|
DON MACPHERSON
History should give some of the credit or blame, depending on the point of view of the historian, to an obscure Liberal member of the National Assembly named Lawrence Bergman for the fact that the most formidable sovereignist leader since René Lévesque is no longer in active politics.
For it was Bergman who initiated the Assembly motion a year ago that was the first in a chain of events culminating in Lucien Bouchard's abruptly quitting. The motion, unanimously adopted Dec. 14, 2000, condemned remarks made the day before to the Larose commission on language by a prospective Parti Québécois candidate, Yves Michaud. The motion did not specify what the remarks were, but Michaud had criticized non-francophones in general and Jews in particular for voting massively against sovereignty in the 1995 referendum, and the criticism had been widely reported.
Shortly before the Assembly sat, Bergman, who represents the predominantly Jewish riding of D'Arcy McGee, ran his motion past the government's deputy house leader, André Boulerice, who took it back to the PQ side. The government, fearing that the Liberals might embarrass it by presenting a tougher, wider-ranging motion if it rejected Bergman's, decided to support it.
So when Bergman introduced the motion in the Assembly, Boulerice seconded it, and the PQ members present gave the unanimous consent required for its immediate consideration and then voted for it without debate.
The adoption of the motion created an uproar among sovereignists and others who believe the Assembly has no business condemning remarks of a private citizen that do not affect the rights and privileges of the Assembly or any of its members.
A recently published biography of Bouchard's successor, Bernard Landry, quotes Landry as saying that the Michaud affair was the last straw for Bouchard's American-born wife, Audrey Best, whose lack of enthusiasm for politics was already well known. The book, Landry le Grand Dérangeant, by journalist Michel Vastel, says Best gave Bouchard a "near-ultimatum" to choose between his family and his political career.
Whether the Michaud affair was a reason for Bouchard's quitting or just a pretext, the fact remains that Bouchard is gone. But Michaud is still there, now making life difficult for Bouchard's successor in his dogged determination to restore the reputation he considers besmirched by the Assembly motion of a year ago.
He has already extracted several concessions from the PQ. The party, which never got around to condemning Michaud's remarks, has in effect said its MNAs were wrong to do so; it has promised to try to change the Assembly rules so that such motions will no longer be adopted.
The Liberal opposition has balked at this, so instead, the PQ caucus in the Assembly has decided that it will withhold the consent required for consideration of such motions for a 24-hour "cooling-off period." This is another tacit admission, this time by the PQ MNAs themselves, that they were wrong to proceed the way they did a year ago.
Still, Michaud is not satisfied. He has threatened to try to have the courts declare that the Assembly had no right to condemn the remarks of a private citizen. He also petitioned the Assembly to admit either that it didn't know what it was talking about when it condemned his remarks or that it had no business condemning them. Under a recent change in the Assembly rules, he is entitled to a written response to his petition within 60 days.
And if all this isn't sufficiently embarrassing to the PQ, Liberal house leader Pierre Paradis has mischievously pointed out that any MNA who now thinks the Assembly was wrong to condemn Michaud's remarks is free to introduce a motion saying so.
It was practically an invitation to Michaud to keep up the pressure on Landry, who has been courting the disaffected old-line nationalists who support Michaud even as he insists on the inclusiveness of his own nationalism. A year after Lawrence Bergman ran his motion past André Boulerice, we haven't yet heard the last of it.
|