It’s a rare thing to see Parliament display something like a unified political will. It’s a strange thing indeed to see it accompany such a confusing piece of verbiage.
Yesterday, Parliament voted to adopt Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s resolution recognizing the Quebecois as “a nation within a united Canada.” While weekend talk shows and editorial pages speculated wildly about the motion’s real and potential effects on the country, major figures from all four parties came together in a nearly unambiguous show of support for it-not surprising, considering nearly all of them had hoped to be the ones to propose it. It was finally co-opted by Harper last week in a carefully worded version meant to quell debate and quietly put the issue to bed once and for all.
But with some important Liberals expressing opposition to the motion, and Harper’s young intergovernmental affairs minister resigning over it, the issue’s potential to distract the country from real issues-like climate change and Afghanistan-is fast becoming clear.
The motion’s problems lie with two “trouser words,” to quote Bob Rae in a recent interview (who was himself quoting some unnamed philosopher). These are words that subtly but significantly change their meaning depending on which of their denotative “legs” you’re wearing. Two sizeable trouser words here are “Quebecois” and “nation.”
“Quebecois” is a hard word to define. Does it refer to all the residents of Quebec-including Anglophones, the First Nations, and recent immigrants-or just Francophones? What about French-speaking Canadians in Ontario, or in Manitoba-les Manitobains? Are they Quebecois?
“Nation” is even more loaded-one of the big words that make us so unhappy, as Joyce would say. It can be used to denote a country with borders and a flag, as in the United Nations. Or it can be used in the sense the motion means: a people united by a shared, distinctive culture and language. But treating either of these denotations as exclusive is tricky indeed.
The concept of the nation-state as we know it today is the product of the turbulent 19th century, when embryonic countries like Germany and Italy struggled to unify great swathes of geography and people divided by dialect and princely allegiance. Germany in particular elevated the concept of a single Kultur and history to solidify its political status.
So is this is the kind of culturally homogeneous nationhood that Quebeckers want? On a recent CBC radio talk show, one young Quebecois opined that it wasn’t. “I used to have a Socialist professor who would always talk about separating,” he said. “But that is really a baby-boomer thing. Young Quebeckers today, they don’t want that. They want to learn English, to do business with the rest of Canada, to travel.”
The next generation of Quebeckers is looking beyond its borders, not inside them, he seemed to say. Harper’s resolution is aimed not at Quebec’s future, but at an aging generation whose political influence will wane ever more in the coming decade.
In this light, the great motion is a declawed, empty political phrase. Was it a manoeuvre to help Harper steal a potential wedge issue from opposing parties? Yes, and a smart one at that. Should we move on to the more pressing issues facing Canada’s future? Yes, as soon as humanly possible.
