Quebec's Separatist Fire Appears Ready to Flicker Out

Steven Pearlstein

Washington Post Thursday, March 9, 2000

They've decided to move on to something else.

That seems to be the way the independence movement will end in this French-speaking province--not with a bang but with a whimper. For too many Quebecers, the secession debate has become sterile, the choices it offers them unacceptable, the question itself largely irrelevant.

Recent polls show that support for sovereignty is at its lowest point in a generation. Behind the scenes, the ruling Parti Quebecois is weighing whether to renege on its promise to hold another referendum on secession while a blue-ribbon committee has been charged with coming up with a new and more convincing rationale for its independence project.

Meanwhile, in Ottawa, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is preparing to push through legislation that, under the guise of constitutional "clarity," would make it more difficult for Quebec to secede even if a majority of voters were to support it. An expected backlash against the initiative in Quebec never materialized.

The sense that a turning point has been reached is almost palpable among separatists and federalists alike.

"The movement is a little bit stalled," said Michel Venne, the political editor of Le Devoir, Quebec's only pro-independence daily newspaper. "Even a lot of [separatist] organizers and militants are asking themselves publicly whether it is possible to win. That's quite a change."

Topping the best-seller list these days is a book by Jean-Francois Lisee--until recently the top strategist to separatist Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard--who argues that the secession debate has essentially ended in an unsatisfying stalemate, with separatists failing to persuade voters to take the plunge toward independence and federalists failing to convince them that the current setup protects their interests.

"Under existing conditions, the chances of success [for independence], in my view, are nonexistent," writes Lisee, whose candor was not welcomed by his former boss. Lisee argues that as a result of demographic changes that are eroding the power of French-speakers in Quebec and the influence of Quebecers in Canadian politics, separatism's "historic window of opportunity . . . is now completely shut."

Lisee's intellectual rival in the debate, Alain Dubuc, has come to roughly the same conclusion. In a series of eight editorials published last month in La Presse, the province's largest and most influential newspaper, Dubuc argued that the separatist movement has become the victim of its own success. It was only a generation ago, after all, that French-speakers could not order a cup of coffee on St. Catherine Street, Montreal's main shopping area, in their own language or be sure that they could converse with the admitting nurse at Royal Victoria Hospital. Sociologists say that French-speaking Quebecers were considered second-class citizens.

But as a result of a "quiet revolution" that began in the 1960s, the French majority has used its political muscle to make French the dominant language and install French-speakers in key economic, social and cultural positions across the province. As important, the incomes of French- and English-speakers are now almost equal.

"The sense of anger that allowed Quebecers to contemplate a break with Canada just isn't there anymore," said Dubuc.

A reinvigorated economy also has dulled the separatist urge. After years of decline--triggered largely by the secessionist threat--that cost the province much of its wealth and business leadership, Quebec is regaining some of its vitality and confidence. Rather than revert to the endless bickering that characterizes the sovereignty debate, today's Quebecers prefer to focus their energies on succeeding in the new global economy, where politics and national boundaries are increasingly irrelevant.

A poll published this week by the Leger & Leger organization confirms that voters feel they are trapped in a political rut. It found that two-thirds of Quebecers surveyed don't want another referendum in the next three years--with half of all voters saying they don't ever want one again. At the same time, only 18 percent of voters said they are content with Quebec's current status.

The preferred option remains what it always has been: some sort of overhaul of the Canadian constitution to give more power to the provincial government and recognize Quebec's unique status within the Canadian confederation. But that idea has been rejected twice by English-speaking Canada. And it holds no appeal for Chretien, who would like nothing better than to be remembered as the prime minister who finally crushed the separatist movement in his home province.

"Quebecers are truly at an impasse in the constitutional debate," said pollster Jean-Marc Leger. "They don't want a referendum, and even if there were to be one, they don't think it would settle anything because the thing they really want -- a renewal of the federation -- is not on the table. So the debate has reached a dead end."

Nowhere is the decline in support for separatism more evident than among young Quebecers, who have no memory of the slights and discrimination that still animate the aging leadership of the separatist movement. For them, according to Prof. Alain Gagnon of McGill University in Montreal, "separatism has already taken place in their minds -- they've already turned their backs on Canada. So the issue has no urgency for them."

The point was driven home dramatically last month when radical student groups used molotov cocktails to disrupt the opening of a Youth Summit in Quebec City hosted by Bouchard. Constitutional politics was the last thing on the minds of the rioters; they were after lower tuition and more funding for social programs.

Political scientist Richard Nadeau of the University of Montreal measures the shift in attention in another way: A generation ago, students crowded into classes about Quebec and Canadian politics, but these days it is the courses in international relations that are oversubscribed.

But Nadeau is quick to warn that reports of separatism's death may be premature. There were similar warnings in the 1980s after a crushing defeat for the separatists in the 1980 referendum. And yet by 1995, secessionist sentiment revived to the point that a second referendum failed by only a few thousand votes.

"Quebecers don't have the stomach right now for another draining and divisive battle," Nadeau said. "But they also don't have a very deep or profound attachment to Canada. It's a very unsteady state, which means things can change very quickly."