MONTREAL – Is Quebec steadily drifting towards independence? That’s apparently news to Quebec’s premier.
There are some surprised reactions to remarks from ex-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who suggested in a BBC interview that Quebec and Canada are almost two separate countries floating towards a breakup.
That suggestion was met with resistance Tuesday from Quebecers who have fought for national unity.
“What I will tell you is a strong majority of Quebecers believe in Canada,” Charest told reporters in Montreal.
He agreed with Ignatieff – that the country is a decentralized federation – and he said “important progress” has been made on that score since he took office nine years ago. But he said he hadn’t heard Ignatieff’s interview so he couldn’t comment further.
A poll on Quebecers’ attitudes, coincidentally, appeared in Tuesday’s Montreal La Presse newspaper.
It pegged support for independence at 36 per cent – well below the historic highs of the early 1990s and even lower than the level in the first sovereignty referendum, more than three decades ago. The CROP online poll of 1,000 Quebecers was conducted from April 18 to 23.
Ignatieff, meanwhile, took to his Facebook and Twitter pages to suggest he had been misinterpreted: “Strange headlines this morning! Quebec-Canada, tous ensemble, always together,” the ex-Liberal leader and academic wrote on Twitter.
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He posted a link to the entire BBC interview and asked people to listen to it for its full context. In that interview, Ignatieff warned his UK audience that whatever happens in the upcoming Scottish referendum, the country will change as a result.
He pointed to Quebec and Canada as an example, suggesting that the sense of unity of his youth has given way to two quasi-separate countries that have nothing to say to each other. He said the inevitable logic of that trend is independence, for both Quebec and Scotland.
The remarks prompted a gleeful response from Quebec sovereigntists Tuesday. The Bloc Quebecois praised Ignatieff for having travelled Canada, observing it, and finally understanding that it deserved to be two separate countries.
But federalists in Quebec City and Ottawa worked to downplay the remarks.
Liberals assigned the task of cleaning up after Ignatieff to Stephane Dion, longtime unity warrior and onetime Liberal leader whom Ignatieff replaced at the helm of the party.
Dion, now the party’s intergovernmental affairs critic, said Ignatieff has clarified that he doesn’t believe secession is inevitable.
He said Ignatieff was simply voicing frustration that everyone in the country feels from time to time. But he said the end result of sticking together is worth it.
“Sometimes, all of us may have moments of doubt – and after a while we keep hope that we’ll keep our country together and we continue to fight for it,” Dion said in an interview.
Dion dismissed suggestions Ignatieff’s comments will give a boost to the separatist cause.
“It doesn’t strengthen at all the argumentation for secession that is very weak. And it’s important for all of us, and I’m sure Mr. Igantieff will do it, to explain why it’s weak and not the right solution for Quebecers, as well as for all Canadians.”
Contrary to Ignatieff’s view that radical decentralization is a “way station” on the road to secession, Dion noted that there has always been a “lively debate” over whether Canada is too centralized or decentralized.
He said he believes the flexibile, decentralized nature of Canada’s federation has actually made it a model to the rest of the world.
“I’m very pleased to be in a decentralized federation where we Quebecers have a kind of a universe of our own, where other Canadians are welcome but not very active. It’s part of what Canada is and it’s fine with me because I know that when it’s the time to act together and to build something together, Quebecers and westerners and other Canadians, well, we’re great.”
Dion said political differences in the country – such as regional ones pitting East against West – are greatly exaggerated and magnified by Canada’s electoral system.
He said the first-past-the-post system hides the fact that many Albertans, for instance, are left-leaning while many Quebecers lean right.
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