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Fair Enough

“I believe that recognizing the Québécois as a nation, even within a united Canada, is nothing else than the recognition of an ethnic nationalism and that I cannot support,” he said. ~The Globe and Mail Via Reihan Mr. Chong is perfectly correct that this is a recognition of an ethnic nationalism.  That has to be the point […]

“I believe that recognizing the Québécois as a nation, even within a united Canada, is nothing else than the recognition of an ethnic nationalism and that I cannot support,” he said. ~The Globe and Mail

Via Reihan

Mr. Chong is perfectly correct that this is a recognition of an ethnic nationalism.  That has to be the point of it, or else it wouldn’t really be a concession to the Quebecois.  It must refer to those who call themselves les Quebecois, which would almost always refer to francophone people in Quebec.  If he finds that unacceptable, I suppose he had no alternative but to leave the Government, so give him credit for putting his principles ahead of a post as a minister.  Of course, Harper will fall all over himself saying that this is not pandering to ethnic nationalism (which everyone knows is Very Bad)–no, it’s reconciliation!  More likely, it’s an attempt at pandering to ethnic nationalist voters to support his government in the future.  “Look, I threw you a bone!  Vote for us next time!”  That’s the kind of “reconciliation” Mr. Harper is interested in fostering, come what may to Canada. 

Mr. Harper continues to confirm what Kevin Michael Grace (I’m linking to all of our Canadian friends this week) said of him immediately after his election: “Stephen Harper is what David Cameron hopes to be when he grows up.”  To wit, when David Cameron grows up he will have moved from “hug a hoodie” to “hug a Welsh nationalist” or a representative of some similarly appropriate ethnic separatist movement.  Mr. Harper’s motion might be dubbed “hug a Quebecker.”

Andrew Cusack asks in the comments on another post, more or less, “What’s the big deal?”  He writes:

I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Landed empires such as Canada and the United States cover territories stretching across continents, and are of a size that makes Austria-Hungary seem small. Yet the Austro-Hungarian empire incorporated dozens of nations and nationalities, while it seems Canada only has two or three. So what if the fact that Quebec is a distinct nation is given legal sanction? I don’t think that merely giving legal recognition to reality is much of an offense against order and tradition.

I don’t know whether it is really that much of an offense against order and tradition.  That is really something for Canadians to comment on, since they would know better than I the intricacies of their domestic political arrangements.  The answer to the “so what?” question is, I think, that this concession officially invests the Quebecois with a certain status that they have claimed but have not had recognised on the federal level and thus elevates them even higher, so to speak, than they already were.  It is not a constitutional revision like the Ausgleich that created Austria-Hungary, but it might point toward some kind of even more unwieldy arrangement than the one that currently exists that will follow the Austo-Hungarian model to its eventual crack-up. 

The Austrian Empire worked less and less well the more its politics were filled with competing ethnic nationalisms.  Finally, after the war, those nationalisms had become too strong for a defeated government in Vienna to hold together any longer (and the Transleithanian rulers in Budapest gave up on the empire after the war).  In this sense, those who want to keep Canada in one piece have every reason to follow Mr. Chong’s lead in opposing this motion because it encourages ethnic nationalism.  It is true that such a nationalism is the enemy of a multicultural federated state.  (This is also why the Belgian authorities hate the Vlaams Belang with a red-hot passion.)  Were this simply a matter of acknowledging that the Quebecois exist as one of many nations inside Canada, it might be less provocative.  But acknowledging this when there is a sizeable movement of Quebecois nationalists in existence is to give in to the forces of the dissolution of Canada.   

Here’s a question that always comes to mind when talk of Quebec separatism comes up: what on earth are the poor Atlantic provinces going to do if Quebec becomes independent?  Remain in Canada?  They are poor enough that they would almost have to stick with what was left of Canada (forming their own state would be out of the question–that way lies the fate of East Timor), but how would that work logistically?  Any insights from Canadian readers would be most appreciated.

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