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Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Meanwhile in Quebec.....
When is independence not independence? When it's about Quebec. It has become something of a cottage industry among Quebec sovereignists/separatists/whatevers to develop a referendum question that will guarantee independence for La Belle Province. Since the majority of Quebecers don't want their own country - and never have - the question must be finessed in such a way as to confuse total independence with some kind of hazy autonomy. In one of his rare moments of vision - i.e. when he was not otherwise pre-occupied with lining the coffers of the Liberal Party - Jean Chretien passed the Clarity Act.
The act was reviled at the time as being little more than an inept waving of a red cape in front of a province that had nearly voted itself out of Confederation - though into what no one was quite sure. The Act itself requires any future referendum question to specifically ask for total independence with no mention of any possible partnership with the rest of Canada. Thus it complicates the problems of the sovereignists/ separatists/whatevers in not being able to weasel their way toward independence.
The recent spate of opinion surveys suggesting that Liberal corruption may be pushing Quebec over the brink are based upon asking the same question as was asked in 1995. Since the Clarity Act a similarly vague question cannot be asked again. If one looks at the data, as does Laurent at Blog Polyscopique, the actual support for independence has stayed in the low 30s. Quebecers may want to distance themselves from the Ottawa cease pool but they don't seem any more likely to want to leave Canada itself. In other words they seem a lot like the rest of us.
Posted by PUBLIUS on May 3, 2005 at 11:26 AM | Permalink
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“In one of his rare moments of vision - i.e. when he was not otherwise pre-occupied with lining the coffers of the Liberal Party - Jean Chrétien passed the Clarity Act.”
Agree, probably the only legacy item worth mentioning that Chrétien passed as PM.
A couple of observations: as I understand it Paul Martin was against the Clarity Act. Also Stephen Harper designed the concept for Preston Manning and Chrétien essentially stole it.
Posted by: nomdenet | May 3, 2005 10:52:48 PM
It surprises me that those in Quebec seeking a new relationship with the rest of Canada have not simply pointed to the American model, where each state is a separate sovereign and the federal government is separate but geographically coincidental. Presumably, Quebec would want to follow a different division of authority.
Contrast that model with the current Canadian model, where we have one sovereign in the Crown, and the provincial powers devolve from the federal.
Am I wrong?
Posted by: Paul | May 4, 2005 3:17:38 PM
Yes, Paul, sadly you are.
The provinces are sovereign powers. That's why they have direct representation from the Crown i.e. Lieutenant Governors. Tommorrow morning Dalton McGuinty could wipe Toronto out of existence and merge it with Mississauga, or Sudbury, or Windsor, and be perfectly within his legal rights (or more accurately those of the provincial assembly). Paul Martin, with or without a majority, could never remove PEI's right to self-government.
That said, the Canadian federal government has what is sometimes called residual powers. Sir John A. wanted to make the provinces little more than glorified municipalities. To this end he made sure that any power not specifically given to the provinces was vested in the federal government. This is the opposite of the American system where the Constitution vests residuals powers in the states and the people.
As for Quebec, they don't want to be state like any other. This has little to do with real political power. It's a state of mind. Nationalism is about symbolism and emotion, not about cold calculation - not that it doesn't exist among Quebec nationalists. There is nothing we could give to the one third of the province's population that are die hard Quebec nationalists that would satisfy them. They want out.
Quebec has already opted out of the CPP, and pretty much opted out of the Canada Health Act, and sets its own rules on immigration. Quebec is already a kind of super-province with special defacto rights. Tinkering with the constitution won't help.
Posted by: Publius | May 4, 2005 4:33:52 PM
Sorry Publius, I’m confused. You say..
“Sir John A. wanted to make the provinces little more than glorified municipalities. To this end he made sure that any power not specifically given to the provinces was vested in the federal government.”
Then you go on to say..
“Quebec is already a kind of super-province with special defacto rights. Tinkering with the constitution won't help.”
Isn’t that contradictory?
Also the reality is that Health and Education are the big drivers of government (once we settle SSM). Plus we’re headed for more devolution.
I would say Canada is not a “community of communities” it’s simply a –Committee - whose primary function in Ottawa is to overtax and redistribute the loot like Robin Hood.
Posted by: nomdenet | May 5, 2005 9:19:48 AM
No contradiction. Just a lack of clarity on my part. John A wanted to strip the provinces of most of their powers. He failed. Thanks in part to a succession of Quebec governments and one rather squat Liberal Premier of Ontario named Oliver Mowatt. MacDonald and Mowatt jointly drafted most of the BNA Act.
Mowatt, then, could claim, years later when he became premier in 1872, that he had intended to make the provinces stronger then they actually were in the early 1870s. Mowatt then proceeded to fight something of a battle Royal with MacDonald through various provincial and federal courts, and winding up in Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (the highest legal authority of the British Empire) a few times. Mowatt pretty much won every legal fight as well as the battle of public opinion. He also outlast MacDoanld, staying as Premier until 1896, when he accepted a Senate seat and a Cabinet position in Laurier's first government.
Mowatt made the provinces strong, something he did in league with Quebec premiers like Honore Mercier. MacDonald had hoped in the long run that residual powers - those powers not given specifically to the provinces - would be declared by the courts to be under federal jurisdiction. Like say a securities commission. But the courts interpreted the existing powers of the provinces quite broadly and gave them much of the power over the day to day life of Canadians. The residual powers didn't matter because the courts generally just extended the authority already invested in the provinces.
When a legal scholar joked that Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights (a purely federal act) was great so long as you didn't live in any of the provinces, he had it about right. The real power went to the provinces despite the intentions of Sir John A.
This is one of the ironies of Canadian and American history. The American Constitution sought to make the states strong and the federal government, if not weak, certainly constrained. MacDonald wanted the exact opposite. Seeing the greater power given to the Americans states as one of the causes of the U.S. Civil War (which was ongoing during the Confederation Debates), he wanted to keep the provinces in check.
As to why this happened I can only suggest that it was combination of legal arcana and popular politics. The powers granted to the provinces in 1867 included property, education and, implicitly, health care. That's the bulk of government spending in Canada. In the U.S. the federal government spends proportinately more on health care (compared to the ratio of the two senior levels of government here) as well as far far more on defense.
Also the dynamic of Canadian politics is rather different. Having 10 provinces, of which two have historically constituted the bulk of the population, produces a different dynamic than fifty states, the largest of which consists of only 10% of the population.
An American equivalent of Ontario would consist of California, New York, Texas, Pennslyvania and a collection of smaller states. You get the picture.
As for the Robin Hood committee of Canada, that's about right. Thing is Sir John wouldn't have wanted it that way.
Posted by: Publius | May 5, 2005 10:16:34 AM
