Wiliam Johnson article in Globe

9 posts / 0 new

Thu, 2010-05-20 12:05

Sean in Ottawa

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/one-referendum-three-decade...

This is an interesting article as it raises the question once again of who has what right when it comes to unity or separation.

I don't agree with the rationale behind arguing that the 1980 referendum did not establish Quebec's right to secede, if only because that right I believe already existed.

There are many who in studying the way this country came about conclude that this is essentially an at-will relationship meaning either side could leave. Confederation persists only as long as all parties wish it to but no party can be held in against its will. This naturally means not only could Quebec secede if it wished but the rest of the country could secede from Quebec if it wished. Naturally the latter idea is on only wackos subscribe to but not because the right is not there but because of the understanding that a Canada, sans Quebec is a smaller, weaker less important union. Often the analogy of a marriage is used (another at will relationship). The point is that if either spouse wants to leave the marriage is dissolved.

The article basically concludes that Canada has to agree for Quebec to leave. This is an absurd conclusion as it supposes that Canada has a right to keep an unwilling Quebec in Confederation to its benefit. I thought we were past that.

I think the confusion comes from the nature of a divorce and the negotiation of a divorce. If Quebec decided it wanted to leave, it clearly has the right. However, it does not have the ability to dictate the terms of the divorce-- and neither does Canada. Ultimately, good and peaceful relations would rely on the arrival at a consensus. Of course such a consensus would be difficult on such a loaded issue. To make matters worse there is no higher authority such as a court for divorcing couples to resolve differences. We would simply have to work it out. Because the actual negotiations look so uncertain, some people including Johnson mistake that for a lack of clarity when it comes to rights. Either side has the right to stay or go.

As well the negotiating position of the one who is less invested in the union is greater than the one more invested. There is no cosmic fairness to this reality but it exists nonetheless and can't be helped.

Thu, 2010-05-20 14:54

Unionist

William Johnson is a joke with no punchline. What DaveW said.

Thu, 2010-05-20 15:49

DaveW

I have not yet read the article, I admit,

but after 3-4 decades of him, you see a "William Johnson" byline, and the brain clicks: baloney, start groaning now

WJ posits a sort of English-French partnership that never really existed, given that Quebec was a British colony when Confederation was agreed to; was the option of becoming a unilingual French Republic on the table in the 1860s? -- uh, no

that is why in 1980 I voted Yes: welcome to Canada, but if you want that other option, it is not me standing in your way, you are free to decide your political future; as were the Norwegians when they peacefully voted to separate from Sweden or the Slovaks when they left Czechoslovakia ....

Sun, 2010-05-23 00:52

Sean in Ottawa

Quebec had did have the option of staying out when it entered in to the union in 1840. By 1848 the united province of Canada had responsible governmetn with both lower and upper Canada with equal representation. That legislature voted for confederation. I am not sure how you can say that there was not an English-French political partnership behind Baldwin-Lafontaine and then later MacDonald-Cartier.

I agree WJ is out to lunch, and that he misunderstood the nature of that partnership but it seems a tough argument to suggest there was no partnership.

Given the equal voting numbers in the United Canada between upper and Lower Caanda things were difficult and even confederation was in part seen as a way to break the deadlock between those to regions.

Sun, 2010-05-23 01:40

-=+=-

DaveW wrote:

[...]

WJ posits a sort of English-French partnership that never really existed, given that Quebec was a British colony when Confederation was agreed to; was the option of becoming a unilingual French Republic on the table in the 1860s? -- uh, no

[...]

You make a mistake many sovereigntists do (assuming you're sovereigntist): conflating English Canadian with British colonial officials or their lackeys.

If you actually read the history of that time period, you will see we have democracy in Canada because of the co-operation (or partnership, if you want to call it that) of French and English Canadian politicians against the British regime.

When the colonial officials banned French in the united legislature, what did the English and French do together? Elected a francophone as speaker and continued to operate as though the ban didn't exist. The English also gave way and the francophone leader, Lafontaine, was made the first premier of the united colony. And when Lafontaine was defeated in Lower Canada (his supporters were blocked at the polls by a Tory mob), Baldwin gave up one of his seats in York and the English Canadians elected a Lower Canadian francophone as their representative.

Hard to call that sort of partnership imaginary. It continued even when the impulse to reform moved to the right with conservatives like MacDonald and Cartier.

And the option to become a unilingual English Republic wasn't on the table for English Canadians either (at least one that did not involve annexation to the United States).

Sun, 2010-05-23 08:07

Unionist

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Quebec had did have the option of staying out when it entered in to the union in 1840.

Two years earlier, Québec had counted 73 dead, 1,600 wounded or captured, 29 executed for treason, and 58 deported to Australia, after rising up against British colonial rule. How much of a free "option" did the anti-British and democratic reform forces have at that historical moment?

Sun, 2010-05-23 08:46

DaveW

ditto

history majors, correct me if I am wrong on the big picture, but I think that the organizers of any faction proposing concrete political steps towards a republican system and associate statehood for Quebec/Lower Canada in the 1850s and 1860s would have faced charges of sedition, imprisonment and perhaps the gallows;

Georges-Etienne Cartier was no doubt a gracious and honourable gentleman, but all his statecraft was operating in a British-made format, under what Gramscians might call a hegemonic embrace; he literally could not think "outside the box"

it took 100 years to regain a full range of political options/action and conversation in the 1960s Quiet Revolution

Sun, 2010-05-23 09:07

Tommy_Paine

Being exported to Australia or Van Dieman's land was generally considered to be a death sentence at the time.

I'm not as familiar with the aftermath of the '37 rebellion in Lower Canada, but in Upper Canada the Tory reign of terror persisted well into the 1850's.

A good read on the subject is Jack Cahill's "Forgotten Patriots: Canadian Rebels on Australia's Convict Shores" 1998, Robin Brass Studio, ISBN 1-896941-07-9

The 58 from Lower Canada were exported to Norfolk Island where, Cahill writes: "They were headed for the 'Isle of the Doubly Damned' that hot and awful place officially named Norfolk Island, where second and third offenders were sent to suffer the worst of punishments, where sadism ruled, sodomy and male rape normal and the murder of another inmate and subsequent trial in Sydney the only means of escape."

This was done to preserve the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada, and later the Dominion of Canada as a system whereby the labour of workers and farmers was transformed into tax dollars, and then laundered through various legislatures and Parliament to the friends and family of those elected.

They won, and this system has continued uninterupted to today.

Sun, 2010-05-23 17:40

-=+=-

DaveW wrote:

ditto

history majors, correct me if I am wrong on the big picture, but I think that the organizers of any faction proposing concrete political steps towards a republican system and associate statehood for Quebec/Lower Canada in the 1850s and 1860s would have faced charges of sedition, imprisonment and perhaps the gallows;

Georges-Etienne Cartier was no doubt a gracious and honourable gentleman, but all his statecraft was operating in a British-made format, under what Gramscians might call a hegemonic embrace; he literally could not think "outside the box"

it took 100 years to regain a full range of political options/action and conversation in the 1960s Quiet Revolution

Unfortunately, you are wrong again in this regard.

Have you heard of the Montreal Annexation Manifesto of 1849? This public document called for Canada to join the republican United States. It was signed by numerous people, none of whom appear to have suffered any disabilities (except posthumous hits to their reputations). Indeed, one of the signers, John Abbot, went on to become a Prime Minister of Canada after Confederation.

Now, most of the signers were anglophone Tories; but as far as I can tell, it was not the case that people were imprisoned or hung at this time for peaceful political speech. (Armed conflict was obviously treated differently).

As for Cartier not being able to think outside the box. It was he, more than MacDonald, who was responsible for the transcontinental railroad -- a huge flight of the imagination if there ever was one.