Hijacking a Policy? Assessing Quebec's “Undue” Influence on Canada's Afghan Policy

Abstract

This article attempts to counter the conventional wisdom surrounding Quebec's “undue” influence on Canada's international security policy. Focusing on the war in Afghanistan, it argues that this influence is substantially exaggerated and that if Quebec's distinct attitudes have had an influence on Canada's Afghan policy, they have actually contributed to strengthening rather than hampering its legitimacy. The article is divided into three parts. The first examines the long-standing debate surrounding Quebec's alleged “undue” influence on Canadian foreign and defense policy. It highlights that scapegoating Quebecers for making Canada's security policies less forceful tends to ignore the lack of public support elsewhere in Canada and thus marginalizes the policy responsiveness issue in Canadian foreign policy. The second part of the article maps and discusses Canadians' support and opposition toward their country's participation in the war in Afghanistan. It calls into question the existence of “two solitudes” as well as nuancing the common views pertaining to attitudes in Quebec. The third assesses the federal government's policy responsiveness toward Quebec's elite and popular opinion. It focuses on Harper's two principal decisions – the extension of the mission to February 2009 and later to December 2011 – while it considers Quebec's opinion in terms of public opinion polls, editorials in La Presse and Le Devoir, and political representation through the Bloc Québécois in the House of Commons. It shows that if Quebecers influence Canada's Afghan policy, they do so only because of ill-informed decision-makers convinced of the existence of a fictional distinct and pacifist Quebec.