There have been a number of complaints about the separatist/sovereigntist influence on the House of Commons under the proposed left-wing coalition in Canada. The concerns appear to be that A) Separatists are a bad thing to have in the national government, and B) It is undemocratic to topple the plurality government of the Conservatives. Behind the cut, I’d like to discuss these concerns.

Argument: Separatists should not be involved in the government.

Example: Vince Versace of On Deadline, who argues:

Our federal government, which represents the interests of all of Canada, will have its foundation of power based on a separatist party, a party which does not believe in the Canada the federal government is caretaker of. How is this logical and in the best interests of all Canadians?

I think this argument conflates separatism of the home-rule variety with separatism of the segregationist or destructionist variety. The most extreme example of destructionist sovereignty is Hezbollah, which aims to destroy Israel. Mr. Versace’s argument would be persuasive if it pertained to a destructionist party.

However, the BQ does not appear to envision the destruction of Canada-minus-Quebec. The BQ envisions Quebec-qua-nation as a trading partner of Canada. It is in the interest of a nation to maximize the economic health of its allies. Therefore, it is in the Bloc’s interest to maximize to the extent possible the economic health of anglophone Canada. To that end, their separatist intent is irrelevant to their ability to govern, and should not be seen as a concern.

B. It is undemocratic to overtake the Conservatives’ plurality government.

This coalition does not represent how the majority of Canadians voted in the recent federal election. You cannot count on the Bloc Quebecois numbers because they are skewed, having run candidates only in Quebec, they are not a national party…what are they again…oh yes, a separatist party. The Liberals and NDP will assume power thanks to the backing of a separatist party. You combine just Liberal and NDP election results and a majority of Canadians still did not choose them to govern.

This argument has two main weak points, in my estimation. The first is that the Bloc, while it is indeed a separatist party, they have adopted a pragmatic standpoint including policies aligned with the centre-left. (Cite 1. Cite 2.) The Bloc’s stated goal in this election was to prevent a Harper majority.

Anti-Conservative sentiment is not enough to base a coalition on. However, it is misguided to dismiss the BQ as a player in national politics based solely on their status as a separatist party. The party likely siphoned significantly more voters from the Grits and Dippers than from the Tories.

Incidentally, arguing that a majority of Canadians did not elect a coalition government is misguided; a majority did not elect the Conservative government. A party opting to administer a minority government, particularly one which is outnumbered by a divided opposition wing, does so at the risk that the divided wing will coalesce in order to strip it of power. The left-wing coalition will likely be shackled by disagreement at the margins of the parties’ platforms, but such is the fate of a coalition government.

If the Conservatives disagree, they’re free to attempt to court enough Bloc spoilers to take power.

Jeffrey Simpson: The Liberals’ old hands assert that running on the Liberal Party “brand”, rather than on Stephane Dion’s reputation and leadership ability, is the way to win seats in Quebec. The Grits lost a recent by-election in Westmount, Quebec, to the New Democratic Party, which Simpson takes as evidence that the brand is failing to sell in even its former strongholds. (Once again, the issue that arises is one of a divided left.)

Lawrence Martin: Martin approaches the Dion-versus-Brand discussion from a different standpoint, opening with a story about an MP approaching Dion and saying he wouldn’t run for party leadership until after the upcoming election. The implication is that Dion’s party is splintered, but that he should be running based on the strength of his party rather than his own leadership prowess. I can’t say I disagree – Dion’s strength has never been personal charisma, and the strength of the Liberal Party in any incarnation is not supposed to be the ability of one person to lead.

Listeriosis, the tormentor: The Conservative Party loses yet more steam apologizing for foolish gaffes, this time when the Agricultural Minister couldn’t resist making a cold cuts pun in reference to a food-safety crisis in Canada. The editorial makes note of two prior gaffes by the Tories: the pooping-puffin ad, and the insinuation by a communications official that the father of a Canadian troop killed in Afghanistan was causing a ruckus because he was a leftist.

Rick Salutin: The Tories are running on Stephen Harper’s small-government aspirations. Salutin is one of many who blames deregulation for the current US mortgage meltdown and for the listerosis oubtreak referenced in the Globe and Mail editorial, above. Salutin predicts that Harper will fail to get a majority, though seems mostly partisan in that reasoning.

Jeffrey Simpson, again: Stephen Harper’s campaign bears a strong resemblance to former Australain PM John Howard’s in government methodology (many tiny tax cuts to favoured constituent groups being courted) and to Karl Rove’s in image (attacking the opposition relentlessly without regard for honesty):

The Liberal proposal will raise taxes on carbon-producing products (but not gasoline) and lower taxes on incomes and companies. Mr. Harper says, however, that there will only be a “carbon tax,” a distortion of the Liberal position. Nobody, Mr. Harper insists, should believe any politician who says the new revenues from a tax on carbon would be used to reduce other taxes. Never happens or has happened, he says, even though B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell is doing a similar tax shift. Is Mr. Campbell a liar, too?

The overarching themes of the week are, for Stephane Dion, a party in trouble (he lacks the confidence of his party colleagues and the strength to sell the party) and for Stephen Harper, a party’s strength being sapped by negativity.

Ten years ago today, the court delivered its response to the reference on whether Quebec had the right to secede unilaterally. The court’s advisory opinion was complex but clear. Why, then, has it been constantly misrepresented across Canada and ignored in Quebec?

Johnson’s article makes the case that politicians have “misrepresented” the court’s opinion, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217,  which lays out four criteria on which a secession must be judged: democracy (do citizens of Quebec want to secede?), rule of law (do they have the power to do so?), federalism (would secession be to the detriment of the other provinces?), and the protection of minorities (would secession harm language and ethnic minorities?). Johnson’s argument is that politicians and media ignore the last three criteria and treat the democratic criterion as the only valid one.

The problem with Johnson’s argument is that it ignores the fact that Quebec and Quebeckers are essentially in control of only the democratic criterion. That is, Johnson treats the criteria as being each of equal weight, when clearly they are not. Lamer noted:

Although the Constitution does not itself address the use of a referendum procedure, and the results of a referendum have no direct role or legal effect in our constitutional scheme, a referendum undoubtedly may provide a democratic method of ascertaining the views of the electorate on important political questions on a particular occasion.  The democratic principle identified above would demand that considerable weight be given to a clear expression by the people of Quebec of their will to secede from Canada, even though a referendum, in itself and without more, has no direct legal effect, and could not in itself bring about unilateral secession.  Our political institutions are premised on the democratic principle, and so an expression of the democratic will of the people of a province carries weight, in that it would confer legitimacy on the efforts of the government of Quebec to initiate the Constitution’s amendment process in order to secede by constitutional means.  In this context, we refer to a “clear” majority as a qualitative evaluation.  The referendum result, if it is to be taken as an expression of the democratic will, must be free of ambiguity both in terms of the question asked and in terms of the support it achieves. (at 87)

While it is true that the democratic criterion is not sufficient condition for secession, it would of course be necessary. Further, it is the only condition of the three that is relatively mutable. The federal consequences of a Quebec secession could change, of course, depending on the economic contributions of Quebec, but they would change much more slowly than it is possible for public opinion about secession to change. The same can be said for the effects on minority residents of Quebec. The rule of law, of course, is essentially fixed for the purposes of this discussion. Thus, it is entirely rational to focus on the democratic criterion.

In addition, from a pure realpolitik standpoint, Quebec weighs in at over 20%, nearly 25%, of the population of Canada. If the entire province of Quebec wanted to secede, it would prove extremely difficult to impose the federal will of one Canada upon them. (Of course, the separatist faction is at most roughly half of the population.)

Johnson’s article ignores enthymemic arguments. When he quotes Chretien and Dion as “reassur[ing] Quebeckers they could have separation on demand,” he does not seem to grasp that Chretien and Dion may simply believe that the federal, minority and legal principles do not weigh strongly enough in favor of keeping an angry Quebec in the Canadian fold.

In addition, it is disingenuous to lump the Dion/Chretien statements in with Bouchard and Parizeau’s assertion that the Court does not have jurisdiction over secession; whereas Dion and Chretien were making a political statement, Bouchard and Parizeau seem simply to have disagreed with the reference decision. To categorize the statements together would be somewhat like citing to this blog rather than to Johnson’s article in a research paper.