The Written Word: Rafe Mair October 26th

By Rafe Mair

I don’t think that Michael Ignatieff will get the Liberal leadership – which prediction probably means he’s a shoo-in! He’s too old, for one thing. But his fatal mistake was talking about a Quebec “nation” inside the “country” of Canada. The Liberals want no part of any renewed constitutional exercises. Meech and Charlottetown badly split the party and the Liberals have enough to worry about without getting back into that morass.

Except, Ignatieff has got them into it anyway. The designation “nation” is a big step forward for Quebec separatists meaning, to them, that they will have reached the last stepping stone but one before actual separation.  This word once out, cannot be unsaid.

It was a huge mistake Ignatieff made and if the rank and file don’t know that, the insiders and power brokers do. In the next Quebec election, the Quebec Liberals will have to respond positively to demands that they favour this new designation - and they will.

One of the problems with Central Canada parties, at the leadership level, is that they don’t understand how deeply this issue runs west of the Lakehead, increasing as one goes west. The result is that the major parties sing one song in Quebec, another in the rest of Canada. But the Charlottetown referendum made constitutional experts out of a lot of British Columbians - and others, no doubt - who won't put up any longer with this doubletalk.

The future for the unity of the country is not good. As it stands, the federal government, in its dealings with Quebec, treats her as a “distinct society” even though that notion was defeated in the Charlottetown Referendum, in BC by nearly 70%. Henceforth the demand will be for recognition as a “nation” and Ottawa will appease Quebec by continuing to permit her to attend international conventions and the like as if she were an independent nation. That has already started. Once we go down this road there’s no turning back for how can Ottawa object to Quebec attending any international conference that has anything whatsoever on the agenda that touches Quebec once the precedent has been set?

Since the Quiet Revolution in 1960 with the election of Jean Lesage on the slogan of Maitres Chez Nous the governments in Ottawa have been playing for time.

Thanks to Michael Ignatieff, time will now move more quickly – and the Liberal Party knows this.

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