While Trudeau claimed to have successfully resisted the threat of Quebec separatism, he had his own, left-liberal agenda to promote. With the continued assurance of federal Liberal supremacy in Quebec, Trudeau obtained what he (possibly vaguely inspired by the Maoist theory of building up a “provincial stronghold” for the eventual conquest of China) considered a “regional base for socialism.” Indeed, Trudeau won the majority of seats in English-speaking Canada only in the 1968 election, when “Trudeaumania” swept the country. Nevertheless, Trudeau remained in power from 1968-1984 (except for nine months in 1979-1980). He realized that in the Canadian system as it existed at that time, a Prime Minister who continued to win majority governments could do virtually anything he wanted. Trudeau was also assisted by the federal New Democratic Party (Canada’s extremely ideologically-energetic social democrats) – a party he himself had earlier belonged to. Trudeau was extremely conscious of using all the instruments and powers at the disposal of a government and state to strongly shape society.
In Quebec itself, Trudeau battled against the separatist Parti Quebecois, which had arisen as a new focus for Quebec aspirations. In 1980, the Parti Quebecois (under the leadership of Premier Rene Levesque), which had won the 1976 election in Quebec, held a referendum on “sovereignty-association” – which was defeated by a ratio of about 60-40. In 1982, Trudeau brought the Charter of Rights and Freedoms into the Canadian Constitution, which was opposed by Rene Levesque and the PQ – who saw it as diluting Quebec’s “collective rights.”
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms essentially enshrined nearly all of Trudeau’s agenda – including bilingualism, multiculturalism, feminism, affirmative-action policies (called employment equity in Canada), transfer payments from richer to poorer provinces – as the highest law of the land.
In 1984, many Quebecois nationalists, now disgusted with Trudeau, aligned themselves with the Progressive Conservative party of Brian Mulroney, who was himself a fluently bilingual Quebecker. Mulroney won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in Canadian history. However, in the aftermath of sixteen years of Trudeau, enormous drive and energy would have been required to initiate a process of recovery from what has been called “the Trudeau revolution.” Though he had allowed the aura of a right-winger to settle on him in 1983-1984, Mulroney was himself mostly driven by liberal sentiments, and – once in power – he brutally kept down “small-c conservative” elements and ideas within the Progressive Conservative party.
In 1987, Mulroney reached the Meech Lake Accord with the provincial premiers. Quebec, under Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa, agreed to accede to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in exchange for further modifications to the Constitution, which would – among other provisions – recognize Quebec as a “distinct society.” The Meech Lake Accord was well on its way to acceptance, but a disparate coalition of Trudeau Liberals and right-wing English-Canadians disdainful of Quebec managed to torpedo the Accord, when two smaller English-Canadian provinces withheld their approval. In 1992, Mulroney tried again with the Charlottetown Agreements, which were put to a countrywide referendum. Ironically, the Quebecois nationalists rejected the Charlottetown Agreements because they felt they gave them “too little,” whereas English Canada felt the agreements gave Quebec “too much.”
It was virtually as a direct consequence of the failure of the Charlottetown Agreements that the Bloc Quebecois – under the leadership of Lucien Bouchard, Mulroney’s former Quebec lieutenant – arose to contest the federal election of 1993 (running candidates only in Quebec), and the Parti Quebecois won the Quebec provincial election of 1994. Jacques Parizeau's Parti Québécois won the September 1994 provincial election with about two-thirds of the seats (but with only a fraction more of the popular vote, with the "first-past-the-post" system of geographically-based ridings). In 1995, there was the second referendum on Quebec sovereignty, which failed by a razor-thin margin. Jacques Parizeau’s bitter concession speech, blaming the defeat on “money and the ethnic vote” was slapped down – even by some prominent members of his own party – as virtually symptomatic of “Nazism” – and he was forced to resign from the PQ leadership.
The Bloc Quebecois won 54 seats in the federal election of 1993, thus becoming the Official Opposition (the second-largest party) in the federal Parliament. Preston Manning’s Reform Party – which had arisen in 1987 as a Western Canadian regionalist and “small-c conservative” alternative – won 52 seats, whereas the Progressive Conservatives (under the leadership of Kim Campbell) were reduced to 2 (two) seats!
Mark Wegierski
Partially based on an English-language text that appeared in Polish translation under the title, “Tendencje separatystyczne w Kanadzie.” (Separatist tendencies in Canada) trans. Olaf Swolkien, Nowe Sprawy Polityczne (New Political Affairs) (Wolomin, Poland) no. 30 (2004-2005),
pp. 77-81
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