The European Union and Sovereignist Politics in Quebec: Who Forgot Their Glasses?

Abstract

You know, at fifty plus one, I was not about to let go the country, Chretien himself later reflected. You don't break your country because one guy forgets his glasses at home. (2) Introduction While the last provincial election in Quebec ushered the Liberal party to power, the defeated Parti Quebecois (PQ) is already debating a new referendum on Quebec sovereignty should it be reelected. The question that has arisen subsequently to the last referendum in 1995 was what implications Quebec sovereignty would have for Canada-U.S. relations. (3) Yet, in our view, reflecting upon this relationship, in case of a yes vote, depends upon the political and institutional arrangement of a Canada-Quebec union. Since the referendum campaign of 1995, the PQ rallied its members around positions favored by leaders Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry, chiefly among them the idea of Quebec sovereignty combined with an economic and political partnership with Canada. Although not endorsed by some prominent hard-liners such as former Premier Jacques Parizeau, the template for the PQ leadership was always the European Union (E.U.). (4) In this paper, we contrast the claims and aspirations of the PQ with the institutional and policy realities of the European Union. We question that the latter would be satisfactory from the vantage point of the PQ by comparing the workings of the E.U. to the discourse of the PQ on the need for sovereignty. The epigraph purports former Prime Minister Jean Chretien's perspective on the eve of the narrowly defeated 1995 referendum. In analogy, we will argue that sovereignists have a rather blurred reading of the European Union. The paper is divided into four sections. The first one delineates the explicit references of sovereignists to the European Union, while the second section compares PQ ideas about sovereign statehood, both in its internal and external dimensions, to the situation of E.U. member states. The third section examines how the partnership elements of the Union taken up by the PQ (single market, monetary union, and institutions) work in Europe, and what the position of a sovereign Quebec would be with similar arrangements within Canada. The fourth section concludes by assessing whether or not Quebec sovereignty based on the E.U. model would have any implications for Canada-U.S. relations. Sovereignist Views of the E.U. While the PQ's model of a sovereign Quebec is ambiguous, it does have the European Union as its source of inspiration. This was made very clear in the year before the 1995 referendum. Bernard Landry, then Minister for International Relations, suggested that the sovereignist project, with its ideas of common currency, common institutions, and free movement of goods and people, was almost identical to the preamble of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. (5) During the referendum campaign, then Bloc Quebecois (BQ) leader Lucien Bouchard pushed the idea of partnership with Canada in reference to the E.U. (6) More specifically, it was the Maastricht Treaty which was hailed as a model for a future Quebec-Canada partnership. (7) Jacques Parizeau, whose preference was always to campaign simply on sovereignty, officially supported Bouchard's partnership proposal, even stating that si une entente du type de Maastricht nous etait offerte, nous sauterions dessus. (8) Critics could charge that the references to the European Union by sovereignist leaders during the 1995 referendum campaign were perhaps mere party-political rhetoric to woe soft separatists into the PQ camp. However, the Draft Treaty of Partnership between Canada and produced that year by PQ MNA (9) Daniel Turp and presented to the Commission on the Political and Constitutional Future of Quebec, shows quite clearly the influence of the European model on sovereignist thinkers. Although the E.U. itself is not mentioned in the document, many of its provisions are taken directly out of its treaties. …