Leading up to the Liberal convention, in Toronto salons, faux British pubs, and other non-U establishments where the leadership candidates were on parade, there was discernible jealousy that the action was taking place in Montreal. And now the day had arrived and the king would be crowned, but at the Rose, as the sun lifted into view and the morning newspapers were delivered, there was no mention of it. Bleary from a late night at downtown dance clubs, two young men played Chinese chess (xiang qi) as friends looked on, offering advice or critical barbs. One game led to another, the onlookers became players, the others judges. Scores were kept. Next to them sat the lone and elderly white man, as always unshaven and unkempt, a regular who talked to no one in particular about hockey or Pearl Harbor, adding a monologue about the perils of global warming to his verbal sketch.
A black woman pulling a bundle buggy — the contents shielded by a blanket and cardboard siding — entered the shop, positioning herself across from the lonely talker and, eventually, taking the bait. On global warming, she had her own views. “The weather’s too cold… wind everywhere, can’t keep my hat on,” she said, before asking, “When does the No Frills across the street open? ” Pleased to be noticed, the old man said “nine o’clock” and then detailed the horrors of a world gone hot. The woman went silent, stirred her coffee nervously, and descended back into her own solipsisms.
On November 27, 266 out of the 308 members of the federal Parliament stood behind Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motion that the “Québécois form a nation within a united Canada,” a statement replete with abstract nouns and, this being Canada, a hopeful adjective. Two of the more curious supporters of the motion were Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, in the end the final contestants for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. Dion is the author of the 2000 Clarity Act, a tough piece of legislation meant to keep Quebec sovereigntists (les Québécois?) quiet and Quebec (the territory, the province) inside Canada. In the event of a referendum on independence, the act lays out clear rules for the gamble itself and a clear process after a vote to separate. This was national-unity legislation, and Dion did not mess around. So why would he support something as murky and craven as Mr. Harper’s motion?
Michael Ignatieff is the author of Blood and Belonging, a six-part book (including a fascinating chapter on Quebec) which suggests that ethnic nationalism is symptomatic of failed states, and that for a country to be a country ethnicities (and regions) must sublimate their urge for recognition in favour of the higher calling of civic nationalism. Buying in requires sacrifice but it also provides glue; and as Ignatieff insisted repeatedly on the campaign trail, this elevated social contract represents “the spine of citizenship.” And yet, there he was, a newly minted Member of Parliament and Liberal leadership aspirant, some weeks after issuing his own statement that “Quebec is a nation,” voting in support of Harper’s motion, a brand of nationalism based on ethnic identity, if not blood.
The Bloc Québécois — its very name connoting ethnic nationalism, its existence in the national Parliament suggesting a failed or weak state, or a state unconcerned about longevity — agreed with Mssrs. Harper, Dion, and Ignatieff, and the overwhelming majority of our federal representatives. On cue, after the motion passed, the Bloc then exercised a purposeful elision by announcing that “Quebec is a nation,” full stop. As the hopeful conditional “within a united Canada” did not aid and abet the separatist cause of independence (to be achieved by 2015), the phrase was dropped.
His meddling done, supported overwhelmingly by Parliament, and with the country more “asymmetric” than ever, Harper skipped off to Latvia — once a province, now a nation — to troll for help from nato partners for his misadventure in southern Afghanistan. For his efforts, the prime minister was told that Canada is not nation enough to ask for military assistance in Kandahar Province (where, after all, the locals are rough customers, with guns, religion, and opium), that this chapter of the Great Game is unwinnable, and that the nato partners, if they joined at all, would sequester themselves in the relative calm of Afghanistan North.
As the prime minister engaged in high-stakes failed diplomacy, back home the Assembly of First Nations got up to its own mischief. Given the olive branch extended to the Québécois by beneficent Ottawa — or at least to some of them; or perhaps to all those excluding the Anglos, the northern Cree, distrusted allophones, and the Haitian cab drivers clustered miserably at Place Bonaventure in Montreal — Phil Fontaine, head of the afn, exercised another purposeful elision. He insisted that aboriginals, as first peoples and being original, thus also deserve nation status — even though, given that they are recognized as the Assembly of First Nations, one would presume that their nationhood has already been conferred. (That certain legal and constitutional experts argue that the Québécois’ new status holds no legal or constitutional water is, in this field of gravitational politics, almost entirely irrelevant.)
Civic nationalism, it could be argued — though outside of the Rose Donut shop few arguments make sense these days — involves rights and responsibilities, giving as well as taking. But after bouts of celebratory drinking, restorative sleeps, further kicks at the federal can, and sober second thoughts, the fact remains: the Bloc, the first newly spoiled child of Confederation, continues to demand billions annually from Ottawa (to pay for Quebec’s education, health care, policing, and probably for the propaganda materials necessary for the next referendum on independence). At the same time, the afn (now nations squared, I suppose), in their turn, demand that billions flow their way. And why not? In this new game of Canadian realpolitik, the idea is to hold hostage any institution naive enough to think anyone anywhere gives a tinker’s damn about anyone other than themselves.
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