Xenophobes

Real Canadian propaganda

There was once an open, welcoming and tolerant land called Canada. This land was filled with people from all over the world living together in harmony. Each group brought something unique from their homeland and contributed an interesting ethnic tile to this wonderful mosaic of ethnic identities. This paradise of multicolored tiles spread from the Pacific to the Arctic to the Atlantic with one exception: the Province of Quebec. In Quebec, people were against the wonderful mosaic. They did not want to be a tile in the mosaic. They did not embrace diversity. They forced their language and culture on everyone. Basically, they were racist xenophobes… This is the image of Canada and Quebec that is routinely presented in the Canadian media and is believed by many Canadians. Canadian multiculturalism is seen as the greatest of all virtues and the rejection of this idea can only be because of racism and small-mindedness. It is true that Quebecers tend to see multiculturalism and immigration differently than Canadians do but could there be other reasons than simple xenophobia?

Quebec and immigration

Let’s face it; Quebec has a very different history from the rest of Canada. Quebec was conquered by a foreign army and saw foreigners arrive to take up positions of power in its society. After the American Revolution, thousands of British Empire Loyalists settled in Quebec. They obviously did not come to integrate into our society, this was now their country and we were the ones who would have to assimilate. In 1837, Quebecers rose up in arms against their occupiers but failed. The result was Lord Durham’s report. Lord Durham made three recommendations:

•        The union of Upper Canada ( Ontario) and Lower Canada ( Québec) into a single colony
•        The assimilation of the French Canadians
•        The granting of ministerial responsibility, or responsible government

It’s the second one that had people in Quebec a bit worried. The idea was to drown Quebecers in a sea of Anglos through massive immigration from the British Isles. Durham believed that the political union of Upper and Lower Canada was crucial to establish a loyal, English majority which would anglicise French Canadians and then make it possible to grant ministerial responsibility.  

Immigration was no longer going to be left to such unpredictable things as American revolutions or Irish famines. It was now going to be an organized effort at social engineering to bring about the disappearance of the Francophone population which was still the majority in 1840. By 1850, Francophones had become a minority in the Province of Canada and in 1871 they made up only 31% of the population. Today we represent 23% of the population of Canada and this is in spite of a rather prodigious birth rate that only began to decline in the 1960s. However, we still haven’t completely drowned to the dismay of many in English Canada.

After the initial wave of British immigrants, people from other parts of the world began arriving. In Quebec, where money and power were firmly in English hands, immigrants had little interest in us. Some immigrants did join our ranks, mainly other Catholics like the Irish or Italians but even in those communities the majority could see that it was better to join the English than a poor, powerless minority. It’s only after Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, when we regained control of our society, that we attempted to control the nature of immigration to Quebec. The Charter of the French Language probably had the biggest impact by requiring that the children of immigrants attend French schools. Today, roughly half of all immigrants to Quebec end up as Francophones. It’s still not enough but this will always be a struggle for us as a minority in Canada. It’s true that Quebecers are always ready to go to the barricades to defend their identity but considering our history is it really so surprising? 

Canadian Multiculturalism

Most Canadians see themselves as forming a single nation composed of all Canadian citizens. Their nation is Canada as a whole. Canada is seen by them as a single nation-state and not as a multinational state. There is a Canadian nation but there is no Quebec nation. This was the view of the late Pierre Trudeau who saw Canada as composed of one nation, two linguistic communities, five economic regions, ten provinces, two territories and a multicultural mosaic. Nowadays, most Canadians endorse that view, and so most of them reject the existence of a Quebec nation. Harper's Machiavellian "Québécois Nation" motion in 2006 actually confirms this view.

The demand for recognition of the binational and bicultural character of Canada had initially been made by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the 1960s, presided by André Laurendeau and Davidson Dunton. And this demand has been made by all successive Quebec governments since then. Canada, however, adopted a policy of multiculturalism. “Isn't this a way of accommodating the needs of Quebecers?”... No, it isn't. Instead of accepting the binational and bicultural character of Canada, Trudeau responded by adopting a policy of multiculturalism that celebrates the cultural diversity of immigration so it cannot be interpreted as a recognition of the existence of a Quebec people.

Trudeau’s fiction of a Canada made up of one nation with two linguistic communities, divorced of national culture and territory, pretends that there is some kind of equality between these two linguistic communities and it tells immigrants that they can chose which ever language they want from sea to shining sea, it doesn't matter. We’re all one nation... Gee, I wonder which they’ll choose, the language spoken by 2 % of people on this continent or that other one. Tough choice! Quebec is then depicted as the bad guy because of its language laws which only allow immigrants to send their kids to French schools. They claim that their objections are based on the principle of “freedom of choice”. It's easy to be for freedom of choice when you know that the odds are stacked in you favor.

Another thing about Multiculturalism is that it doesn't seem to work so well in other countries like, for example, Sweden. Immigrants tend to become ghettoized and alienated from their host nation. This situation has sometimes even lead to violence and rioting. There’s just something different about the Canadian situation which makes assimilating immigrants almost effortless.

The reality is that Canadians can be so laid-back about immigration because they know that with very little effort on their part, their immigrants, in the long run, will end up as North-American Anglos thanks to the cultural and linguistic hegemony of the giant neighbor down south. After that, you just need a few Tim Hortons commercials to make them into Canadian North-American Anglos. Canadian multiculturalism depends on the dominance of American culture on this continent.

Of course, these forces work against us in Quebec. We know from experience that without any effort on our part, without setting rules and insisting, the same thing will happen here. That is, our immigrants will end up as North-American Anglos, too. So we can't have the same attitude as Canadians. But the Canadian media ignores all context and simply portrays us as bigots any time we try to assert ourselves on these matters.

Is this not xenophobia?

If Canadians feel secure today, that certainly was not the case in the past. There was a time when English Canadians had a palpable fear of the "other" with its monstrous birth rate. It was a fear of this "other" spreading, taking over and destroying what was good and British in Canada. And it needed to be stopped! The British author Hilaire Belloc probably summed up the feeling best when he wrote the following while visiting Canada in 1923:

Hilaire Belloc

"The French are everywhere pressing on the the Orange civilization which has the official machine in its power. They go West and establish islands in the empty spaces.The counter-proposition is to call in immigrants at any price from anywhere and drill them in Orange schools. It is a system now pitted against the grotesque fertility of the French-speakers. The whole thing is a battle between something deeply rooted, indigenous and prodigiously expansive against something imported and with shallow roots"

The answer came with a whole string of anti-French laws that appeared in virtually every Canadian province outside of Quebec. Ontario, for example, began imposing English tests on all teachers in 1885. In 1890, a law was passed stating that English must be the language of education except when children cannot understand it. In 1891, French school books were banned. However, things got worse at the beginning of 20th century which saw a rather important influx of francophones from Quebec looking for work. A census at the time showed that Franco-Ontarians accounted for 10% of the population of Ontario. This was explosive news. The future Premier, Howard Ferguson, spoke of the "French evil" and said that if nothing were done to stop this invasion of fancophones, it would shake the Dominion to its very foundations.  According to Mr Ferguson, Ontario needed to encourage British traditions in order to have a more "virile race".

Regulation 17 became law in 1912 and basically outlawed French education in Ontario beyond the first two years. It gave the Minister of education the power to fire any teacher that did not comply and the power to suspend entire school boards. The law was modified in 1927 to allow bilingual primary education and some secondary education could also be in French. It wasn't until 1944 that this law was simple not renewed. However, there was no real public money spent on French education in Ontario until 1968. There were no French school boards until the 1980s and Franco-Ontarians did not really regain control of them until 1997 (something they had lost in 1912).

This history is, of course, simply swept under the rug by most Canadians. Isn't this a classic example of xenophobia or racism? Isn't this an example of intolerance against a group of people which literally kept them disadvantaged until recent times? Doesn't this history ever enter into the minds of Canadians when they get up on their high-horses to lecture us about tolerance and inclusiveness?

Obviously not...

Dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap!

Constitutional repatriation Canadian style: in the middle of the night with a gang of thugs!

As I begin to write this it is Canada Day. Fortunately, nothing much will happen around where I live, except a fair amount of moving. However, in Canada, there is most likely much celebration, fanfare and many people saying they are “proudly Canadian,” but proud of what exactly?  In an attempt to justify that pride, I will look into two episodes of Canada’s glorious history, namely Newfoundland’s inclusion in Canada and the Constitutional repatriation. Luckily for me, two books recently came out dealing with these events. The first is Don’t tell the Newfoundlanders, by Greg Malone (2012), and the second is La bataille de Londres by Frédéric Bastien (2013). I choose these episodes not only because of the recent books, but also because of the striking similarities between them. In both cases we see deception, duplicity, collusion between the British and Canadian governments motivated by the belief that the end justifies the means and might makes right. They show a consistent modus operandi for the Canadian government.

Canada’s territorial expansion

Malone’s book is essentially a string of declassified secret memoranda from the Canadian and British governments, with some exposition in between. It makes for fascinating, if somewhat tedious, reading. Nevertheless, he makes it abundantly clear that neither government had any intention of letting the Newfoundland people truly decide their own future and every intention of manipulating the political process so as to make the annexation of Newfoundland to Canada a virtual certainty. Malone also makes clear their motivations. Canada wanted to expand her empire (as cheaply as possible, it must be said), and Britain wanted to acquit the war debt she owed to Canada. Both governments wanted emphatically to rid the island of the American influence that had implanted itself during the Second World War on account of their base there. They certainly did not want Newfoundlanders to get any ideas of independence coupled with some form of economic union with the United States.

Malone begins with an overview of Newfoundland’s history. He points out that Newfoundland is not Britain’s oldest colony, as many people seem to think, but rather her oldest possession. Britain was more interested in the fishing off Newfoundland’s shores than in Newfoundland herself. In spite of this, Newfoundland has always been a staunch ally of Britain, faithfully supporting her during two World Wars. Throughout his book, Malone depicts the people of Newfoundland as honest, hard-working and virtuous (well, if you don’t count the unfortunate business about the extermination of the Beothuks, that is (Lester, 2002)). All this makes Britain’s callous abandonment of Newfoundland to Canadian interests as part of her geopolitical game simply scandalous.

Still, in spite of everything Newfoundland continued to evolve and develop from a fishing colony in the sixteenth century to a full Dominion by 1907, just like Canada and Australia. Unfortunately, in the years leading up to the 1929 Crash saw a collapse of the markets for Newfoundland’s fish, and the Great Depression sent its economy in a tailspin. The British would only help Newfoundland pay its debt if she would submit to a royal commission and accept its finding on Newfoundland’s financial and political situation. Not to worry, said Newfoundland’s Prime Minister Frederick Alderdice, because he promised that no recommendation would be implemented without the approval of the electorate. This promise was never kept.

The commission resulted in what became known as the Amulree report. Pretexting that Newfoundland’s huge debt was due more to supposedly rampant corruption than the Great Depression or Newfoundland’s expenses during the First World War, it recommended that Newfoundland’s legislator be suspended and replaced a Commission of Government, to be supervised directly from the UK. But not to worry, again, because responsible government would be restored as soon as Newfoundland’s situation improved and the people demanded it, said the report.  Of course, this never happened. The Commission of Government was sworn in on February 16, 1934.

After the War, with prosperity returning to Newfoundland, the question of Newfoundland’s status came up again. Canada and Britain decided that her “natural” destiny lay within Canada and they were determined to make it happen. So instead of reinstating responsible government, the British created the National Convention tasked to give advice on the future of Newfoundland. But its terms of reference specifically mention that the National Convention could only discuss, it had no power to negotiate anything. And since the Commission of Government was a creation of the British government and could not represent the people of Newfoundland in this matter, this created a real problem. The future of Newfoundland was being decided yet it couldn’t formally negotiate anything with anybody.

The Convention could send delegations on fact finding visits, which it did. It sent a delegation to London, then to Ottawa. There was talk of sending a delegation to Washington in order to explore the possibility of a special trade relationship between Newfoundland and the United States. The British shut this suggestion down … for some reason. Malone produces secret memoranda from the Canadian government entreating the British to offer no hope to the Newfoundlanders for British aide or assistance, and the British were happy to comply. The reception in London was cold and even rude. The British made it clear how little the Newfoundlander’s could expect from them.

As the reception in London was cold, the one in Ottawa was warm, even gushing. The “discussions” that went on were really unofficial negotiations, much to the delight of the pro-Confederation members of the delegation, chief among them the zealous and hyperactive Joey Smallwood. Anyway, all this led to the first referendum, where people were asked to choose between (a) Commission of Government for a further period of five years (b) Responsible Government as it existed in 1933 prior to the establishment of Commission of Government, or (c) Confederation with Canada. First of all, why was the year 1933 mentioned in option (b), as this would bring up memories of the Great Depression?  It’s as though they wanted to associate Responsible Government with an economic calamity. Worst of all, the choices aren’t clear!  What comes after the Commission of Government for five year?  As for Confederation with Canada, on what terms is this to be implemented?  I’m sure Stéphane Dion will look into this!

The results of the first referendum are as follows: Commission of Government got 14%, Confederation with Canada received 41% and Responsible Government obtained 45%. By the standards of our electoral system Responsible Government should have won. But when the powers that be in Ottawa and London want something, they find a way of fiddling with the rules until they get what they want. So there was a second referendum to decide between Responsible Government and Canada. Joey Smallwood led the pro-Canada campaign with limitless funds from wealthy Canadian business men, whereas the opposing side had to raise money from donations. This time, the Confederation with Canada option obtained a “clear” and overwhelming majority of 52%! To this day, hearsay persists in Newfoundland about vote tampering, but we will never know since a number of them were burned shortly after the vote. And the rest, as they say, is history…

1981: The year of the rat

We now turn to the second great episode of Canadian history: the constitutional repatriation of 1982 and the machinations leading up to it. Bastien’s book starts, as it must, with the 1980 referendum in Quebec on sovereignty-association. After a campaign where the federal government overspent and tried to frighten people into voting NO (Conway, 1995), Pierre Trudeau made the following promise at the Paul-Sauvé centre six days before the vote (the translation and italics are mine):

The government of Canada, the governments of all the provinces have already clearly spoken. If the answer to the referendum question is “no,” we have all said that that “no” will be seen as a mandate to change the constitution, to renew federalism… A “no” means change…

I am speaking solemnly to all Canadians from the other provinces. We are putting our heads on the block, we, MPs from Quebec, because we are telling Quebeckers to vote “no”. And we are saying to you of the other provinces that we will not accept that that “no” be seen afterwards by you that all is well and that things can stay as they were before.  We want change; we are placing our seats on the line for change!

The reference to renewed federalism is important because in the context of the time it was understood to mean greater autonomy for Quebec, either by some special status or greater decentralisation. Trudeau knew this and his use of that term while intending the exact opposite is a clear case of deception on his part (Laforest, 1995). The reference to the other provincial governments is also significant because as Bastien reminds us, the premiers of Ontario (Bill Davis), British-Columbia (Bill Bennett), Saskatchewan (Allan Blakeney), Alberta (Peter Lougheed) and New-Brunswick (Richard Hatfield) visited Quebec during the campaign to endorse Trudeau’s message. So Quebec was deceived and betrayed, by Trudeau first and foremost but also by these premiers, some of whom were Lévesque’s allies during the constitutional negotiations the following year. In this sense, Lévesque was betrayed by these men regardless of what may or may not have happened during the night from the 4^th to the 5^th of November 1981, when five of his seven allies went off to strike a deal with Trudeau’s bipedal lap dog Jean Chrétien without informing Lévesque.

What Trudeau did not promise was imposing a charter on Quebec and Canada. I mention this because Trudeau wanted the British to repatriate the British North America Act with a charter of rights tacked on. Trudeau told the British that the charter was necessary in order to fulfill his promise to Quebec. It was a manipulative lie, but at least that was better than threats. Indeed, one thing that comes through clearly in Bastien’s book is the amount of bullying the British were subjected to. Canada would become a Northern Ireland across the Atlantic, it would become a republic, and it would make life difficult for the British diplomatically and economically if they would not pass the charter. The British needed this much coaxing because there is something about a charter of rights that is very antithetical to the British parliamentary system. In that system parliament is supreme, but a charter that allows a group of judges to strike down any law passed by parliament is a direct threat to its primacy.

The arm-twisting in the case of repatriation is in sharp contrast with the annexation of Newfoundland, where the two governments were generally on the same wavelength. What the two cases have in common is a denial of logic. Just as it was logical to give Newfoundland responsible government first and then negotiate with it to decide Newfoundland’s future, it was also logical to ask the British to repatriate the BNAA only and submit the adoption of the charter to Canada’s political process. Logic was defied in both cases for the same reason: it would entail a loss of control. Canada might not get what it wants as quickly and as cheaply as it would like, or not get it at all.

So Trudeau’s repatriation project was in real trouble in London. The dissident provinces led an effective lobbying effort that turned many Labor and Conservative MPs against the charter. But Trudeau had allies, most notably the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher, who was determined to give Trudeau what he wanted. And Trudeau had other, more troubling allies. At that time Canada’s Supreme Court was tasked with ruling on the legality of the repatriation project. Two judges, Bud Estey but mainly the Chief Justice Bora Laskin, took it upon themselves to inform British and Canadian authorities on the state and tempo of the deliberations within the Court. By knowing the speed and nature of the deliberations the federal government had an unfair advantage over the provinces. Laskin even went so far as to assure Canadian and British officials on his support for the charter.

This is Bastien’s main revelation and it is huge. It is a flagrant violation of the separation between the judiciary and the executive and it taints the entire repatriation process. Laskin’s defenders reply that he didn’t say anything important. This is untrue and also irrelevant, because he shouldn’t have said anything at all. This is the kind of transgression that, in another context, could lead to a mistrial or overturn a conviction. And this is much more serious than that because an entire nation, Quebec, is subject to a constitution that it did not sign as a result of these backroom shenanigans.

Furthermore, Bastien bases his claim on recently declassified documents from the British Foreign Office, and they leave little to the imagination. Indeed, the language is usually quite plain, such as an official reporting something like “met Laskin the other day and he told me such and such”. So Bastien makes a very convincing case on the basis of British documents. He does occasionally refer to Canadian documents, but their contents are inconsequential. He was denied access to high-level Canadian documents, such as those from the Prime Minister’s Office. This is both strange and typically Canadian. It’s strange because there is no reason for secrecy. We are talking about constitutional reform. It concerns all Canadians. We are not talking about military secrets. Surely, the Canadian government didn’t do anything unethical, did they?  And besides, it’s been over thirty years since the events in question.

And yet, it is typically Canadian because Canada is basically an empire struggling to maintain itself. Just like the law, history is made to serve this struggle as much as possible by the federal government. That is why the Conservative government refused to make public those documents on the grounds that it didn’t want to stir up old quarrels, while at the same time spending considerable resources celebrating and glorifying the War of 1812!  On logical grounds, the secrecy is indefensible. If the Trudeau government did nothing wrong, then there is no reason not to disclose the documents. If it did, then the people of Quebec have a right to know. When Bastien’s revelations came out, the Supreme Court, clearly worried, issued a terse statement saying that it would investigate the allegations. After a while, the Supreme Court announced that there is nothing to worry about since it could not find any evidence of wrongdoing in its internal documents. Because, you see, if Laskin and Estey had done something unethical they surely would have written it all down!

“May all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out” says the Emperor Claudius

Reclaiming history

As we have seen in this essay, Canadian pride rests largely on selective amnesia and overblown achievements. Fortunately, writers like Malone and Bastien help us to lift the shiny monuments and see the worms crawling underneath. Or as the Emperor Claudius in I Claudius would say, so that all the poisons that lurk in the mud may hatch out. I would like to end this essay by commenting on these books, starting with the one by Malone. First of all, Malone often refers to the ambitions of “central Canada”, by which he means Ontario and Quebec indiscriminately, as though they form a monolithic bloc. He conveniently ignores the fact that at that time Quebec was effectively run by the Anglo oligarchy based in the West Island of Montreal. It was they who wanted the riches of Newfoundland, not Quebec as a whole. True, the annexation was completed under Prime Minister Louis Saint-Laurent from Quebec, but if Newfoundland could have a self-serving toady in the person of Joey Smallwood, why can’t Quebec have one in Saint-Laurent (and many others)?  I can only hope that Newfoundland patriots won’t give in to the knee-jerk Francophobia so prevalent in Canada, and see in Quebec an ally in their struggle against Canadian imperialism.

Finally, Malone ends his book by saying that if Newfoundland had a responsible government, it would be independent (the best option) or would have negotiated better terms with Canada. I find this last option hopelessly naive. If the Supreme Court wants to screw you over, they will find a way as they did recently to the Francophone School Commission of British-Columbia by digging up an old British law from 1731. Whatever advantages Newfoundland might have obtained would have been whittled down over time.

As for Bastien’s book, the thing that struck me most was Trudeau’s thoroughly unpleasant personality. He struck the British the same way, who described him in none too flattering terms (neurotic, paranoid). Lies, manipulation, dishonesty, demagoguery, arrogance, deception, vindictiveness, nothing was out of bounds when it comes to putting Quebec in its place. It wasn’t enough simply to win, he had to crush his opponents for all time. I found one incident particularly telling. On June 25^th 1980, Trudeau met Thatcher and they discussed, among other things, the possible opposition of the provinces to Trudeau’s repatriation plan. After the meeting, a journalist asked Trudeau if the possible opposition of the provinces was discussed and he flat out denied it. He said that the subject never came up. Not only was this lie so blatant, it was also unnecessary since Thatcher agreed with Trudeau and pledged her support. His lie angered the British and got Trudeau into trouble when it was eventually leaked to the media.

So why did he lie?  We can only guess that Trudeau thought that the lie would insure his dominance over the provinces by suggesting that they were not even worth the mention. If true, this would suggest a deep seated insecurity in Trudeau masquerading as bravado. Maybe Trudeau had a tumor the size of a tennis ball pressing down on the ashamed-of-where-you-come-from center of his brain, thereby explaining his pathological contempt for Quebec. Who knows?  What’s important is that the truth, however incomplete, is coming out. Books like those from Malone and Bastien, and others, help to break through the thick sugar coating on Canada’s official history. 

References

F. Bastien, La bataille de Londres, Éditions du Boréal, 476 pp. (2013)

J. F. Conway, Des comptes à rendre, VLB Éditeur, 273 pp. (1995)

N. Lester, Le livre noir du Canada Anglais 2, Éditions des Intouchables, 302 pp. (2002)

G. Laforest, Trudeau and the end of a Canadian dream, McGill-Queens University press, 217 pp. (1995)

G. Malone, Don’t tell the Newfoundlanders, A. A. Knopf Publ., 314 pp. (2012)

Lies, crimes and referendums

“The Clarity Act's main purpose is to prevent a fraudulent secessionist referendum. In 1995 (and to a lesser extent, in 1980), the Parti Québécois presented a trick question to confuse Quebecers as to what exactly they were voting for. Exit polls in 1995 showed that many 'Yes' voters in particular thought they were voting for renewed federalism, a new partnership with Canada, and other distortions and misinformation 

Is that how you want to create a country, on lies and innuendo? 

In 1995, we know Mr. Parizeau was aiming for a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) all along. His so-called "partnership" offer to the ROC was not sincere. Next time, Quebecers will know that the proverbial cart will not be put before the horse. 

Thanks to the Clarity Act, Quebecers - all Quebecers - can decide their fate in confidence. If we must have another referendum it will be done under the rule of law without ill-defined terms like "sovereignty" and "sovereignty-association" muddying up the debate. To those who advocate a separate Quebec, produce your arguments and let the people decide.”

These are the words of a typical federalist. The premise underlining all this is the idea that evil separatists want a completely separate and independent Quebec in order to create some kind of racially pure country. However, they know that if they told everyone about their diabolical plan, the vast majority of Quebecers would reject it (you see, most Quebecers are nice enough but they aren't too bright and so can easily be fooled by the separatist villains). So instead of clearly stating their intentions, the separatists use deceit to achieve their goals...

Thankfully, the good people in Ottawa have found a solution. It’s called the Clarity Act. Now if those evil separatists try to have another referendum, Ottawa will decide if the question was clear enough for the simple-minded Quebecer. And even if a majority vote YES, you have to assume that a good portion of them were unable to understand the question so 50% + 1 is nowhere near enough. What is enough? Well, that’ll be decided later.

This typical federalist also claims that there were 85,000+ stolen NO votes in the 1995 referendum. Never mind that the total number of spoiled votes in the 1995 referendum was 86 501 (1.82%), which is pretty average in any election. He assumes that they were all NO votes without any evidence. The 1992 pan-Canadian referendum had a 2.18% spoiled vote rate and a far more cryptic question but strangely enough, it was the federal government calling that referendum, not the evil separatists.

It’s true, there were a few incidents in 1995 of vote counters showing a bias against NO votes when judging their validity but that issue was addressed diligently and thoroughly by the Chief Returning Officer immediately after the referendum. Former Quebec Chief Justice Alan B. Gold's report, vetted by three respected law professors from three different universities, concluded that the spoiled ballots resulted from the reprehensible but isolated actions of a few individuals working independently and that no evidence was found indicating a widespread plot to take away people's right to vote. Moreover, the law was changed shortly thereafter to prevent recurrence. Nonetheless, the myth of the stolen NO votes lives on. I believe it lives on because it is a way of countering the accusations of true criminality that took place during that referendum.

The reality is that the majority of the sleaze, corruption and dishonesty has clearly come from the federalist side in our referendums and it has been so egregious that I don’t consider that we've had, so far, a clear referendum on the issue of Quebec’s political status. 

These referendums must be seen within the context of the constitutional battles of the time. Most Quebecers basically wanted more autonomy for Quebec and constitutional recognition of Quebec's status as a distinct nation. The debate was about how to achieve this. Some argued that this could be done by reforming Canadian federalism and others said that we needed to first declare our sovereignty and then to negotiate a partnership with Canada. In the end, neither side got what they wanted. The winners were the minority in Quebec who deny the very existence of a Quebec nation and want to keep Quebec subordinated to Ottawa at all cost. And their great victory was achieved through deceit and criminality. 

1980

The 1980 referendum was to give René Levesque’s Parti Québécois government a mandate to negotiate Sovereignty-Association which would create a sovereign Quebec within a Canadian framework. It was not proposing a complete break with Canada and would have been followed by a second referendum to decide the final status of Quebec. This was the question asked to Quebecers:

"The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad — in other words, sovereignty — and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?"

The campaign seems to be remembered mainly for a couple of rather insignificant gaffs committed by the YES side e.g. the Yvette comment by PQ cabinet minister Lise Payette. Mrs Payette denounced women supporters of the "No" side as Yvettes (the name of a docile young girl in an old school manual). She went so far as calling Claude Ryan's wife, Madeleine, an Yvette. This backfired spectacularly as the Yvettes, led by Madeleine Ryan, held a number of political rallies in response to her remarks.

Another gaff was an off-the-cuff remark made by Lévesque himself. Lévesque had made the error of telling a group of Mexican journalists that the referendum was showing Trudeau's “Elliott side”. By this he meant that Trudeau seemed more preoccupied by the interests of English Canadians than by the interests of French Canadians. This was depicted as an ethnocentric remark which infuriated Trudeau or at least he feigned outrage and used this remark to paint Lévesque as someone who only considered people of French ancestry as real Quebecers. Trudeau made an emotional speech in which he named prominent Quebecers with Irish, English or Aboriginal names and asked "Are they not Quebecers?”.

What is usually forgotten is that the campaign was not between Sovereignty-Association and the status quo. The NO side knew that a majority of Quebecers were not happy with the constitutional order in Canada, so they made this a fight between Sovereignty-Association and Renewed Federalism. What this renewed federalism meant was not entirely clear but this was something the Quebec Liberal leader, Claude Ryan, had been going on about for a while. At first, it was a sort of asymmetrical federalism with a special status for Quebec but later morphed into a more decentralized federation after realizing that English Canada was not going to go for the special status idea. What is clear is that it meant more power for Quebec.

Pierre Trudeau said on several occasions that he had no intention of negotiating Sovereignty-Association with René Lévesque making a YES vote possibly pointless as a victory for the YES side would only give Lévesque a mandate to negotiate. But the clincher was when Trudeau said in Montreal's Paul Sauvé arena a few days before the referendum that he would interpret a NO vote as a mandate for a renewed federalism. He knew what Quebecers would understand by those words and he knew that he had no intention of giving them anything of the kind.  

Instead they got the unilateral repatriation of the constitution in 1982 without Quebec’s consent. This was a complete betrayal of Trudeau's promise to Quebecers. The Canadian government imposed on Quebec a substantial reduction in the powers of Quebec’s National Assembly. Quebec also had imposed on it an amending formula that has turned out to be a constitutional straitjacket. The unanimous consent of the provinces is now required for certain fundamental changes to the constitution (like changes to the amending formula). It's ironic how Quebec's consent was not required for adopting such a rule in the first place. This constitution was viewed in Quebec as a complete break of the "dualistic" pact of 1867 between the two founding nations and a denial of Quebec's existence as distinct nation.

Trudeau even ignored the recommendations of his own national unity task force. In 1979, the Pepin-Robarts task force on national unity released its report. The Pepin-Robarts report said this: "Quebec is distinctive, and within a viable Canada it should have all the powers necessary to maintain and develop its distinctive character. Any other solution short of this would lead to the rupture of Canada." The Pepin-Robarts report said that in 1979. Three years later, we got a Constitution that paid absolutely no regard to those statements.

Ryan, with his ideas about a renewed federalism, was left out and betrayed, as were all Quebecers who had voted NO expecting an answer to some of Quebec’s longstanding demands. Some Liberals, like Claude Forget, the provincial Liberal spokesman on constitutional affairs would try to rewrite history and claim that no such promises were ever made. However, Ryan would later write the following about Trudeau’s actions: "When he committed himself a few days before the referendum, in a speech delivered at Montreal's Paul Sauvé arena, to reform of the Canadian federal system, several people, including the author of this book (i.e. Claude Ryan) had understood that what he had in mind was an operation that would be designed and carried out along with his referendum allies. ... But Trudeau had his own agenda, which was not that of the Quebec Liberal Party."

The federalist that I quoted at the beginning of this article stated that in 1995 many YES voters believed they were voting for a renewed federalism, a new partnership with Canada… I don’t believe that for a second but it is irrefutable that many NO voters in 1980 were voting for a renewed federalism along the lines stipulated by Claude Ryan but that was certainly not what they got. Is this not deception?

1995

"To hell with the rules"

In the 1995 referendum, when polls were showing that the YES side was leading, the federal government decided that Quebec referendum laws did not apply to it and that victory had to be achieved at any cost. In the words of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien: 

"In Canada two weeks before the referendum in 1995 Yes were suddenly eight to 10 points ahead. It was more difficult for us because it was a provincial issue and the federal government I led could not get involved. But in the last nine days I said to hell with the rules and organised a huge meeting in Montreal in which thousands of people flew in to send a message that we wanted Quebec to stay with us."

This attitude of laws-be-damned on the part of the federal government not only led to the well-known but legally dubious Unity Rally, it also led to the creation of the mysterious Option Canada. Option Canada could be described as an illegal electoral slush fund. It was created and managed secretly - Quebec's Chief Returning Officer learned of its existence when a Montreal daily broke the story in March 1997. It was granted money under the false pretext of supporting linguistic duality. The accounting documents show that those who dreamed it up had the clear intention of violating the Quebec Referendum Act by funneling some $5 million into the NO campaign and thereby almost doubling that side's resources. Most of the money went into the ad campaign, foreshadowing the ad scam that rocked the Liberal government years later. The secretive pay rolling of campaign "volunteers" also foreshadowed the wads of cash used for similar purposes as Judge Gomery revealed.

Option Canada thus differs from other slush funds in that it was a creation of the Government of Canada run by the Liberal Party. That is the crux of the problem because it is a case of the government secretly and illegally funding an organization in order to defeat a legitimate and democratic political movement. Some might shrug that off saying that it was done to save Canada. If so, what principle will they be able to raise to oppose similar underhanded manoeuvres aimed at defeating other legitimate democratic movements elsewhere in the country?

This network of corruption would later be the same corrupt network behind the sponsorship scandal (ad scam). Those crimes were investigated to some degree during the Gomery inquiry but the scope of the investigation was limited. What was done during the referendum, which is a far more serious crime against the people of Quebec and democracy itself was never properly investigated.  Yet the people behind these crimes are the same ones who would later impose their anti-democratic Clarity Act with its ill-defined terms ostensibly to prevent separatist tricks and deceptions. Orwell would be impressed!

Conclusion

Quebec has gone through many changes to its political status throughout its history. In 1759, it was done through military force and conquest. In 1840, it was forced into a union with Upper-Canada after its rebellion was brutally crushed. This union was made with the expressed intention of marginalizing and assimilating francophones. In 1867, the province of Canada joined Confederation by a simple act of parliament. It's true that a slim majority of Quebec representatives voted to join Confederation but it was as the Courrier du Canada was to put it at the time: "la moins mauvaise des choses dans un monde fort mauvais" (the least harmful thing in a world of harmful things). Independence was never on offer. Confederation at least gave us our state back: The Province of Quebec. There was no referendum as the Rouge party was calling for, there was no clear question and there was no clear majority.

In recent decades, Quebecers have chosen a more democratic route for deciding their political fate: the referendum. There should be clarity and honesty in Quebec's next referendum on sovereignty but Ottawa has no place in dictating its terms or policing its honesty as it has absolutely no credibility in the matter. It would be like Bernie Madoff policing Wall Street.

Quebec Bashing 101

Quebec bashing, otherwise known as the anti-Quebec sentiment which is a rather nice term for something so ugly, is basically a manifestation of racism. I know, I know, You’re going to say “I’m not racist, I just hate Quebecers” or “I can’t be racist since I routinely accuse Quebecers of being horrible racists… and I mean that as a bad thing” or even this gem that was once offered up to me as a justification “It’s not racism because Quebecers aren't a race”.  Nonetheless, Quebec bashing is, without a doubt, an acceptable form of racism in Canada.

The Quebec basher will often pose as a social commentator who is simply casting a critical eye on Quebecois society but what he finds is invariably sinister. Hey, it’s not his fault. That’s just the way things are in Quebec, right? Wrong! Why? Because when there is a consistent habit of always applying double standards, of ignoring context or anything positive, of distorting and exaggerating anything negative, making these negative things emblematic of an entire people and not of individuals then your social commentary is more akin to saying that Mexicans are lazy or Jews are greedy. Endlessly repeating “Quebecers are racist” is no different.

According to most studies on attitudes towards immigrants  or statistics on hate crimes, Quebecers don’t seem any worse than Canadians; sometimes they do better than the Canadian average. However, the impression you get in the Canadian media is that things are far worse in Quebec than in the rest of Canada. Recently it was reported that the Quebec Soccer Federation had decided to ban the wearing of turbans on the soccer field. This got huge media coverage. It even reached India. This story provoked the usual “analysis” in Canadian media about how sick and racist Quebec society has become. I don't remember having any kind of say in the QSF's decision so why am I, as a Quebecer, being dragged through the mud?

Meanwhile, Quebec signs yet another historic agreement with the James Bay Cree. It's a power sharing agreement that gives the Cree a substantial say in what goes on in almost a third of Quebec. A territory the size of Italy. This agreement is simply building on a previous historic agreement commonly called "Paix des Braves", which was signed by Bernard Landry in 2002. These agreements could be a model for Canada, giving native people a far greater say about what goes on in Canada's vast expanses. But English Canada has never agreed to cede this much power to the native people. In fact, this is what the Cree Grand Council had to say about La Paix Des Braves: 

"Most importantly, the Crees signed the "Agreement Respecting a New Relationship Between the Cree Nation and the Government of Quebec" on February 7, 2002 that implements certain obligations of Quebec to the Cree People for community and economic development under section 28 of the JBNQA. While Canada has similar and sometimes joint obligations with Quebec under the same section, Canada has yet to sign a similar agreement to implement its obligations."

Why doesn't this say anything about Quebec and Canada? Why is this story relegated to the back pages whereas the silly soccer controversy is talked about non-stop and even reaches India? Why don't we talk about the high standard of living of the Quebec Cree compared to the Cree living just across the border in Ontario? Why don't we talk about the fact that Native people are underrepresented in the prison population of Quebec whereas in Saskatchewan Native people are over-represented by a ratio of seven to one? Wouldn't this suggest that people in Saskatchewan are far more racist than Quebecers? Why does one story get so much more attention than the other? Simple: one story fits the "Quebecers are racist" narrative and the other doesn't.

Another example: In the run up to the Iraq war there were demonstrations in many cities around the world including in Montreal and Toronto. The one in Montreal attracted about 150,000 people whereas in Toronto only 15,000 showed up despite the fact that Toronto has a greater population than Montreal. I remember thinking "Well, that's interesting! I wonder how the Quebec-haters are going to spin this one".

The next day Le Devoir had an editorial cartoon about the Quebec government's plan to attract more visible minorities into the civil service. It showed Osama Bin Laden applying for a job as a civil servant in Quebec. When asked about relevant experience, he answered that he had once belonged to a sleeper cell. Get it? Civil servants... Sleeper cell... Well, the people at CBC radio didn't. To them the Osama character was a generic Arab and so this cartoon was insinuating that all Arabs are terrorists... More proof that Quebecers are racist! When I got to work, this is what my Anglo colleagues were talking about.

Arab-hating racists aren't likely to go out in the streets to protest the probable slaughter of Iraqis. The fact that ten times more people protested in Montreal than in Toronto did not even register in the Anglo mind. It didn't convey any significant information about Quebecers or Canadians. Twisting a cartoon from Quebec's only sovereignist newspaper in order to make it look racist did register. That's what grabbed their attention. An anti-Semite isn't simply someone who believes negative stereotypes about Jews, it's a person whose mind is constantly looking for confirmation of these negative stereotypes. Information that contradicts his beliefs doesn't register in his mind. It's non-information. 

Ask an anti-Semite to describe the Jews and you'll get a grotesque caricature. Ask a Klansman to draw you a black person and you'll get a hideous sub-human monster. Ask the Canadian media about Quebec and Quebecers and you'll get something pretty similar. Everything negative is exaggerated beyond reason and given far too much attention. Quebec basically has no redeeming qualities. Its language laws are the worst oppression since Nazi Germany and are the cause of every single problem from crumbling bridges to school shootings...

From inferior race to racists

In the beginning

I think it's important to take a brief look back at the history of race relations in Canada in order to put Quebec bashing in its proper context. I believe the backdrop to all this could be the old English-French rivalry going all the way back to the Hundred Years' War. Then, the English Reformation, when most of England converted to Protestantism and France remained Roman Catholic, added an even deeper division in which each side could see the other as not only as a foreign evil but also a heretical one. However, a new element was added to the mix in North America, one that never existed in Europe. This element stems from the fundamental difference between the English and French colonies in North America and their relationship with the Native population.

New England was from the outset an attempt to literally build a new England. It involved cutting down trees and eliminating the native population. Consequently, the English had no respect or kindness for the natives of the New World.  The Puritans in Massachusetts tended to see the Indians as filthy, torture loving savages and were comfortable with their elimination or migrated absence.

The objectives of the French in the New World were less ambitious. New France was basically a trade colony and existed primarily for the fur trade. Champlain, the founder of New France, was no Cortés or Pizarro. He did not come as a conqueror. He came to set up a business venture and the native people were an important part of this business. They did the actual hunting. Champlain’s mission was to make alliances with the natives and get the business up and running, it was not about conquest and subjugation. French settlements in Quebec were made following alliances with the Native people and with their consent. By all accounts, French settlers tended to coexist peacefully with the local Indians. In fact, there were many cases of intermarriage between the two groups.

Now, obviously I’m not suggesting that the French were morally superior to the English. French imperialists simply did what was in their interests as all imperialists do. A good relationship with the natives was good for business and military alliances with them was France’s strategy to level out the ten to one demographic imbalance between New England and New France. Nonetheless, this set the tone for the relationship between French and native and it also created the perception among the English that the French in North America had “gone native”. Of course, this wasn't merely a perception, particularly in western parts where the merging of French and Cree even gave rise to a new language called Michif.

 

Not quite white

After the Conquest,  French Canadians not only lost their commercial empire in the West but most of their access to executive positions in their society and the capacity to shape their destiny as a people. Before 1760, they had access to most important business, military, and political positions in the colony. Afterwards, not only did the population lose some of their elites, who moved on to pursue their careers elsewhere in the French Empire, but those who remained in New France lost their handle on government, administration, business, and the military. The French Canadian gentry entered into decline. Gradually, the colony’s elites were overwhelmingly composed of the Anglo minority, power residing in the hands of London and of men nominated by Britain. And thus began nearly two centuries of French Canadians mainly occupying the role of an exploited underclass. 

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau, an American philosopher and author, visited Lower-Canada (Quebec) and wrote about his travels in “A Yankee in Canada" (1853). In this book he gives us his impressions of French-Canadians:

"It has been observed by another that the French Canadians do not extend nor perpetuate their influence. The British, Irish, and other immigrants, who have settled the townships, are found to have imitated the American settlers and not the French. They reminded me in this of the Indians, whom they were slow to displace, and to whose habits of life they themselves more readily conformed than the Indians to theirs.... Thus, while the descendants of the Pilgrims are teaching the English to make pegged boots, the descendants of the French in Canada are wearing the Indian moccasin still… The impression made on me was that the French Canadians were even sharing the fate of the Indians, or at least gradually disappearing in what is called the Saxon current."

George Vattier, a French academic who taught at the Royal Military College of Canada in the early 1920s summarized the English Canadian attitude towards French Canadians in his book “Essai sur la mentalité canadienne française”:

“What hurts French Canadians most is that people pretend to disregard them, and speak and act as if they were not there... when they were the ones who discovered and colonized this country, and founded Québec a century and a half before the English took it over!... They will be less inclined to forget it to the extent that English Canadians still pretend to consider them inferior and intellectually backward, often alleging that most of them are Métis, or at least are barely educated, speak a dialect that has nothing in common with French, and are opposed to progress and only suited to occupy second-rate positions. In this connection, the English have constantly repeated... that French Canadians were only fit to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.”

Even as recently as the 1960s the president of CN at the time, Donald Gordon, openly said that the reason that none of his 17 vice-presidents were French Canadians was that no French Canadian was competent enough to hold such a position. In other words, French Canadians were an inferior people not capable of big and important things. This was a commonly held view by English Canadians for most of our history together. Of course, today, talk of racial inferiority is no longer acceptable and it is quite astounding how quickly this was turned into "Quebecers are racist". We therefore went from being racially inferior to English Canadians to being morally inferior to them in about a decade. By the 1970s people like Mordecai Richler were already spreading lies about how the PQ were using a Nazi song in their political campaign.

Racism as a propaganda tool

The media image you get of Martin Luther King Jr today is the "I have a dream" MLK. It's the image of the man who said racism is bad and we should all just get along. But there was another Martin Luther King Jr, a more radical one. He is conveniently forgotten by the media of today. He was the man who said that America was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. He was the man who opposed the Vietnam war and denounced the economic injustice in America. That MLK was vilified in the media at the time and would still be vilified today were he around. He was vilified because he challenged the established order in the US.

The desire among many Quebecers for independence is no more sinister, racist or xenophobic than the desire among Canadians to remain independent from the US or Britain. Quebec's independence movement is as legitimate as any other national liberation movement and is not based on any kind narrow-mindedness or bigotry. But it is a threat to Canada's established order. Therefore, it needs to be smeared and constantly associated with negative things like racism, etc. That is exactly what the Canadian media does. I'm not saying there is a big conspiracy. It's more of a big Quebec bashing bandwagon that people are encouraged to jump on. It gives you an instant, eager audience clamoring for more. Criticizing the bandwagon will get you ignored which is a bad career move for a media type.

Chrétien & Dion explain the Clarity Act

Jean Chrétien and Stéphane Dion, Canada's crack national unity experts, were sent to the UK and Spain to advise those countries on how to deal with their growing separatist threats.

We have obtained the transcripts of their meeting with David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK.

It should be noted that Chrétien and Dion are the masterminds behind Canada's unity building Clarity Act.¹

DC: Hello Mr Chretien and Mr Dion, Thank you for coming and helping us with our separatist problem.

JC: Hello, Mr Cameron. Don't worry, we're like the Ghostbusters except it's for separatists... Who you ganna call, eh? Haha!

SD: Good one, Boss!

DC: Yes, well... We're glad you're here. We know you passed some groundbreaking legislation, the Clarity Act, in Canada which lays down the ground rules for these separatist bastards so that they cannot cheat their way to independence.

SD: Yes, we redefined the very meaning of word "clarity". I feel we achieved a clearer kind of clarity.

DC: Clearly!

JC: That's right, mon Stéphane. And we put those separatists in their place, eh? I love putting separatists in their place. I consider it the job Canadians hired me to do... So what would you like to know Mr Cameron?

DC: Well, let's start with the "clear question" part of the act. How do you define that?

JC: We don't, of course. That's the idea.

SD: If I may Boss? We feel that any indication in the question of a willingness to negotiate a partnership or to keep mutually beneficial ties or of just being reasonable in general might lead people to believe that they are dealing with rational adults who would negotiate independence in good faith. We feel that this is misleading. We want people to see us as the kind of psycho who threatens to kill his girlfriend if she even thinks of leaving. That's why we threatened to cut Quebec up if it ever leaves.

DC: I see. Well, I think the question in the Scottish referendum is quite clear: "Should Scotland be an independent country?". So I don't think we can do much on that front.

JC: Oh, I don't know. Maybe I think Scotland "should" be an independent country but I don't want it to be independent. How do I vote then? It's not clear... I'm confused!

SD: Exactly! Also, "an independent country" is not very clear. Which independent country? Maybe that country is the UK. Who knows what the voter really intends when he votes YES. You know, people aren't too bright.

JC: Good point, mon p'tit Stéphane... Also, the question doesn't say when. Maybe I think Scotland should be an independent country 200 years from now. Again, how do I vote? I'm confused and I forgot my glasses. I think "Do you really want to destroy the bestest country in the world?" would be a clearer question from the standpoint of clarity, I believe.

DC: I see we called the right people. We hadn't thought of any of this.

JC: Well, we have a lot of experience dealing with the separatists. I remember during the 1980 referendum, I was talking to Claude Ryan, he was the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party at the time. That guy, you know, he was so pompous and aloof. When you were in his the presence, you felt you were in front of a bishop. You felt like you had to get on your knees and kiss his bague²...

DC: ?

Kiss his what?

JC: Anyway, what were we talking about?

DC: Maybe we should move on to a "clear majority". I have to admit, I'm not too clear on what you mean here. What do you consider a "clear majority", Mr Chretien?

JC: Oh, I don't know. That's something you establish after the referendum and it's usually 5% more than the result if the YES side wins. But personally, I think 75% is pretty clear if the question is clear. What do you think, Stéphane?

SD: Well, Justin Trudeau recently put the bar at 66%.

JC: Oh, Justin... he's always been weak on the separatists, not like his father. His father knew how to deal with separatists. A couple of kidnappings and you declare martial law, send in the army and start rounding up all the separatists. That's the way you do it.

DC: But didn't one of the hostages die?

JC: Yes, well, Trudeau was making a political point, you see... Look, if you want to make an omelet, you have to crack a few eggs, right? And if your omelet is national unity then you've got to crack a few separatist heads. Am I right, Stéphane?

SD: You're right, Boss! Are you familiar with the Shawinigan Handshake, Mr Cameron?

JC: Anyway, Laporte got a bridge named after him. He's a martyr for national unity now... almost a saint. People hardly even mention his mafia ties nowadays so we did him a big favor by hanging him out to dry like that.

DC: OK, well... Do you have any other advice for us?

SD: Have you compared Scottish nationalists to Nazis yet?

DC: Yes, we had some of our lackeys in the media take care of that.

JC: Good! Pepper spray?

I ❤ Franco

SD: Boss, I'm afraid we have to catch our plane to Madrid now.

JC: Oh, look at the time. I'm sorry David but we have to go help the Spaniards. I don't know why they need us when they had the great Generalissimo Franco. He was the master of national unity.

DC: Well, thank you both for your help. I think we now have a clearer understanding of what referendum clarity is thanks to you gentlemen...

1- Why the Clarity Act is anti-democratic

2- NB: bague is the French word for ring, pronounced like "bag"... (This is an actual Chrétien quote)