[LINK] "Bloc's involvement no threat to federation"

[rfmcdonald]

One very notable element of the plan for a Liberal-NDP coalition government is the promise of the separatist Bloc Québécois to support the coalition government for the next year. Some--i.e. the Conservatives--denounce this as an unnecessary empowerment of separatists, but Graeme Hamilton in yesterday's National Post very likely came to the correct conclusion in his article "Bloc's involvement no threat to federation".

As Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe rose in the House of Commons Monday to ask his first question, he was met with an unusually loud ovation. Not only his own MPs but the Liberals and New Democrats cheered him. And if the Liberal-NDP plan to replace the Conservative government with their own coalition succeeds, there will be plenty more fawning over the one federal party committed to the breakup of Canada.

To many, the notion of a committed separatist pulling the strings of the Canadian government is anathema. Prime Minister Stephen Harper Monday attacked the opposition parties for handing a veto to "people who want to break up the country" and said he was disappointed to see "the party of Laurier and Trudeau applauding the Bloc."

The coalition would certainly give unprecedented clout to the Bloc; the support of its 49 MPs will be required for the coalition to govern. Already, Mr. Duceppe is boasting that his support was conditional on meeting certain Bloc demands, such as restoring funding to federal culture programs and increasing aid for the forestry and manufacturing sectors. He has signed on only until June, 2010, a year earlier than the NDP and Liberals, because he was unable to extract "concrete measures" recognizing Quebec's status as a nation.

Still, it is far from certain that inviting the Bloc into the decision-making realm will necessarily weaken the federation, particularly given the current situation in Quebec.

Jean-Claude Rivest, an independent Senator and former advisor to Robert Bourassa when he was Quebec premier, said support for sovereignty is at such a low that the Bloc has no desire to stir the pot. Polls suggest Liberal leader Jean Charest is headed for re-election in the provincial vote next Monday, and the Parti Québécois is not even talking about a referendum if it took power.

"There will be within the sovereignty movement, over the next year or two, a great deal of discussion over what to do with their option. So for the Bloc, there is an interest in keeping things calm in Ottawa," Mr. Rivest said.

"The timing is good for all of Canada in the sense that there will not be threats or attempts by the Bloc to take the Canadian government hostage. That's rubbish in my opinion. The Conservatives will raise that point, but it's really not serious."

In fact, the Conservatives were only too happy to have the Bloc MPs on their side when they needed them. After the 2006 election, the Bloc House leader at the time, Michel Gauthier, announced that his party would prop up the minority Conservatives. "We want to help the government function for a while," he told the Globe and Mail. "I have no shame in saying I will be urging my colleagues ... to conduct ourselves in a way that the government stays in place for a good while to do what needs to be done."