November 22, 2006

Is Quebec really a nation?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff has been chided by various columnists, in the Guardian and elsewhere, for applying the word “nation” to the people of Quebec.

One might think that Ignatieff, out of the blue, had suddenly begun a campaign to convince Québécois they were a self-defined national group.

But in fact the place of Quebec within Canada has been “the elephant in the room” for decades, and though people in the rest of Canada may not wish to hear it, this is an issue that will not go away.

It is precisely because the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords failed that we must, yet again, determine what kind of country Canada will be – lest it cease being one altogether.

It is true that Ignatieff’s call to recognize Quebec as a nation – though, oddly, while precluding any “special status” for the province within the framework of the Canadian constitution – has set off a firestorm within the Liberal Party’s ranks. None of the other contenders for the leadership, including Bob Rae, support his position.

But the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal Party has itself adopted a resolution asserting that Quebec constitutes “a nation within Canada” and has asked that the entire party “officialize” this status at its forthcoming convention.

And Jean Charest’s provincial Liberal government insists that recognizing Quebec as a nation is necessary, and that constitutional talks on the issue are inevitable. Why? “Because a country’s Constitution is a mirror and it is crucial that in that mirror, in the Constitution, Quebecers must fully recognize themselves,” stated Quebec Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benoît Pelletier.

Does Quebec in fact satisfy the basic criteria of nationhood? A glance at the scholarly literature on the subject suggests that it does.

According to academic specialists in the field such as Walker Connor and Anthony D. Smith, there are both objective and subjective elements to national identity.

A nation must possess a well-defined geographic territory, a civic culture, and, usually, a common language. It must also form a legal-political community, with institutions that enable its citizens to express their political will.

On a more intangible level, a nation includes a set of common historical memories, customs, myths, symbols and traditions. This provides it with a psychological bond that joins its people together and differentiates it, in the subconscious conviction of its members, from other national groups – including those with which it may share a common state.

Whether other Canadians like it or not, Quebec fulfils all of these conditions. And francophones agree: A recent poll conducted by Léger Marketing showed 78 per cent of them consider Quebec a nation.

Not all Quebecers are descended from the original French settlement, of course, and any form of nationalism has the potential to become ethnocentric, discriminatory and xenophobic. But newer immigrants are now being successfully acculturated into the body politic. Quebec’s nationalism is now more state oriented and less ethnic than it used to be.

Should Rae, or another candidate, beat Ignatieff at the Liberal Party convention later this month, and assuming that the Conservatives, too, will continue to refuse to endorse Quebec nationhood, the main beneficiaries of this rejection in the next federal election will be the Bloc Québécois.

That is not a good situation for the country to find itself in. It may yet be avoided if we recognize Quebec’s national rights within the Canadian federation.