Those who cannot remember the Past are Condemned to Repeat it.
And the latest to fall into that trap is none other than our one and only Lord Black of Crossharbour.
Those longer time readers of this Blog will know that I have on several occasions come to the defence of Conrad Black; I see him as a very capable, if not tragic figure, hard done by.
That does not mean that I agree with Mr. Black in all instances… take his column in today’s National Post, where he states that Justin Trudeau is Quebec’s last chance to “resume the great role they played in the whole country from Lafontaine to Jean Chretien”.
Moreover he sees Young Trudeau as being the “last train leaving the station for the double majority of French and English in the whole of the country..”
Black holds himself out as a student of history but it appears to me that he missed a couple of chapters on Quebec’s Quiet Revolution beginning with the 1960 election of Premier Jean Lesage and carrying on to this very day.
Let’s review some vital facts that he has so conveniently overlooked:
- I mentioned the Quiet Revolution kick-off in 1960, this marked the beginning of Quebec’s modern era of discontent with the Rest of Canada;
- Young Trudeau’s daddy, Pierre Elliot, was elected in 1968 by the English, ‘to put Quebec separatism in its place’… I am old enough to remember it well;
- And this, in turn, led in 1976 to the first separatist government in Quebec’s history led by Rene Levesque;
- It was followed by a Referendum on Separation in 1980, in both instances, Trudeau senior was in the chair federally;
- Pierre Trudeau’s contributions, other than failing to stop separation, was to introduce official bilingualism which made second class citizens out of 85% of Canadian citizens. He also fathered the great Contribution Payments to the have-not Province of Quebec, while allowing it to exclude its great Hydro Electric Resources from the Contribution equation. (Talk about tough??)
- And then came Brian Mulroney…another Quebecer who promised to get a handle on Quebec’s separatist aspirations. Meech Lake and the Charlottetown Accords followed under his tutorship and both failures deepened the angst among Quebecers;
- It also led to the creation of the Federal ‘Bloc’ Separatist Party under the leadership of Mulroney’s former treacherous friend and colleague, Lucien Bouchard;
- Are you still with me?
- And then came Referendum 2 in 1995 which came within a whisker of success. The then Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, who also got elected on the basis that he could handle Quebec, virtually had a nervous breakdown as poll after poll came out in advance of Referendum Day depicting a strong Separatist victory. Had it not been for a last minute federalist rally in Montreal and organized outside of Quebec, Chretien’s worst fears would have been realized;
- Today, we see the Separatists back in power in Quebec and on the verge of calling an election which will likely see them back in majority status if the polls are to be believed. Another Referendum would most likely follow.
But dear reader, the futileness of seducing Quebec back into the fold is probably best described in the following numbers:
- English made up nearly 14% of Quebec’s population in 1951; today it stands little more than half – 7.6%.
- At the start of the Independence Movement in the 1970s until the 2011 census, some 200,000 Anglos had fled the province.
(As an aside, our many successive Language Commissioners were silent on the treatment the English received in the once Belle Province but when out of their collective ways to criticize the English in the remaining 9 Provinces for the way in which the Francophone minority was treated – i.e. not being able to order a chocolate bar en francais).
Pathetic.
So much for effectiveness of Prime Ministers from Quebec!!
And now with have Mr. Black suggesting once again that Canada / Quebec’s salvation rests with another francophone leader… this time, Justin Trudeau.
I know one thing from all of this and that is if Justin Trudeau is successful in winning the Prime Ministership next year – as well he might be, his tenure will not have any positive effect on Quebec’s place in Canada.
If you think otherwise, you simply do not know your history.
As I see it …
‘K.D. Galagher’
