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rfmcdonaldThe debate over Québec's nationhood was resolved most spectacularly, as you may or may not know, by the federal government's sponsoring of a parliamentary motion recognizing Québec as a nation.
This, Chong's first argument, struck me as unconvincing. What might the formal recognition of Québec as a nation do? Might it inspire a Québécois nationalist movement? Is it possible that Québec might even hold a vote or two on becoming a fully-independent nation-state? Outside recognition of Québec as a nation matters, but it matters much less than what the relevant population tends to think. If Québécois identify Québec as a nation, telling them that they shouldn't do so, that by so dissenting they're contradicting the dominant English Canadian vision of Canada in its entirety as a nation, is a classic sort of error, a confusion of a prescriptive view for a descriptive one. If anything, formal recognition of Québec might well undercut separatism.
Chong's second argument, that the recognition of Québec as a nation amounts to a state recognition of ethnic nationalism, deserves more consideration. Modern Québec's relationship with its language minorities can fairly be described as one of tension motivated by concern for the survival of the French language, this concern manifesting itself on the one hand through the creation of a self-contained Anglophone minority within a wider Francophone polity, and on the other through the agglomeration of immigrant groups into self-contained cultural communities themselves oriented towards a Francophone environment through schooling and immigration policies, all in the framework of a nationalism that loudly espouses its transcendence from an earlier French Canadian ethnic nationalism. These policies have transformed Francophone Québec, boosting fluency in the French language among non-Francophones while making Québec multicultural, but even so, debate over these policies have often been strained and contentious, Daniel Salée's 1994 Cultural Survival Quarterly essay "Identity Politics and Multiculturalism in Quebec". identifying this policy's central problem.
These points are true. And yet, I am not sure how, in the 1940s and 1950s, a Québec dominated by its Union Nationale government and its long-time premier Maurice Duplessis, a social and economic conservative and an autonomist was not ethnicized. A Québec with a policy towards immigrants driven by a desire to send all of the province's minorities over to the Anglophone community so as not to contaminate the pure laine French Canadians can hardly be described as more immigrant-friendly than the current Québec. Tensions over immigration and multiculturalism do exist in Québec, but the evidence to date doesn't suggest that these tensions are qualitatively different from those elsewhere in Canada. Besides, statements like Jacques Parizeau's which blamed "money and the ethnic vote" for the defeat of separatists in the 1995 referendum aside, the embrace of a civic-nationalist model of nationalism in Québec seems to be general and authentic. It's worth noting that the parliamentarians who considered this a recognition of ethnic nationalism don't seem to have been Québec separatists.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to outmanoeuvre separatists with a motion to recognize the Québécois as a nation has cost the government a cabinet minister and exposed fractious divides within both the Liberals and Conservatives.
The vote last night passed by 266 votes to 16. The only MPs who stood to oppose the motion were newly Independent member Garth Turner and 15 members of the Liberal caucus -- including leadership candidates Ken Dryden and Joe Volpe.
Missing from the Conservative bench was Michael Chong, the man who had just resigned as minister of intergovernmental affairs over his inability to recognize the Québécois as a nation, even when framed within a united Canada.
"Recognizing the Québécois as a nation will provide the sovereigntists with an argument they will use to confuse Quebeckers in any future debate on sovereignty. They will argue that if the Québécois are a nation within Canada then they are certainly a nation without Canada," said Mr. Chong who, despite his role in cabinet, had not been apprised of the government plan before it was put to caucus.
This, Chong's first argument, struck me as unconvincing. What might the formal recognition of Québec as a nation do? Might it inspire a Québécois nationalist movement? Is it possible that Québec might even hold a vote or two on becoming a fully-independent nation-state? Outside recognition of Québec as a nation matters, but it matters much less than what the relevant population tends to think. If Québécois identify Québec as a nation, telling them that they shouldn't do so, that by so dissenting they're contradicting the dominant English Canadian vision of Canada in its entirety as a nation, is a classic sort of error, a confusion of a prescriptive view for a descriptive one. If anything, formal recognition of Québec might well undercut separatism.
Chong's second argument, that the recognition of Québec as a nation amounts to a state recognition of ethnic nationalism, deserves more consideration. Modern Québec's relationship with its language minorities can fairly be described as one of tension motivated by concern for the survival of the French language, this concern manifesting itself on the one hand through the creation of a self-contained Anglophone minority within a wider Francophone polity, and on the other through the agglomeration of immigrant groups into self-contained cultural communities themselves oriented towards a Francophone environment through schooling and immigration policies, all in the framework of a nationalism that loudly espouses its transcendence from an earlier French Canadian ethnic nationalism. These policies have transformed Francophone Québec, boosting fluency in the French language among non-Francophones while making Québec multicultural, but even so, debate over these policies have often been strained and contentious, Daniel Salée's 1994 Cultural Survival Quarterly essay "Identity Politics and Multiculturalism in Quebec". identifying this policy's central problem.
The language legislation of the late 1960s and 1970s, premised on the will to protect and promote the language and culture of Québecois, ethnicized the Quebec state and unequivocally stated that Quebec was to be a francophone state and a francophone society. Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, other legislation and policies aimed at defining the conditions of immigration and the criteria of intercultural living in Quebec recognized the existence of so-called cultural communist. Paradoxically, those policies widened the divide between Québecois and other ethnocultural groups. Under the guise of fostering peaceful intercultural and interethnic coexistence, respect for cultural differences, and promotion of diversity, they contributed to formal cultural categorization and to identify formation outside the realm of Québecois culture. The policies implemented over the past decade or so have in effect dichotomized the Quebec population between the majority of Québecois (us) and a minority comprised of all other ethnocultural groups (them). In everyday life, this dichtomization may not be experienced by individuals in a conscious way, but in the public sphere it has created implicit boundaries along ethnic, cultural, and even racial lines. It is a rather pernicious process, for if the public discourse claims that being Québecois applies to everyone residing in Quebec, in reality access to Québecois culture is restricted to those who were born into it. Speaking French does not buy a membership into the imagined community.
These points are true. And yet, I am not sure how, in the 1940s and 1950s, a Québec dominated by its Union Nationale government and its long-time premier Maurice Duplessis, a social and economic conservative and an autonomist was not ethnicized. A Québec with a policy towards immigrants driven by a desire to send all of the province's minorities over to the Anglophone community so as not to contaminate the pure laine French Canadians can hardly be described as more immigrant-friendly than the current Québec. Tensions over immigration and multiculturalism do exist in Québec, but the evidence to date doesn't suggest that these tensions are qualitatively different from those elsewhere in Canada. Besides, statements like Jacques Parizeau's which blamed "money and the ethnic vote" for the defeat of separatists in the 1995 referendum aside, the embrace of a civic-nationalist model of nationalism in Québec seems to be general and authentic. It's worth noting that the parliamentarians who considered this a recognition of ethnic nationalism don't seem to have been Québec separatists.
