That time appears to have arrived. Last week, in a 12-minute speech to a stunned House of Commons, Lucien Bouchard, a senior cabinet minister from Quebec and a longtime friend of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, resigned from the government. “This country doesn’t work anymore,” he said afterward. “We have to remake it.” Old linguistic tensions may be carving out a new country on the North American continent. Most of America is displaying its typical lack of interest in its neighbor and No. 1 trading partner, but the Bush administration was watching the resurgent separatist movement warily. “After all the work we’ve done to build a strong economic and political relationship with Canada,” said a senior U.S. official, “the uncertainty this raises is unwelcome.”
Bouchard’s resignation struck a potentially fatal blow to Mulroney’s campaign to bring Quebec into “the Canadian family.” Mulroney’s mechanism has been the Meech Lake Accord, which he brokered at a lakeside retreat with the 10 provincial premiers in 1987. Quebec had refused to sign Canada’s 1982 Constitution because it didn’t provide sufficient legal protection to its French language and culture–more than 80 percent of Quebecers speakFrench (the province’s official language) as their mother tongue. The accord gave Quebec incentives for signing on: unprecedented powers for the provincial government and formal recognition that “Quebec constitutes within Canada a distinct society.” The agreement required ratification by Parliament and each of the 10 provincial legislatures within three years–by June 23, 1990.
Parliament and eight legislatures endorsed the package. But with only Manitoba and New Brunswick left, protests began to grow. The most prominent opposition voice was Trudeau’s. The former prime minister saw the accord as a repudiation of his vision of national bilingualism, where the two languages could thrive side by side. Meech Lake was not two entities scratching each other s back; it was, he said, in 1987 a case of ‘if you don’t scratch my back, I will scratch your face."
The country s English-speaking majority struck back. A new Newfoundland government rescinded its approval. More than 50 communities in Ontario and Saskatche wan declared themselves “English only.” In Quebec itself, part of Montreal’s small English-speaking population, angered over a new French-only law for outdoor commercial signs, rallied behind a new English-rights party and elected four candidates to its legislature. An extremist English-rights group likened the spread of French in Canada to “the spread of AIDS.”
Lip reading: Bouchard warned the nation that Quebec, which represents about one quarter of Canada’s 25 million population and as big a chunk of its economy, was serious about separatism. And he paid homage to a great English-language political cliche when he said, “Read our lips–because we mean business.” Many prominent Quebec business people are backing Bouchard and like-minded politicians. Quebec’s surging prosperity in the ’80s–and disenchantment with federal economic policies–has led more of the business community to embrace separatism with enthusiasm. If the Meech accord dies, says Claude Castonguay, chairman of the Laurentian Group Corp., one of Canada’s largest financial institutions, Canada and Quebec are headed for divorce. “It will be like when an estranged couple decide to continue living under the same roof for the sake of the children,” says Castonguay, “but no longer share the same bed.” Most Quebecers favor some form of sovereignty association: Quebec would share Canada’s currency but maintain its own government.
The only certainty about secession is that it would result in tremendous uncertainty. “If Quebec goes, who knows where it will end?” says a senior American official. “Will the rest of Canada stay together? [It’s] unsetting " In fact leaders of the four Atlantic provinces admit they, too, have discussed leaving the Canadian confederation if Meech Lake fails. And Canadian politicians and American pundits alike have revived discussion about the suitability of some Canadian provinces for U.S. statehood. With the deadline for Meech Lake less than a month away, Mulroney has scheduled meetings this week with all the provincial premiers to search for common ground. The deadline will be followed immediately in Quebec by St. Jean Baptiste Day, traditionally a celebration of ultranationalism. The holiday coming on the heels of rejection could ensure that any schism between Canada and Quebec is irreparable.
Quebec’s separatists have surged and faded – but never disappeared.
1970: Separatists abduct and murder a provincial cabinet minister.
1976: Rene Levesque becomes premier.
1980: Sovereignty rejected 60%-40% in a provincial referendum.
1987: Officials work out the Meech Lake Accord.
June 23,1990: Deadline for ratification of accord by provincial legislatures.
POPULATION IN MILLIONS: Canada 25,309,330 Quebec 6,532,450 MOTHER TONGUE: CANADA QUEBEC English: 62.1% 10.4% French: 25.1% 82.8% Other:[*] 12.8% 6.8%
[*] UNOFFICIAL LANGUAGES SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA, 1986
