.
Despite the fact that the Quebec National Assembly was suspended at the time,
the Canadian state promotes the myth that Canada
was created by two “founding nations” – “English” Upper
Canada and “French” Lower Canada.
In reality, Canadian Confederation was an arrangement between the bourgeoisie
of Upper and Lower Canada and the British bourgeoisie; there was only one
founding nation, namely Britain,
because no “English-Canadian” nation existed in 1867
nor does such a nation exist today. Furthermore, unlike most federal states
that were created in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in the case of Canada one of the “founding nations” – Quebec – did not possess a veto on any question and there
was no provision for the voluntary withdrawal of Quebec from this federal arrangement. In
other words, Canadian Confederation was not the voluntary union of equals, but
a colonial arrangement in which Quebec was
subservient to Upper Canada.
However, for self-serving reasons the Canadian state and several generations of
scholars continue to promote the myth of “two founding nations”.
The current
constitutional crisis was initiated by the rise of “separatism” in Quebec during the 1960s
and 1970s. The government of Lester Pearson responded with a new flag and the
policy of bilingualism and biculturalism, while the Trudeau government began a systematic
campaign to deny the very existence of the nation of Quebec. A number of administrative measures
were taken, beginning with the 1971 Victoria
Conference of First Ministers and escalating with the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1976, which reduced Quebec to the status of a province just like
all of the other provinces. This fundamentally changed the status of one of the
“founding nations” without even asking that nation for its approval. The
repatriation of the constitution in 1982 and the drafting of an amending
formula, both without the consent of Quebec,
further exacerbated this problem. In other words, the Canadian state
unilaterally altered the arrangement with the nation of Quebec, rendering the Canadian Constitution
a dead letter.
The problem
facing the Canadian political and economic elites is that the nation of Quebec exists as an
objective historical reality. The constitutional crisis which has gripped Canada since at least the 1960s has not been
caused by the demand of the Quebecois that their nation be recognized by the
rest of Canada.
The nation of Quebec
has a right to self-determination just like every other nation. The crisis has
been created by the refusal of the Canadian bourgeoisie to recognize either the
existence of the nation of Quebec
or its right to self-determination. This crisis cannot be overcome except by
recognizing historical realities and establishing a new relationship between Canada and the nation of Quebec, as well as the various Aboriginal
nations, a relationship based on equality, fraternity and mutual respect.