Edmonton Journal, April 29, 2005
Harper playing dangerous political game with Quebec wild card
Conservative-Bloc minority government won't serve
Canada well
By David Orchard
While the sponsorship affair
rages across the country, it is in Quebec where it burns
the hottest -- threatening far more than the Liberal
party.
The opposition parties,
particularly the Conservatives, appear prepared to play
with this fire for their own ends.
Polls in Quebec show support
for sovereignty at over 50 per cent – its highest level
since the Meech Lake Accord. The Charest government is
very low in the polls and has been for months. Waiting
impatiently in the wings is the PQ, with its promise of
another referendum "as soon as possible in the next
mandate."
Yet the Conservative party
under Stephen Harper is not worried. It is ready to damn
the torpedoes and join with the Bloc to trigger an
election. A national news item, reporting on the lack of
concern in the Conservative party about the dramatic
rise in separatist momentum in Quebec, quoted a top
Conservative: "We have a philosophy of federalism that
is more in tune with how Quebecers see a federal state
operating." What exactly does this mean and of which
Quebecers is the Conservative party speaking?
Everyone can understand the
Bloc's eagerness for an election. They and the
separatist movement in Quebec are going to be the big
winners in any early vote. But why would the
Conservatives be prepared to take this risk with Canada?
The Conservative party is
nowhere on the radar in Quebec and stands virtually no
chance of taking any seats there; nor does the NDP. Like
it or not, it is the federal Liberal party that has
fought -- and is seen to have fought -- to keep Canada
intact and it is the only force on the ground in Quebec
capable of doing so. Harper's claim that Quebecers can
or will vote for his new party as an alternative to
Liberal corruption is a pipe dream. The Conservative
party's weakness at the riding level, its support of
joining the U.S. missile project and the war on Iraq,
its opposition to the Kyoto agreement, and its positions
in stark disagreement with the vast majority of Quebec
voters on a number of other issues, doom the party
utterly within the province in any near- term election.
Harper's frantic attempt to recruit separatist
candidates to run under his banner does nothing to
change this reality.
As has been the case for
years, the fight in Quebec is between les rouges, the
Liberals, and les independantistes, the separatists.
By triggering an election at
this time, well in advance of any process of sorting the
wheat from the chaff via Gomery, Harper's Conservatives
hope to improve their strength in Parliament. However,
if they win a minority government, they will be able to
govern only through the same method they used to get the
election -- namely in alliance with the Bloc.
It's not hard to imagine the
bargain a resurgent, reinvigorated Bloc will drive for
their support of the Conservatives to weaken the federal
ability to govern and set the stage for a winning
referendum.
Some Canadians have taken to
calling radio open line shows to say that if Quebec
wants to leave, so be it.
The consequences for those
of us who love this country would be not only the loss
of Canada's largest province and the great geographic
and strategic gateway to the continent, but the loss of
the very heart of the nation, with its culture,
language, dynamism, and four hundred years of shared
history -- and would be a near-fatal blow to any hope of
keeping the rest of the country intact.
Those in a rush "to throw
the bums out" would do well to reflect on the scenario
of a minority Conservative government propped up by a
powerful Bloc Quebecois facing a coming Quebec
referendum.
A Bloc controlling 60-odd
federal Quebec seats, and a newly elected PQ with a
majority of the provincial seats will be on one side.
Who will be on the other side? Who will speak for Canada
this time? Who will fight and win this battle for the
hearts and minds of Quebecers? Pierre Trudeau did it in
1980, Jean Chretien in 1995. Both were leaders of
majority governments with substantial support in Quebec.
If Harper imagines that his words will motivate
Quebecers to remain in Canada, he doesn't know the
province very well.
These are the stakes that
Harper is prepared to gamble with, in a manner
remarkably similar to Brian Mulroney's famous "roll of
the dice" with the country's future over a dozen years
ago. Now, as then, only a strong outpouring of
opposition from Canadians will stop Harper's dangerous
game.
David Orchard is the author
of the bestseller, The Fight for Canada - Four Centuries
of Resistance to American Expansionism, and ran for the
leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative Party
in 1998 and 2003. He farms at Borden, SK and can be
reached at tel (306) 652-7095, E-mail:
davidorchard@sasktel.net
www.davidorchard.com
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