Lucien Bouchard – “closet fedaralist”
Lucien Bouchard, the former Premier of Quebec and founder of the separatist Bloc Quebecois in the federal Parliament, is beginning to sound like the “closest federalist” I’ve always thought he was destined to become.
Bouchard’s image in English Canada has ricocheted from something not much above a snake in the grass to a guy for whom we all felt deep sympathy when he lost a leg to flesh eating disease.
But like Pierre Trudeau in his lifetime, Bouchard keeps coming back. Now he’s given the boot to sovereignty as a likely prospect for the current generation. Most Quebecers agree — a new poll has 56 per cent believing sovereignty is “not achievable.”
He’s also come out swinging against his old party for its “radical” resistance to cultural tolerance.
It’s been a dozen years since Lawrence Martin published his magisterial biography of Bouchard, The Antagonist: Lucien Bouchard and the Politics of Delusion (Penguin, 1998).
The political environment has turned 180 degrees since the book came out. Bouchard resigned in frustration, equally fed up with the radical fringe of the PQ and his own failure – despite his charisma — to woo Quebec to separatism. Lawrence Martin’s book remains a timely read in light of Bouchard’s latest intervention.
He set off a grand kafuffle last week with his declaration that Quebec sovereignty is nothing more than a dream that won’t be achieved any time soon. A “hypothesis,” he called it.
More damning was the dart he aimed at his old party. He said the PQ, desperate for electoral relevancy, is becoming a breeding ground for radicalism, especially on cultural and religious issues.
Bouchard was speaking at a 100th anniversary event honoring Le Devoir, a newspaper long considered the conscience of French Canada.
Despite his headline-grabbing remarks about the failure of sovereignty, he’s clearly more concerned about the PQ stance on what’s become known as “reasonable accommodation.”
This is a complex, many-layered issue. Quebec Premier John Charest appointed Bouchard’s brother as one of two commissioners to look into how far Quebec should go in tolerating public expressions of other cultures and religions.
In essence, the commission looked at how to deal with Muslim immigrants on such matters as allowing the burka in the voting booth while Christian symbols are being removed from all public spaces.
Bouchard’s argument is that French culture and language are safe in Quebec and there’s no need to fear newly-arrived ethnic groups. As he put it:
There is a cultural majority in Quebec and that is us. But there are other people around us, about 10 or 11 per cent that have different religions and we need to make the necessary accommodations when it is needed.
Pauline Marois, the PQ leader, doesn’t see it that way. She thinks Jean Charest is “too busy defending Canadian multiculturalism … to stand up to defend the values of the Quebec identity.”
She points to the fact that polls show 75 per cent of Quebecers agree the Charest government has been “too accommodating” to the demands of religious groups. The latest evidence of this, she says, is the decision to allow core curriculum subjects to be taught on Sundays. Jewish schools need the concession to make up for time devoted to religious instruction during regular school hours.
Lucien Bouchard has always been acutely conscious of the fact that Quebec society harbours a strong streak of racism. Past generations have been fearful of Protestants, Jews, and the English. Now it’s Muslim immigrants who raise apprehensions about the future “purity” of Quebec.
The only threat that religious fundamentalism poses to Quebec, Bouchard wisely observes, is when it jeopardizes equal rights between men and women.
It’s tempting but foolish to declare separatism in Quebec dead. Pierre Trudeau did so after the 1980 referendum. It was a reckless statement and he never lived it down.
There’ll always be a good chunk of Quebecers — just as there is a good chunk of Newfoundlanders, and perhaps also Albertans — who think they’d be better off free of Ottawa’s grasp.
And the issue of “reasonable accommodation” is one that warrants debate. But it needs to be debated rationally, free of the kind of racist hysteria which Bouchard has spoken out against so forcefully. Good on him.
