Tag Archives: Québec Society

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How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

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If you’ve been following the news of late, you may be asking yourself just how the PQ got elected back in September. I honestly don’t know with certainty why, but I’m fairly convinced the PQ’s victory is a direct consequence with popular displeasure with the PLQ under Jean Charest. The printemps érable didn’t help Charest either, as police brutality by the SPVM was viewed by the public at large as an extension of a dictatorial and aggressive state. Moreover, sticking his neck out and forming UPAC and the Charbonneau Commission, while ostensibly the right thing to do (and I should point out, Charest is not implicated in the slightest), was political suicide because, frankly, people are so goddamned stupid these days they equate the person calling for an investigation with the person complicit in the crime.

Unless I missed something, Charest hasn’t been implicated, indicted, or in any way involved in the on-going corruption scandals plaguing Montreal’s construction industry, yet was popularly believed to be exceptionally corrupt.

Curious that.

And now, not quite six months after Charest was unceremoniously booted from office by the slimmest of margins, the PQ under Premier Marois isn’t doing much of a better job. In fact I’d argue it’s doing a worse job.

But what’s truly amazing is just how well the PQ is destroying its own credibility. Or at least it seems rather impressive to me.

What preoccupies me is whether the PQ will undermine itself quick enough to provoke a strong public reaction against them, or whether they’ll so masterfully weave bullshit into a cohesive nation-building myth they actually manage to secure enough interest to actually call a referendum on Québec sovereignty (which as you might imagine, could mean just about whatever the fuck you want it to – every single Canadian citizen is 100% sovereign – our Constitution and Charter clearly define our rights and responsibilities, a proper social contract; without handing you bags of money I can’t imagine how much more the PQ plans on making you, me, or any of us for that matter).

So all that said, let’s take a quick gander at how the PQ is undermining itself. If nothing else, hopefully a series of outright idiotic incidents will make the collapse of the separatist movement in Québec a comic affair we’ll all share in laughing about later on.

Oh, and for the record, I’m exceptionally proud of the socially-progressive identity that has been crafted in Québec, particularly over the last fifty years. I believe the elusive Canadian identity can at least in part be found in the culture and society of my home province, whether the SSJB and PQ like it or not.

I’m also seriously thinking about joining both these organizations. The SSJB was once far more ‘federalist’ in political orientation (or at least Canadien Supremacist, if I may coin such a term).

Without further delay…

Step 1: Keep beating a dead horse. Even though support for Québec independence is low and the PQ has a minority government by the slimmest of margins, Premier Marois insists that “just as soon as we have the winning conditions” a referendum (presumably on the future of constitutional relations in Canada, but really, who the fuck knows) will be called and (apparently) Québecois will unanimously support the move for an independent Québec. The more she pushes the illusion of the necessity of Québec independence, the more she defines herself as a one-trick poney, something most Québecois may not approve of – after all, assuming she ever got her way, she hasn’t demonstrated she could lead an independent nation. This is largely because of…

Step 2: Alienating your support base. Such as the once-cohesive student protest movement that actually forced last fall’s election. Cutting $124 million from the post-secondary education budget while also not finding a viable solution to post-secondary education costs to the student is indeed a terrible situation, far worse given that it seemed the Charest administration brought in the tuition hike specifically to avoid the cuts. And what’s really puzzling here is that one would assume a liberal, if not to say progressive political party like the PQ would be in favour of more Keynesian economic theories, including managed deficit spending, as a necessary evil so as to maintain open access to high-quality universities. But no, not only are there cuts, now it seems as though there isn’t even a guarantee of possible future re-investment in education. If there’s anything a society should go into debt for, it’s without question the education of the next generations.

Which brings us back to alienating the base – it doesn’t help Marois much when Parizeau gets on her case for poor economic judgement. Remember, Parizeau is the economist who was supposed to have all the answers to the numerous questions about how Québec’s economy would work if we were independent. For the over 40 crowd, he may be seen as more ‘with it’ than the current administration, which is kind of all over the map. This can be illustrated by…

Step 3: Public demonstrations of disinterest, disengagement or flat-out pandering. Too much to list here, but I’m suspicious when cabinet ministers suddenly find money – $46 million to be precise – despite announced cuts and active cuts in related sectors, in this case education and healthcare.

Then there are the overt displays the PQ quite simply isn’t serious about governing. There’s no excuse for sleeping through Question Period. If you’re too sauced to pay attention, don’t bother showing up, but let’s be real, if you can’t manage to stay awake during what typically amounts to be a combative, argumentative session of political theatrics, you might not be cut out for the job. If Daniel Breton has trouble sleeping (as I and countless hundreds of thousands of other Canadians do), then he should see a doctor, take sleeping pills at night and coffee during the day.

There’s really no excuse for ‘being confused’ about simple government procedure and knowing how you want to vote on a given issue, yet somehow the PQ managed to vote against its own interests and support the opposition party’s motion which heavily criticized the PQ’s planned mega cuts to education. Being on the verge of tears in front of the TV cameras didn’t boost my confidence in our elected officials much either.

And then of course there was the ill-conceived trip to Scotland and, worse still, the failure to adequately prepare to be interviewed by the British Press. As you might expect, what Ms. Marois wanted to say and what was not the same thing, and though some logical or rhetorical incongruities may happen from time to time when discussing or debating large complex issues, the simple fact remains that Ms. Marois did not explain herself properly in either language – and if she had chosen to answer in French, for clarity’s sake, I’m certain the BBC could scare up a translator. Or perhaps Ms. Marois is so caught up in PQ rhetoric she actually believes Anglophones are insulted by French.

Qu̩bec independence is a joke Рis it any wonder Alex Salmond tried to keep his distance, and opted for closed door meetings?

She’d be wise to watch out for strange bedfellows. Though the Scotland trip was poorly received and French Socialist President (and Malian saviour) François Hollande has already stated he doesn’t want to get involved, there are plenty of rightwing and far-right nationalist parties throughout Europe who share, at least on paper, a desire for greater independence for their ‘oppressed and marginalized peoples’. In Flanders, a right-wing party that seeks to break up Belgium once and for all. Elsewhere in Europe, nationalism has far more sinister tones and implications.

I suppose I’ve made some kind of a point, but I need to end on this:

How much is this actually costing us? Not just in terms of tax revenue wasted pursuing this pie-in-the-sky ‘goal’, but in terms of lost morale, population decline (whether as a result of putting off starting a family because of politics or losing your progeny to an unstable and stifling socio-political climate), diminishing investor confidence?

We’ve been dealing with this go-nowhere issue for more than 30 years (it’s been at least that long since anything of consequence actually happened, and there I would point to repatriation of the Constitution, the Federalist victory in 1980, Bill 101 and the dual Charters of rights, liberties etc as the major successes to come out of that era. We’ve ben waiting for the other shoe to drop for a long time.

And it’s gotten us nothing and brought us nowhere. Contemporary PQ politicians don’t even bother laying out a plan, presenting their transition procedure, or even philosophize about how we’d carve out our academic and intellectual sovereignty in a world that’s getting smaller with every great technological leap forward.

To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, we’re driving towards the future, but our leaders (if you can call them that) keep their gaze uniquely focused on the rear-view mirror.

Do we let this go in the name of political correctness, or as a result of catastrophic laziness, until we don’t recognize you we are nor what we’ve made of ourselves?

Does a nation have to grow up?

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Fortune Favours the Bold

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Belmont School demolition – 1978 (Rue Guy & Wrexham)

Recent statements by PQ education minister Marie Malavoy concerning the elimination of basic English language instruction and the introduction of ‘Sovereignist education’ are cause for concern. It is yet another example of the PQ’s reckless handling of the public education system and a threat to social stability of the Francophone community. What the PQ is proposing is a twisted blend of propaganda, revisionist history and enforced monolingualism. They are proposing entrenched, self-perpetuating racial tension, inter-ethnic conflict and general ignorance.

Québec has a high dropout rate. There’s no denying it. Among Francophone males, the rate is nearly 40%, one of the highest rates in the developed world. This is a self-perpetuating national tragedy, one that no doubt plays a central role in our province’s declining fortunes and the increasing influence of criminal gangs and organized crime. Broad, inter-generational ignorance is a social pathology, and it is a perpetual failure of our province’s many governments that this situation isn’t under control, to say nothing of eliminating it outright. How can we dare to be so lackadaisical?

How are we to compete on an international level, perhaps even as an independent country, when 30% of province’s early twenty-somethings are without a secondary education? What future do they have in an information and intellectual-capital economy?

Malavoy’s desire to use the public school system as a political tool to teach a highly-inaccurate revisionist history will go over the heads of young male students like a lead balloon, to say nothing of the well-documented and excessive punishments handed down on students in the French schools caught speaking English. It’s idiotic to think overt anti-intellectualism, such as this is, will stimulate interest in academic pursuits. This is purposely divisive and out of touch with our contemporary needs.

Policies such as these only serve to perpetuate the following negative trends: Francophones of the middle and upper classes continue moving their children into private schools (where their children will likely learn both languages and be exposed to many cultures) while the poor are left with overcrowded schools with government-sponsored monolingualism and nationalist propaganda. I attended a conference on inter-culturalism back in March where one of the speakers, a local journalist and head of a non-profit organization, gave a talk on the issue of increasingly racial intolerance in Francophone public schools. No kidding! Immigrant kids are being told a) not to speak English and b) that Franco-Québécois society and culture is threatened by immigration, foreigners and people who don’t speak French as a primary language. Is it any wonder the dropout rate is so high?

As though limiting CEGEP access for Francophones and Allophones wasn’t ridiculous enough, now this. Sometimes I really wonder what these apparent ‘leaders’ are thinking. How the hell does this help anything?

It saddens me that the PQ cannot evolve past a Balkan mentality concerning cultural and national interests. It is an unnecessary siege mentality, one designed for short-term electoral gains while leaving long-term uncertainty and instability. It’s dangerous.

This does not affect the Anglophone community of Québec, but it may be very wise to use the opportunity for a potential gain. So that the PQ is hoisted by its own petard.

What if Québec’s Anglophone school boards united (in a sense) and decided that all students would henceforth graduate as fully bilingual? A simple extension of existing French-immersion programs to the entirety of the system; a requirement, a badge of honour, for the children of the Anglo-Québécois community.

If we did so, would this not mean Francophone and Allophone students would be able to attend ‘Anglophone’ schools? If a program were created to ensure 100% fluency in two languages for all students, surely many Francophone parents would be free to send their children to ‘Anglo’ schools – Anglo would, in the future, be a misnomer.

It is entirely possible to teach both English and French beginning at a very early age, and the earlier we start, the higher the likelihood of total fluency in adulthood. The more a child is presented with opportunities to speak both, the more they will. Bilingualism broadens horizons and sews the seeds of self-criticality – imagine the potential of a future generation of school children fluent in English and French? When every Québécois could choose to be a translator as a ‘fallback’ job post-graduation? Imagine the economic potential of a province educated to that degree?

It can be done, and our community can help make it happen.

If we demonstrate that we can achieve full bilingualism within our own community, we may be able to relieve the French school boards of one of their more pressing problems – overcrowding. Further, it would serve to help re-populate Anglophone schools on the verge of collapse due to low enrolment, while further potentially luring more middle and upper-class students back into the public system.

But a project such as this is a big undertaking and requires a concerted effort to realize it. It would require bravery and determination from our community. It would necessitate we speak up.

Our community’s future in Québec is dependent on cultural integration. We must show that we can survive and prosper as a community of bilingual or multi-lingual, multi-cultural “Anglophones”, and as such we demonstrate how cultural integration is an essential element of our province’s well-being and progress. We must prove beyond a doubt to the Francophone majority that dual-language fluency (with a social and cultural preference for French) is the best way to improve our economic potential and secure the status of the French language forevermore.

Integration is the key, the core of our being, and we must stand united and demand ever greater degrees of integration amongst the many diverse peoples of this province. We must ensure that our shared values are translatable, relatable, beyond mere ethno-nationalism.

It’s for this reason that we have a responsibility to try and resist and/or mitigate the potential damage done by Ms. Malavoy’s unsettling plan.

Cultural commentary, History and Culture, Political commentary, Québec sovereignty, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist, Sovereign Socialist featured article

My Country Isn’t An Accident

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I wrote this a couple weeks ago for Forget the Box, an excellent local blog you should definitely check out.

I was asked to write a piece on the significance of Pauline Marois’ decision to remove the Canadian flag from her cabinet’s swearing-in ceremony. I see no significance in the decision, other than something I’ve grown accustomed to seeing in this province for all the many years I’ve lived here, for all the epochs and eras of our collective history I’ve studied.

What significance? It’s posturing. It’s theatre. It’s about as much as the péquistes can do at the moment to distance themselves from Canada. That may be significant in itself, but I can’t help but feel it’s little more than noise.

We forget that this was not a permanent move (apparently the flag was returned the next day), it’s been done before by other péquiste governments in the past, and they still had to swear allegiance to the Queen with hand set upon the Bible.

It’s these last two that struck me as odd, as somewhat scandal-worthy.

Haven’t we evolved past this? What was 1982 all about if the apparently secular and sovereign Premier of Québec still has to swear allegiance to an old woman in a foreign country, by placing her hand on an at best incomplete and heavily politicized book of history and moral judgments mixed in with outright nonsense?

I’m a federalist to the core and I wouldn’t do either. But I wouldn’t do either because I’m a federalist to the core. The Constitution and Charter of Canada and the political theory that led to their creation grant me greater freedoms than any other political theory developed in this country’s history, and the fault of those other theories lay chiefly in their incompatibility with the profoundly Canadian values of restraint, complexity and individual sovereignty.

A federalist has no need for a foreign monarch, let alone one for whom allegiance must be sworn. I have nothing in common with royalty, and as a Canadian I have the individual sovereignty necessary to reject allegiance to anyone, especially foreign monarchs. Why? Because Canada is a collection of sovereign individuals entered into a social contract that seeks to support and sustain our collective sovereignty. That’s what 1982 was all about…

Moreover, my Charter Rights protect my right to exist in a default secular society, where government is the great equalizer because it refrains from any particular religious orientation. I refuse to acknowledge any deity as proof of my ability to govern and conduct myself appropriately. This ability lies within me. Official state secularism is the only way to go. Québec was once leading the pack in this respect, but in this neo-evangelical era of ours, we too have fallen victim of tying culture too closely to an absurd notion of ‘oppressed Christianity’. In a superhuman effort of logical gymnastics, the new saviour of Québec’s culture endeavours to create a secular state not by promoting the advantages of atheism, but once again by lashing out at minority groups in such a manner so as to prevent better societal integration. How many orthodox Jews or Muslims do you see working at the SAQ, SAAQ or the Revenue Québec office? Do you think they’ll feel more or less welcome to apply for such jobs when an ‘officially secular’ province decides a yarmulke or hijab is an affront to our collective values?

But an illuminated Roman-era torture device atop a mountain in our country’s second-to-none city that can be programmed to flash bleu, blanc et rouge during the playoffs? Well – that’s just a part of our heritage…

The symbols of the most oppressive and destructive forces in our province, nation and country’s history – British Imperialism and the Catholic Church – are the very emblems that Pauline Marois still feels obliged to supplicate herself before. They are, apparently, those with which we cannot do without.

I can do without them, and so can you.

Let’s not forget who else in Canada has been pushing an antiquated and historically inaccurate vision of our collective heritage. The Tories have been taking down great oeuvres of Canadian folk art and replacing them with photographs of the Queen throughout our federal buildings for some time. We close down embassies and consulates in places where they’re needed most, but re-decorate those in the upscale neighbourhoods of our richest allies with the symbols of an empire that no longer exists in any tangible sense. We adorn our foreign service with the symbols of something we’re not; as if to prove our legitimacy by resurrecting the notion we’re an extension of Old Europe. And recent news is out that Canada and the United Kingdom will have joint embassies, ostensibly to save money. Are we soon to share a common military and foreign policy? This is federal sovereignty? Moreover, Stephen Harper hasn’t delivered on a single major military acquisition promised during various election campaigns, but he made damn sure to resurrect the royal prefix of our armed services! And while we continue scratching our heads over the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Libyan Mission, Harper and his crew of Bay Street marketing gurus shamelessly over-embellish the significance of the War of 1812 in a thoroughly misguided effort to establish Canada’s ‘warrior-society’ street cred.

Its all so manipulative and cynical, inappropriately Republican-esque, an awful homage to the most profane depths of American populist politics. Marois and Harper, unlikely peas in a pod, both taking lessons from the Tea Party in an albeit slightly more nuanced fashion. Both pushers of a twisted and delusional pop-nationalism where societal sovereignty is tied to imported notions of legitimacy. How pathetically unpatriotic.

I refuse to believe, for even a fraction of a second, that my country is an accident. That our society and culture are mere imports of something broken from beyond. That we must supplicate ourselves before foreign and antiquated means of social and economic control that appeal to our basest instincts as a society. We forget that monarchy and religion are intimately associated, that nobility is demagoguery, and that though both played a role in our creation, we also decided to reject them. Our rejection of that which created us, in favour of homegrown solutions, marked the first step in our evolution.

We are a Métis society. We are the integration of the Americas, Imperial Europe and the shared socio-democratic value that is openness to immigration that has characterized the nation since its inception. Our country has Founding Fathers, and many of their ideas, their values, form the backbone of Canadian social-liberalism today. Our nation has been evolving for one hundred forty-five years, and neither Pauline Marois nor Stephen Harper wishes to acknowledge it. They both fear the socio-political identity that developed out of the ashes of the Rebellions of 1837 and led quite directly to Confederation, and then for another hundred thirty-five or so years after that. They turn their back on our own symbols of strength through unity for the preference of symbols of dominion-from-afar and spiritual bondage.

It seems as though the evolution of my people, my nation, has been on hiatus ever since Stephen Harper took office. He, much like Pauline Marois, is blind to the truth that is Canada, to the greatness we could achieve as a more unified nation. Each wants to further decentralize and marginalize the legacy of Canadian federalism, and each are going about it in their own way. Harper hacks away at the budgets and scope of the census, scientific and ecological research and the national archives, while Marois proceeds to govern by decree without any debate. Neither care much for Canadian democracy, they view it as an inconvenience to accomplishing their own myopic goals.

And we let them get away with it, because we falsely believe we are nothing but an accident.

Cultural commentary, History and Culture, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Québec sovereignty, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist, Sovereign Socialist featured article

Upon Reflection…

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As you might imagine I was pretty shaken up over what happened on September 4th.

The PQ victory doesn’t bother me, Richard Bain does.

Watching it all unfold live on Radio-Canada with Patrice Roy completely flabbergasted at what he had just witnessed, the near instantaneous transition of a boisterous crowd into total silence and the steady stream of updates over Twitter all packed a wallop I hadn’t expected to experience. I felt ill the next day at work. It was awful. Inasmuch as I love the adrenaline rush of watching news happen live in real time, in retrospect the sensory overload and crush of negative emotions was more than I was ready for. It really, truly hurt to see such things happen, in my city, my province.

I find it odd that I never expected it – this city has a bad history when it comes to mad gunmen. Perhaps it is the tradeoff for having such a generally low homicide rate – crime here isn’t rampant, it’s momentarily terrifying, and maybe that keeps us in check.

You can tell I didn’t grow up to experience the October Crisis. The Oka Crisis may have been on Mars for all I knew as a five year old.

This was new in a very precise way – an Anglophone shot two men in an attempt to assassinate the duly elected premier of Québec and possibly kill many PQ supporters and a good chunk of the organization in one swift blow. His motivation is not know – he may be a paranoid schizophrenic, a psychopath, or just a rage-head fuming over rejected plans to enlarge his hunting resort. But regardless of his mental state, he thought he was striking the first blow in an armed insurrection of Anglophones in Québec. To what end is unclear. What he thought he’d accomplish still a mystery.

I cringe thinking about what might have been. From the looks of things Denis Blanchette and Dave Courage, lighting technicians enjoying a smoke behind Metropolis, were in the wrong place at the right time. It seems as though they confronted Bain before he had a chance to get into the venue. His Chinese knock-off AK-47 jammed after a single round was fired, but it would tear through them both. Despite having other weapons in his nearby van, not to mention a pistol in his bathrobe, Bain retreated some to light the rear of the venue on fire. He would be subdued by Montréal police shortly thereafter. It could have been so much worse. Blanchette and Courage prevented a disaster of mind-boggling proportions.

There’s no question they are heroes in my book, but heroes through victimhood.

If it seems odd to you that I’m publishing this now, perhaps that says something too. I find it incredible how quickly we move on from something like this. Then again, what are we to do but move on. All I can hope is that we will all think before speaking in the future, and ask ourselves whether or not we’re individually stocking the fires of inter-ethnic discord and aggressive rhetoric, and what we can do as individuals to mitigate this problem. Violent language is far from harmless, as we saw with this latest electoral campaign. The campaign was vicious and people were too. And look what happened.

We can’t ever forget that we exist in a society, and we’re a society that swore off violence many years ago. Our differences, our problems – these will all be solved with the law we have.

After-thought: if you see any of that awful ‘Free Bain’ graffiti, write ‘Bath Libre’ directly underneath it. I will.

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Yay?

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Francoise David & Amir Khadir of Québec Solidaire

So was this Québec’s “everybody wins” election?

Charest is out and free to face the Charbonneau Commission.

Pauline Marois has become premier, a job she arguably deserves if for no other reason than her tenacity at retaining her seat and knowing her support base. Québec’s first female premier, a mere sixty-eight years after women gained suffrage in the province. I have sincere reservations about Ms. Marois, but she is now premier, and what got her to power may be very different from what gets her over the many coming hurdles. Among others, the Spring budget. As it stands, the PQ will not be able to pass a budget by itself. It will have to reach out to the Liberals and/or Caquistes for support. No easy task, but if she is as devoted to the prosperity and progress of this province as she says she is, she will gladly reach out to ideological opponents and govern by consensus. If not, we’ll be reminded of why there were so many defections but a few months ago, and in seven months will be right back where we started, another election.

Francois Legault holds the balance of power and performed admirably for his first effort leading his own party. He was gracious in defeat and a class act all the way. It’s not impossible to make the breakthrough he did, but rare, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the CAQ comes together in the National Assembly.


Pauline Marois, the premier-elect of the Province of Québec

The students have an elected representative in Leo Bureau-Blouin.

Amir Khadir and Francoise David have united two neighbouring ridings and will stand together in the National Assembly.

And lastly, the QLP did not implode, and retains the respect of official opposition. A good number of former cabinet ministers will keep their seats and the rump party has held a good portion of its territory and big name candidates. For Québec’s centrist-federalist middle-class, I can imagine this will be quite a relief.

As of the time of this writing, the typically firebrand Jean-Francois Lisée is dodging direct questions about if and when a referendum question will be called. He explains that the PQ will not impose a referendum. For the province’s federalists, perennially trying to explain the merits of Canada and cultural integration to people convinced they’ve been robbed of Shangri-La, there is comfort in knowing the party is stronger than its leader, and can survive without populism.


Jean Charest of the Québec Liberal Party

Charest will either choose to stay on to fight again, or retire in ignominy. Who knows what his fate is at this point. But after what he’s had to deal with in the last two years, and the last few months in particular, he may very well likely wash his hands of what can only be described as the least describable job in the world. Few Québec premiers get the chance to go out in any other way than ignominiously.

The biggest obstacle to moving forward has been removed without leaving a cataclysm in his wake. The first test will be how Pauline Marois deals with the inevitable – the difficulties of adequately funding our massive public post-secondary education system, not to mention striking a balance with all student groups. The election of Bureau-Blouin can be a major tactical advantage, and a successful resolution could be an easy quick win for the PQ. I’m not so optimistic however, as I believe she may in fact have to retract on several promises. We’ll have to see.

The early word is a participation rate in excess of 70%, not great, but not dreadful as in the case of most recent federal elections.

In broad terms we had a managed shake-up. All the necessary changes occurred, the autocracy of populism & majority government momentarily undone while retaining stability and all the necessary checks and balances. There’s no reason for any kind economic panic, as we all know this may be very short lived.

Prime Minister Harper acted quickly and congratulated Ms. Marois’ victory while reminding the Québecois now’s not the time to get into a constitutional mess. Sometimes I wonder how he opens a chess match…


Francois Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec

Independence was polling at the bottom of the charts despite the apparent PQ victory but a few days ago and from the talk of the party’s big mouths, restraint seems to be the order of the day.

The next seven months will doubtless be very interesting.

And tomorrow we can all go back to enjoying life and ignoring politics…

Cultural commentary, Economic commentary, Political commentary, Québec sovereignty, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist

An Ironic Coup: Rejecting the Omnibus Crime Bill is your Civic Responsibility

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This article was originally published by the Forget the Box news collective a few days ago.

If there’s one thing I love, its getting caught off-guard and surprised, especially when it comes to Canadian politics, which I generally find infuriating, pedantic and riddled with pseudo-scandals. The events of the past couple weeks, instigated by the Québec justice minister and subsequently supported by the Premiers of Ontario and British Columbia with regards to the Tory ‘omnibus crime bill’ have restored my faith and hope in Canada, if for no other reason than it presents real leverage against Stephen Harper and once again places Québec in the driver’s seat with regards to social policy.

Suffice to say, I’m not a fan of provincialism in general, and I feel that part of the source cause of societal imbalances within Canada has to do with the fact that key elements of our social-state are devolved to provincial administration. Thus, there are inequities within Canadian provinces concerning the quality of healthcare and education. That said the provinces are not independent in any real sense, unless they choose to act in solidarity with one another; at that point, the provinces can wield a veto power even an autocrat like Stephen Harper cannot deny. This particular federalism, which allowed for our Charter and Constitution inasmuch as it prevented its final ratification, is as Canadian as beavers (or polar bears if Senator Nicole “has-too-much-time-on-her-hands” Eaton has her way). And whether you like it or not, Québec’s liberal government has just handed the ‘minority-majority’ Harper Government its first major setback. The provinces will not foot the bill of new prison construction nor prosecutions under an amended criminal code. Without the support of the provincial governments, the Tory Crime Bill may amount to little more than a lot of noise. We should be so fortunate.

What I find particularly interesting with this development is just how quickly an ‘unholy alliance’ was formed between Québec, B.C. and Ontario. Three provinces that hold the bulk of the population, the major cities, the key industries not to mention the overwhelming bulk of ‘multicultural Canada’, modern and internationalist in outlook and disposition. Inasmuch as Québec proclaimed its conciliatory federalism via the Orange Crush, so too have these key provinces demonstrated that they would rather not sell their souls and turn their backs on progressivism, nor on Canada.

Is it me or does it seem some important decisions in this nation have been made ‘for the common good’ from some of our great pillars of individualism? By hook or by crook we will find the bonds that unite us, and if it requires an autocrat to unite Canadians in opposition, so be it. Eventually my hope is that Canadians recognize culture should not be confused with nationalism, that society requires socialism, and that a pan-nationalist social-democratic state is stronger because precise legal concepts are used to define the values, rights and responsibilities of the citizen. Our system is deficient, and I’ve often ridiculed it because it seems designed to be inefficient. The funny thing is that people like Stephen Harper, inasmuch as the Bloc Québecois and Reform Party, came to prominence because of the perception of too much federal power. And today, it comes full-circle, and Canadians can stand proud knowing that when it comes to efforts to undermine our progressivism and the rule of demonstrable, factual evidence, no autocrat can resist the combined power of the provincial governments. What is brilliant is that it unites three embattled and only moderately popular premiers on a key social policy issue – there isn’t much Harper nor the CPC can do at this point aside from engaging in election styled propaganda and smear campaigns. It would be futile.

Today I feel slightly re-energized. The doomsday scenario of an unbridled and potentially mentally unstable Prime Minister running amok tearing out the guts of our society in an attempt to redress a mass inferiority complex seems mitigated by the collaborative strength that I feel best describes Canada. It’s an affirmation of some core beliefs in a time of malaise, uncertainty and instability. And so now the people must rally behind the progressive provincial governments and secure the change we desire. There are five provinces with Liberal or NDP governments and two with ‘Red Tory’ Progressive Conservative leaders – something tells me they may be able to define a better social agenda through consensus than a ‘majority’ government elected by a scant 24% of the eligible voters.

It’s time the power was shifted back to the people – the current situation is no longer tenable. If this means the people rally behind their provincial governments to cooperate with one another to create a more perfect state, then let it be. It is entirely appropriate for Québec to lead this effort against the Harper dictatorship, and this is only further demonstrated by the immediate support of Ontario and BC. In a land ripe in paradox, contrasts and societal and political absurdities, it was very refreshing indeed to see the eccentricities of our system providing the people with direct and effective means to redirect our nation back onto the road towards peace, prosperity and progressivism.