Conrad Black: To Hold Canada Together, Ottawa Needs a Daring Strategy

Commentary

Waving the maple leaf flag around with a lot of Demosthenean hyperbole about defending Canada from imminent American aggression—all electoral campaigning a sophisticated electorate would have seen through—Mark Carney won on a platform that is still officially committed to escalation of Justin Trudeau’s outright declaration of war on the petroleum industry.

The result is that the polls indicate that approximately 30 percent of Albertans would vote to secede from Canada now. This number might presumably decline if Carney, who has been a net-zero emissions champion for decades and partially transformed the Bank of England into a formally dressed flying column of the old Greenpeace movement, reads the polls carefully and informs the climatological faction in his entourage that the climate war they all dreamed of is coming, but not now.

At the same time, Trudeau’s dilution of the Canadian state and promotion of woke absurdity reduced French Quebec’s always tenuous regard for the federal government, which the Quebec nationalists have generally considered a mere buffer zone between the repressed Quebec state and the United States of America. The woke self-abasement of Canada achieved its apogee by lowering its flag everywhere, including embassies abroad, in respect for the supposed negligent deaths of hundreds of native schoolchildren who were deemed to have disappeared and were surreptitiously buried more than 100 years ago, none of which seems actually to have happened.

The extent of the self-inflicted humiliation of Canada on federalist credibility should not be underestimated. The progress of the sovereignty movement in Quebec has doubtless been encouraged by the spectre of an American takeover of Canada, which would be the end of any special status for the French language, as well as by the dismally uncompetitive economic performance of Canada in the last 10 years.

A consequence of all these developments is that in Quebec it appears that approximately 50 percent of the population desire an independent country. The rule of thumb in Quebec politics for almost a century has been that one-fifth of the electorate was non-French and overwhelmingly federalist, and one-fifth was French but made up of those for whom federalism was attractive, and they were unconditional supporters of Quebec remaining in Canada. Another fifth were conservatives who were also anti-separatist, though they were often quite nationalist and supported nationalist measures short of separatism; another fifth were nationalists who latterly have been generally strenuous separatists; and the last 20 percent was a floating vote that could go anywhere.

The basic arithmetic provided a substantial advantage to the federalist side. This held in the 1980 referendum when the first two groups and half of the next two groups gave the anti-independence side 60 percent of the vote, approximately an even break of French-speaking Quebecers. By 1995 it had become much closer, and the federalists retained the first two groups and about one-half of the conservatives, for even splits of the total and an approximately 60 percent separatist vote amongst French Quebecers. It must be remembered that the Parti Québecois’ questions in both referendums were proposals for sovereignty with continued comprehensive association with Canada, and were effectively invitations to Quebecers to eat their cake and still have it in front of them.

The latest polls now indicate that the unambiguous separatist vote is approximately 43 percent of the population; a fairly clear federalist option seems to have the support of 38 percent of the population, and the balance is unclear. These are the best deductions that can be made on a clear independence vote when the Parti Québecois has 34 percent, the Liberal Party has 28 percent, Coalition Avenir Québec has 17 percent, and 13 percent for the Quebec Conservatives (who last got a significant vote in a Quebec election in 1931 when they were led by eight-term Montreal Mayor Camillien Houde). Approximately 9 percent of Quebecers declare themselves for Québec Solidaire, a party of such local enthusiasm that it wishes to secede retroactively.

If these results were confirmed in a Quebec general election, the separatist Parti Québecois would have 75 legislators to 38 Liberals, seven Conservatives, and five for Québec Solidaire. The present two-term government and its Coalition Avenir Québec party would vanish from the National Assembly.

If the federal government does not retreat on its war against the petroleum industry, Alberta would be perfectly entitled to vote for independence, which would in fact be a vote for secession from Canada and application for entry to the United States. Its entry would be accepted, and the United States would be fortunate to have such a splendid jurisdiction and would treat it better than Canada has (and not pillage it for equalization payments for quasi-separatist Quebec). If any such thing happened, Quebec would declare its independence within a few months. If Quebec voted for independence before Albertans were consulted on their views, and the results were close to what polls now indicate, this would encourage Alberta to move along parallel lines.

It may be that the principal policymakers in Ottawa are preparing a daring and imaginative counter-strategy in defence of federalism. If so, they are showing unusual discretion. If they are not, Canada is in danger.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.