I am old enough to remember the Parti Québécois sweeping to power in 1976 and the subsequent 1980 sovereignty referendum.
I am also old enough to not trust any memories I might claim to have about my attitude toward the events at the time. Given I was a unilingual English speaker growing up in southwestern Ontario lacking strong analytical historical skills, it’s probably safe to assume that I wasn’t overtly sympathetic to the independence cause.
My recall is probably a little firmer in terms of the 1995 referendum. The 1983 Toyota Tercel I drove had a My Canada Includes Quebec bumper sticker. Whatever that meant at the time. I seem to remember thinking the blithe separatist claim of retaining a Canadian passport and currency if it seceded from the ROC to be somewhat presumptuous, and the Péquiste disregard of First Nations demands for self-determination in the case of a successful Yes vote to be more than a little hypocritical. When Jacques Parizeau started in with the ‘ethnic votes’ betraying the ‘pur laine’ finger-pointing after the nail-biting victory by the No side, it further tainted for me the sovereignty dream.
Or so, my thoughts more than thirty years on.
With the vague possibility of a third referendum if the PQ win the next provincial election in Quebec, I guess I’d say, for what it’s worth, that I’m a soft opponent of separation. In theory, I get that Quebec is a distinct society with legitimate historical and cultural grievances, probably less so than could be ticked off back in the late-60s when the PQ party came into being, albeit, those grievances seem to have evolved into a whiter shade of pale, if you know what I’m saying. More pur laine Jacques Parizeau than Gérald Godin.
My views and Quebec sovereignty are complicated, in other words.
Not so the nationalist noise now bleating out from Alberta, a referendum there a more real possibility due to the political survivalist machinations of the province’s premier, playing footsie with MAGA-infused secessionists still indignant about being told to wear masks during a global pandemic.
Take independence threats seriously, I’d say in the case of Quebec, because the source of that threat is serious.
Take independence threats seriously, I’ll say in the case of Alberta, because the source of the threats are so unserious. Which makes them more dangerous since there’s no reasoning with them.
The case for Alberta sovereignty is built on a pack of lies and grievances not of the downtrodden but of the entitled.
Settler Canada has been stitched together largely through historical contingency and exigency. There are outposts of cultural uniqueness, let’s call it. Quebec, obviously. The latecomer to confederation, Newfoundland. The larger Martimes. For the rest of us? You got to squint mightily to get any sense of subnational sovereignty.
Ontario, where I sit writing this, is a massive chunk of the country, consisting of a handful of regionally distinct pockets made up of a population largely indistinguishable from each other to most outside observers. Go to Europe and tell somebody there you’re an Ontarian. See how their blank faces stare.
I’d hazard a guess you’d get the same response if you informed somebody in Singapore you’re from Alberta. Unless you were wearing your official Calgary Stampede cowboy hat, vest and boots. And then, they’d just assume that was a part of Texas or Oklahoma.
“Significant secession movements starts with nationhood,” Andre Lecours, a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa, said in a Toronto Star article yesterday, “the idea that members of this movement don’t consider themselves to be members of the nation that is embodied by the state.”
The nation of Alberta. Alberta Nation. Built on a cartoon foundation of excessive resource extraction and John Wayne movies.
That’s it.
Plus the fact the political elite of the province has grown dyspeptic at their inability to convince a majority in the rest of the country to go along with their increasingly extremist right-wing drift. Not that there isn’t a taste throughout the land for such an ideology. It’s that, mostly, the federal standard bearers for the deep blue brand (the metric conversion for MAGA red)—I’m thinking here about Stephen Harper and Pierre Poilievre—have unsettled the population at large. Shifty and abrasive aren’t big political selling points for those standing uncomfortably outside the rootin’-tootin’, burn it all down braying populist right.
I’m also guessing that this sovereignty push is the dying gasp of a swath of Albertans who know deep down that they’ve mangled and mismanaged their oil and gas sector, made hay while the sun shone, never believing the rainy days might dampen their profits and fun. The clock is ticking. The threat of separation a ham-fisted negotiating tactic to keep the money and oil spigots open as long as they can.
This is in no way meant to dismiss the threat on the horizon with a shrug and hope that just by ignoring them, they’ll get bored and content themselves with banning books and blaming immigrants for everything. There’s a very vocal minority of deep-pocketed actors open to working with outside influencers and disruptors who are determined to put their economic well-being ahead of their fellow citizens. Never count out money or the power of well-platformed disinformation. But do not treat these players as anything other than what they really are: bad faith actors.
