Reflections on Canada in the Year 1994

Abstract

Canada is profoundly at risk, most importantly because of English Canada/Quebec conundrum. But risk does not just derive from that -- this is not the Quebec problem, this is the Canada problem. I was reminded of just how bad things have become when our federal transportation minister announced in Calgary Herald that the National Dream is dead as he warned Canadians that $1.6 billion we spend each year on transportation subsidies -- St. Lawrence Seaway, passenger train service, Crow Benefit, ferries of Atlantic Canada, Coast Guard -- are on chopping block.(f.1) If we end our national policy of a forced and subsidized east - west transportation system, and substitute free market and private enterprise, another stake will have been driven into heart of Canada's federal system.What is most deeply disturbing is that English Canadians have not yet awakened -- though we are on edge of abyss -- have not yet realized enormity of risk facing Canada. Indeed, mood abroad in English Canada is so cavalier that I fear we may stumble thoughtlessly through a series of crises and urgent events, and suddenly wake up to find that this great federal experiment we call Canada has failed before its 130th anniversary. And it will have been a failure that could have been averted had we had sufficient political will to concede, compromise, and innovate.Quebec and English CanadaI am one of large block of English Canadians -- ranging from 30 to 40 percent depending on which Gallup Poll in which year you consult -- who believe that only road out of English Canada/Quebec impasse is to negotiate for Quebec in our constitution.(f.2) I have believed this for over 30 years, ever since beginning of Quiet Revolution. Indeed, since emergence of Rassemblement pour l'Independance Nationale in 1966 Quebec election I have been convinced that Quebecois have presented English Canada with a starkly clear option: special status or sovereignty.(f.3) Ironically, choices amount to same thing in final analysis -- sovereignty will inevitably lead to some form of intimate association not dissimilar from European Union (unless English Canada goes completely mad). What English Canada faces, then, is a choice between a very long and messy road to special status in some form of negotiated sovereignty - association on one hand, and shorter road to same reality via negotiation leading to harmonious and voluntary constitutional change, on other.But despite fact that at 30 or 40 percent we special status advocates are a significant minority in English Canada, really on threshold of majority status with right leadership and commitment, rest of English Canada, most importantly all our prominent political leaders, have exhibited a growing cranky unwillingness even to discuss option. And in Quebec, strong nationalists and committed separatists insist that it is too late, that only Quebec sovereignty will now suffice to realize that nation's dreams and securities. Hence, Quebecois today face narrow and hard choices -- to accept federalism as it has evolved or to choose sovereignty. One need not belabour history's lesson that presenting an aggrieved population such a zero - sum choice can be very, very risky.Political analysts and commentators appear profoundly puzzled as they try to understand and explain why Canadian politics and political debates have reached such a parlous state: dominated by business lobby; an absence among established political and economic elites of a commitment to project of Canadian federation's survival; a separatist party as Official Opposition in Ottawa;(f.4) a western - based protest party of extreme right funded by oil and natural resource interests as only other contender for status of Official Opposition;(f. …