Crisis continues
Most French-speakers voted for sovereignty in the recent referendum. They were defeated. As Michel Lafitte reports from Montreal, the gap between Quebeckers and English Canadians IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS OF THE CAMPAIGN, QUEBEC'S bourgeois-nationalist leaders shifted their discourse towards demagogy, populism, and criticism of neo-liberalism. Meanwhile, Canadian-federalist forces organised an unprecedented mobilisation of English-Canadian chauvinism. When the referendum campaign started in September, the main Canadian capitalist forces, their federal government, and all of English Canada's political forces and media were convinced that the sovereignty option would be defeated easily, by at least 60% of Quebec voters. At the time, this seemed the most likely outcome. The referendum strategy, and behind it the whole project of bourgeois nationalists in late-20th century Quebec, is based on the utilisation of a more-or-less independent government to insert Quebec as a fourth player in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as a junior partner of US and Canadian imperialism, and an active participant in the exploitation of Mexico. To win support for this uninspiring vision, Quebec's bourgeois nationalists spent months researching and publishing studies estimating the probable benefits of sovereignty for "Quebec Inc." An essential part of this strategy has been reassuring the American bourgeoisie that the ruling Parti québécois and Bloc québécois have the necessary experience and qualifications to manage "Quebec Inc." in a responsible and neo-liberal way. They were wasting their time. By mid-October it was clear that not one Quebec bourgeois of any importance was ready to take the risk of destabilising the Canadian state and NAFTA in the name of such an adventure. An adventure made all the more risky by the strong support for sovereignty in Quebec's trade unions, and the province's social and cultural organisations. The same capitalists who have used the provincial government to support them in their conflict with the main, English-Canadian bourgeoisie, are not willing to go any further at this time. The US bourgeoisie abandoned its traditional neutral role in Canada-Quebec quarrels, and gave firm support to the Canadian bourgeoisie in its campaign to ensure the unity of the state. Bill Clinton threatened Quebec with isolation if the "Yes" vote carried the day. The tens of thousands of Quebeckers who have taken their winter vacations in Cuba in recent years know only too well what this can mean.
has never been so deep. No-one in English Canada has a serious proposal for reforming the federation. And Quebec's Leaders are preparing to implement neo-liberal federal Abandoned by those they thought were their own class, Quebec's bourgeois-nationalist leaders were obliged to appeal to the working-class' hatred of the vicious neoliberalism of the federal government. They galvanised the vote of the majority of the French-speaking population, in part due to the enthusiastic support of Quebec's trade union leaders. One week before the vote, it suddenly seemed that the "Yes" vote might win the day. At which point the major Canadian capitalists, the whole of the English-speaking media and English Canada's political parties, from the New Democratic Party (Social Democrat) to the rightist Reform Party, joined forces with the federal Liberal Party government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. This grand coalition did all it could to mobilise EnglishCanadian chauvinism, not just in English Canada, but above all within Quebec's sizeable English-speaking community, and among those immigrant groups whose first language is neither English nor French. The Liberal Party, the public railway and private airlines, Quebec's English-language school system, and the educational establishments of English Canada even organised a huge demonstration in Montreal in favour of the "No", just before the vote. Vancouver-Montreal return air tickets, which normally cost $1,500 CAD each, were available for $99 CAD for all those who wanted to come and demonstrate "for Canada". A wild campaign in the mass media attacked all those who supported the sovereignty of Quebec as antiEnglish, anti-immigrant and anti-native/Inuit racists. Hundreds of companies announced they would leave
International Viewpoint n° 272 13
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* Québec
Quebec if the "Yes " vote was successful. The damned separatists were now held responsible for all the plagues of
Egypt, from the collapse of the Canadian dollar to the size of the federal deficit. The Canadian state faced the worst crisis in its 155-year history. The country's rulers were determined to weather the storm "by any means necessary"
Prime Minister Chrétien refused to commit himself to respecting the result of the referendum, if the
"Yes" vote carried it. He threatened to invoke the
"extraordinary powers"
provided for by the
Canadian constitution, adopted by English
Canada in 1982 against poulet of the wishes the a lo Kentucky overwhelming majority of
Quebeckers.
The English-Canadian left, and in particular the trade unions, were, at best, silent. Canadian nationalism is branded into them. The Canadian
Union of
Public
Employees (the biggest pan-Canadian public sector union) held its convention in
Montreal a few days before the referendum. Under pressure from its very autonomous, very pro-independence Quebec wing, the convention approved a resolution affirming
Quebec's right to self-determination. But most of the
English-Canadian delegates then left the conference to participate in Friday's demonstration for the unity of
Canada.2 A demonstration which applauded wildly whenever speakers called for the use of "extraordinary powers" should Quebec try to secede. It all worked. The
"No" vote won by 50.5% to 49.5%. A defeat for all the vital forces of the Quebec people, even if the leadership of the movement was completely in the hands of bourgeois leaders.
uche ence, le féminisme et le socialis:
For more information.
WHAT NEXT? The crisis is far from over. Almost 70% of French-speaking Quebeckers no longer accept the legitimacy of the federal Canadian state. Half of all Quebeckers think that the federal system cannot be reformed. Not one of the federalist political parties has the slightest credible proposal for reforming the federal state in a way that would ensure it even minimal credibility. The right, in the Reform Party (the major beneficiary from the rise in English-Canadian chauvinism) proposes a devolution of federal powers to each of the provinces. They hope that this will make it easier to dismantle the social security system. For the first time, representatives of finance capital, the largest, dominant sector of the Canadian bourgeoisie, flirted openly with the racist and chauvinist outbursts of the Reform Party. Which may indicate a deepening of the Gingrichification? of political life in English Canada. The social democrats of the New Democratic Party are opposed to any further decentralisation, in the name of the defence of social security programmes. The Liberals, in power in Ottawa, are continuing with neo-liberal cuts, which hit the Quebec working class hardest of all, because of its higher vulnerability (Quebec has suffered 12% 'structural' unemployment since 1979). The Liberal government has no proposals on the national question. The premier of Quebec, Jacques Parizeau, announced his intent to resign the day after the referendum defeat. Lucien Bouchard, the leader of the Bloc québécois, the federal wing of the bourgeois-nationalist movement, intends to replace Parizeau. His programme consists of proposing another referendum at the most opportune moment, cleaning up the public finances of Quebec and protecting the social security safety net against the federal cutbacks. Which amounts to squaring the circle. The Parti québécois' natural tendency would be to continue in power as the responsible managers of capitalism, and simply blame the federal government for all that is nasty and unpleasant in the cuts in the public sector and drastic reductions in social security which they will continue administering. The problem is that 67% of French-speaking Quebeckers want another referendum "soon". They are convinced that
Le Québec, une nation opprimée François Moreau The conquest, the Lake Meech accords, the linguistic issue, the deformations of Quebec's social and economic structure...
Lafitte,
Michel
"NAFTA's
Northern
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International Viewpoint #265, April 1995, p.23
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14 December 1995
Moreau's mise en perspective will
Crisis", astonish some, and convince more than one. Above all, it will make you think.
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they can win this time. Most of the nation's vital forces are convinced that we were cheated of victory by the dishonest intervention of forces in English Canada, led by the federal government.4 Trade union leaders in Quebec played a major role as counsellors to the nationalist leaders during the campaign. They will keep putting pressure on the provincial government, to make sure that we are only subjected to a neo-liberalism "with a human face". The problem is that, half way through the referendum campaign, these same trade union leaders accepted knock-down collective bargaining agreements for the public and para-public sectors (such as health, education, social services and public transport). The negative effects on jobs and work-intensity have yet to hit their members. The mass pro-sovereignty movement and the associative sector are also in a real mess. The "human face" of neo-liberalism in Quebec has entailed transferring much-reduced funds to community-based bodies, to provide many services previously ensured by unionised public sector labour. Only the women's movement seems willing and able to keep up the mobilisation. Demonstrations in favour of a significant increase in the minimum wage are planned for 8 March 1996. * Notes 1. Until recently a latent force, without significant political expression, English-Canadian chauvinism can only take the form of Canadian nationalism rather than of partition of Canada into English and French-speaking states]. This is because, while English Canada is the dominant nation in the Canadian State, it has neither its own govermental structure nor a geographically unified territory. The Canadian state is organised in ten provinces and two territories. The only common political structure which unites the nine provinces and two territories where English-Canadians form the majority is the federal goverment. And Quebec physically separates the four Atlantic provinces from the rest of English Canada. 2. Only a small minority, a few hundred brave, mainly women, activists in English Canada as a whole, dared associate themselves with a public statement supporting the unconditional right to self-determination of Quebeckers Do the workers and the aboriginal nations. Relations between the social have a country?
movements in Quebec and in English Canada are even weaker, and more problematic, than before the referendum. It by José Iriarte "Bikila" is difficult for Quebeckers to turn the page on 25 years during which their EnglishCanadian counterparts have NSR 16, 25FF, $4, £2.50 consistently refused to support the mobilisations in Quebec. 3. After Newt Gingrich, populist figure on the right of the US Send a regular cheque (not a EuroRepublican Party. cheque!) in USS or sterling to P. 4. Such intervention is actually Rousset, IRE, Postbus 53290, illegal under Quebec's law on 1007 RG Amsterdam, The Netherpopular consultation, which lands, or Y Blwych Coch, PO Box sets strict spending limits during a referendum 431, Cardiff CF1 9YA, Great Britain campaign.
Québec *
First nations say no
The indigenous nations of southern Quebec almost totally abstained from the referendum. The Eeyou ("Cree"), Innu ("Montagnais") and Inuit ("Eskimo") of the far north voted massively against the sovereignty measure.
For many "Yes" supporters in the south of Quebec, where almost all the "white" population lives, the only explanation for this behaviour is the existence of a plot. The aboriginals must have been "manipulated" by the federal goverment, and by those of their own leaders who are on the federation's payroll.
There is an element of truth behind this suspicion. The federal goverment, through its Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, and the conscious intervention of the Liberal Party, has, over the last 25 years, striven to create an educated native elite, with a debt of gratitude towards the federation.
But this doesn't explain the massive, virtually unanimous rejection of the "Yes" option by the northern nations, nor the deep distrust of the more southem indigenous nations for Quebec nationalism. The aboriginal peoples are not children, never mind sheep who can be marshalled and led en bloc by "corrupt leaders"
So why did they vote so massively against the independence of Quebec?
The "benefits" of "white" civilisation arrived in the far north only recently, at the time when Quebec took effective control of the territory. In the old days, the federal, English-speaking tutor was only rarely present, turning up to distribute a few cheques, and disappearing again. The main domain of contact with the south was the fur trade and the hunting and fishing outfitters. But the opening of the iron-ore mines in Quebec Labrador in the 1950s, and the immense James Bay hydro-electric project in the 1970s brought the Innu and Inuit into contact with armies of civil servants, teachers and "white" workers. The overwhelming majority of these newcomers, of course, spoke no indigenous north American language. Nor did they speak English, the second language which the federal govemment and the fur traders had imposed on the first inhabitants of the region. With these newcomers came the destruction of the water and the forests, alcohol, drugs, even more missionaries than before, conjugal and sexual violence, deculturisation and aculturisation.
This invasion was the work of pro-federation governments in Quebec, and benefited from indirect subsidies from the Canadian federal state. But this doesn't change the fact that it was carried out by French- speaking Quebeckers, most of the time completely insensitive, if not racist towards nations and cultures present in the region for thousands of years. Nor has the insensitive, arrogant
International Viewpoint n° 272 15
* Québec behaviour of the subsequent Parti québécois governments done anything to change this reality.
For the small, aboriginal nations, it is better to have the "white" enemy divided. Better, then, that the Ottawa-Quebec quarrel continues. The southern indigenous nations have not forgotten that their defeat came at the moment when the British defeated the French (1759), becoming the sole ex-European government in North America. Until that time, both French and British had made treaties with the first nations, trying to win their support for the Franco-British struggle for colonisation and trade supremacy. This has not been forgotten, and it is quite "fair" for the aboriginal nations to try to maintain the conflict between the provincial and federal authorities. They may be able to win some concessions from both parties. Hence the warning of some southern native leaders to their northern counterparts, not to flirt too closely with the federal government at this time. Parti québécois and Bloc québécois policy was essentially to promise the native peoples that an independent Quebec would maintain the status quo in native regions, with perhaps a few dollars more from the central budget. A policy which could only repulse any self-respecting member of one of the first nations. English Canada might be as racists if not more towards native peoples, but this is no excuse for Quebec to follow such an outrageous "imperialist" policy. If the federal government can't convince us that we are only "Canadians, like all the others", how can we force aboriginal nations to define themselves as "Québécois like the rest of us"? [ML]
English-speakers and immigrants THE NIGHT OF THE REFERENDUM, QUEBEC PRIME MINISTER Jacques Parizeau, blamed defeat on "money, and the ethnic vote". His comment caused a storm in the English-language media of Quebec and English Canada. The vote was indeed polarised. But are the English-Canadian commentators right to say that this is a reaction to the exclusive ethnic nationalism of French-speaking Quebeckers? Ninety-five percent of English-speakers voted "No". Rejection of sovereignty was even higher among Italian Quebeckers (97%), Greeks (98%) and the Jewish
European origin - Quebec's Ukrainians, Russians, Germans, Scots, Irish, Welsh, and Scandinavians. These other communities have dissolved, apart from a touch of folklore from time to time. What keeps the Jewish community so tightly structured is the adhesion of its members to Zionist ideology, an exclusive nationalist project par excellence. Memories of the disgraceful, stupid anti-Semitism of the Catholic right in the 1930s and 1940s, and the horror of the holocaust have a lot to do with this massive attraction to Zionism. But this does not stop Zionism in Quebec being anything community (99.7%).
Other immigrant communities were more divided. The "Yes" vote scored a
CHARCUTERIE respectable 15-30% among the Latin
American, Haitian, Arab, and
Portuguese communities, despite the declarations of leading figures in these communities, almost unanimously opposed to a "Yes" vote. Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide even took the effort to speak out in favour of the unity of Canada.
There is clearly no simple explanation for the political behaviour of the various communities which are not of
"French stock". There is no one immigrant community. Nor, is there one single English-speaking community.
The large ashkenazi (European) Jewish community in
Montreal voted in frightening unanimity for the "No"
option. Until the 1950s, this community included a working class left, massively committed to all the progressive causes.
It is no accident that the French-speaking corporatist right in the 1930s used to call the Communist Party "the Jewish party". But it is now years since there was a Jewish working class. The overwhelming majority of the third and fourth generations are educated professionals and business people.
They are politically, socially and economically integrated into the elite of the English-speaking community in
Montreal. The Jewish community has undergone a similar evolution to the other communities of east and north
16 December 1995 more than a classic "tribal" position.
The reactionary leaders of the
Canadian Jewish Congress and the
Bnai Brith organisation regularly
HEBRAIQUE present themselves as the greatest
DE MONTREAL ING.
defenders of intolerance and racism everywhere, portraying the Jewish community today as the collective victims of the holocaust.
Faced with this reality, and full of liberal guilt, the Parti québécois of the
1970s made it a point of honour to finance private Jewish schools, and ensure the representation in public bodies of the "representatives" of this community. In fact, few of these schools reflect a religious reality. Most are elite schools for the children of the elite.
Far from beginning to separate the Jewish community from their identification with English Canada and federalism, all this policy has done is reinforce the domination of the intolerant Zionist elite over the rest of the community.
Quebec's Arab community is concentrated in Montreal and the Outaouais region, of relatively recent arrival, and diverse national origin. Egyptians, Palestinians and Iragis tend to adopt English as their second language, whereas
North Africans, Lebanese and Syrians tend to prefer French.
Those with left wing politics and French as their second language - which in many cases reflects their insertion in the working class here - tended to vote "Yes" or abstain (15% and 10% of the North African and Lebanese community).
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TECLAN E
The result could have been even higher, but clearly people in the community don't have much confidence in the suspicious, last minute criticism of neo-liberal policies made by bourgeois nationalist leaders like Parizeau. On their own, the best anti-racist convictions will only serve to confirm the influence of the federalist bourgeoisie over this multitude of cultural communities which exists, and must continue to exist here in Quebec. Unless the Quebec national movement can fight against all temptation to define
Québec * itself as a movement of French-origin French-Speakers. And until we learn to stop seeing immigrants as one big bloc, and recognise their diverse origin (third world or not), second language and their class position here. Until we do all this, our project for a new Quebec will not be a real project for all the people who live here. And it will not be a project which reflects the interests of the vast majority, the working people, whatever their origin. * [ML]
The left and the referendum QUEBEC'S LEFT PLAYED A RELATIVELY LIMITED ROLE IN THE REFERENDuM campaign. There has never been a mass working class party here, either Stalinist or reformist. Support for the far lett peaked at the end of the 1970s, when, taking all tendencies and groups together, we could mobilise over 10,000 militants. In the early 1980s the major current, the Maoists, and the (much weaker) pro-Moscow Stalinists, which had rejected the call for independence, splintered and imploded. Nowadays, only a few leftover fans of Peru's (Maoist) Shining Path, and some anarchists, reject the national struggle, in the name of abstract pan-Canadian working class unity.
More recently, a range of left forces entered the Quebec New Democratic Party (NPD-Q), transforming it into the Parti de la democratie socialiste (PDS, Party of Socialist Democracy). This party strives for left unity in the struggle to wrest control of the national movement out of the hands of the bourgeois nationalists. The PDS is the only left party in North America which not only recognises the right of organised currents inside itself, but even encourages this pluralism as an essential form of democratic debate. The PDS is still very small. There are no illusions about developing directly into a mass party. The formation of such a force will take the form of a process of rupture of whole sections of the working class and social movements from their current collaboration with the bourgeois nationalists. Such a break would probably take place in conditions of a higher level of class struggle. In the meantime, we are doing all we can to renew the various social struggles.
At the same time, we are trying to demonstrate that we are at least a minimally credible alternative to the current nationalist leadership, by trying to fuse the national and social struggles. Last spring the PDS was the force behind the launching of the "GrassRoots Network for Popular Sovereignty", based on the following programme, A QUEBEC FOR ALL PEOPLE. We say Yes to a Quebec which: • fights against social exclusion in all forms, particularly as it affects youth and women, by sharing the nation's wealth, by defending the primacy of the French language and the development of Quebecois culture, by protecting the linguistic and social rights of the anglophone (English-speaking) working class minority and by defining immigration and refugee policy within a framework of international solidarity; • keeps existing jobs and creates useful news ones, particularly in health and education, by a general reduction in working hours;
• is based on the equality of women and men in all spheres;
• establishes a new agreement between the Quebecois and aboriginal nations based on the absolute right to self-determination for both, up to and including independence;
• is free of arms and all nuclear production and refuses to participate in military treaties and commercial pacts like NAFTA that work against the interests of the majority of people concerned;
• Payment of the public debt and its interest should be frozen until it's known exactly to whom it's owed and if the major creditors have not already been largely reimbursed.
• The constitution of a sovereign Quebec should be prepared by a Constituent Assembly elected by proportional representation, reflecting all parts of society, in order to really represent sovereignty of the people.
The essential campaign message of the PDS and the "Network for Popular Sovereignty was "Yes to independence, no to the Parti québécois!". We received some favourable responses, and we come out of the campaign more numerous than we went in. In the current confused and tense situation, we are trying to avoid recruiting people on the basis of a good balance sheet of the referendum, only to risk losing them if the inaction of the bourgeois nationalist leadership, and the shameless collaboration of the official trade union leadership provoke a deeper social demoralisation. We have to learn how to root the PDS in the actually existing social movements, whatever their limits, whatever their confusion. This means offering concrete medium and long-term perspectives. We have plenty to do! * [ML]
Notes
The author is a member of the PDS and Gauche socialiste/Socialist Challenge, the organisation of Fourth International supporters in the Canadian state.
1. Former members of the left wing within the Parti québécois, the radical left nationalist current around Paul Rose, former leader of the Front de libération du Québec, and several small left groups, including Gauche socialiste (GS, Socialist Left, the organisation of Fourth
International supporters in Quebec.
International Viewpoint n° 272 17