Warning: Separatism is not dead

WILLIAM JOHNSON
G&M Thursday, June 20, 2002

Yes, indeed, something has changed radically in Quebec.

From its beginnings in 1968, the Parti Québécois polarized politics by proposing to make Quebec a sovereign country. The vision of independence, the threat of secession, mobilized so powerfully that they smashed all competing issues for defining political alignments.

During those decades, third parties came and went. But all -- Union Nationale, Parti Socialiste du Québec, Rassemblement pour l'Indépendance Nationale, Unité Québec, Ralliement National, Ralliement Créditiste, Parti National Populaire, New Democratic Party, Equality Party -- either disappeared from the National Assembly or were absorbed into the two parties fighting each other over secession -- the PQ and the Quebec Liberal Party.

No more. The turning point, in January of 2001, was the sudden resignation of Lucien Bouchard as premier and PQ leader. His statement of abdication acknowledged that he had no hope of winning the people to secession. Bernard Landry succeeded on a platform of trying harder. During his leadership campaign, he repeated in every speech: "I am the man of a single cause -- the sovereignty of Quebec." The past 14 months proved that his cause had lost its power to mobilize.

In April of 2001, the PQ lost a by-election in its Montreal bastion of Mercier. A left-wing independent candidate, also a separatist, took more than 20 per cent of the vote, giving victory to the Liberals. Social issues had trumped the call of separatism. On Oct. 1, the PQ lost to the Liberals two of four bastions, including Jonquière, the riding vacated by Mr. Bouchard.

On April 15, the ground shook again. The PQ lost Saguenay, which had voted 77 per cent for secession in the 1995 referendum. The surge of Mario Dumont's Action Démocratique du Québec was under way, displacing the Liberals as the alternative for those rejecting the PQ.

The candidate that Saguenay elected, François Corriveau, declared that he also was for secession. But secession was not an issue in the by-election campaign because the ADQ's policy is to accept the No vote in the 1995 referendum and declare an indefinite moratorium on any renewed attempt to secede.

Monday's by-elections in four ridings previously held by the PQ confirmed the decline in the appeal of both the PQ and the Liberals, and the weakened mobilizing power of secession. The ADQ won three, and nearly captured the fourth -- the very heartland of separatism.

But it would be foolish to think that separatism is dead. It's in remission. Now, even after passage of the Clarity Act, 40 per cent of Quebeckers tell pollsters they'd vote Yes if a referendum on secession were held. That level of support and illusion remain dangerous.

The Clarity Act has still not registered with Quebec's political class. Mr. Landry and editorial writers still convey that a majority vote for secession would result in an independent country. And Quebec's Bill 99 is still on the books. It claims that Quebec can secede unilaterally with its territory intact.

This subversive act is now before the courts, attacked by lawyer Brent Tyler and the Equality Party. The Quebec government has moved to have the challenge thrown out of court. It will take years and a fortune before the suit reaches the Supreme Court of Canada.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien could strike a decisive blow for Canadian unity, complete the work of his Clarity Act and put an end once and for all to the uncertainty and the threat of secession. He could refer Bill 99 to the Supreme Court for a final judgment on four decades of dangerous illusion.

wjohnson@globeandmail.ca