Quebec Says Non to Separatism

A referendum vote approves reform within the system

"It hurts more deeply than any election defeat. We have to swallow it his time." So said Quebec Premier Rene Levesque last week, standing on the same platform in Montreal's Paul Sauve arena that he had used to declare the upset election victory of his Parti Quebecois in 1976. Greeted by 5,000 cheering supporters, Levesque (pronounced Leh-vek) seemed close to tears as he acknowledged that voters in Canada's largest, predominantly French-speaking province had turned him down by 59.5% to 40.5%. They had voted non in a referendum that would have given him authority to negotiate a new form of "sovereignty association" with the rest of Canada. As the ballots were being counted, Levesque put off acknowledging defeat for 90 minutes after the result became clear. He was plainly hoping that majority support from French-speaking Quebeckers (who make up 84% of the province's population of 6.3 million) would allow him at least to claim a "moral victory." But even this was denied him, as the nons carried 94 of Quebec's 110 ridings (election districts), including many Parti Quebecois strongholds.

Claude Ryan, leader of the province's opposition Liberal Party, called the result "an astounding victory." Indeed it was. Most polls during the bitter, 35-day campaign indicated that the referendum would be won or lost narrowly, in part because of the clever way that Levesque had posed the question to the voters. He merely asked approval to begin negotiations, promising that there would be no change in Quebec's political status until the results were approved in a second referendum. Ryan, the onetime publisher of Montreal's daily Le Devoir, denounced the ambivalent proposal as "the lowest depths of intellectual decrepitude," since it carefully disguised Levesque's real goal: to seek independent status for Quebec. In his first province-wide campaign since becoming Liberal leader two years ago, Ryan mounted an old-fashioned electoral drive of evening rallies and door-to-door canvassing, seeming to erase the social stigma attached to French-speaking Quebecois who opposed the referendum. Said Ryan after the votes were counted: "I think we have rediscovered how very much we love this country. We are proud to be Quebeckers and at the same time proud to be Canadians." Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau also campaigned effectively against Levesque's proposal by advocating the alternative of change within Canada's federal system. Just before the vote, Trudeau won a standing ovation at a rally in his home town of Montreal by promising that he would interpret a non vote as a mandate to seek constitutional reforms that would answer some of Quebec's grievances. Said Trudeau: "We will not stop until it is done. We say to Canadians in other provinces, we will not allow you to interpret this non as an indication that everything can stay the way it was." Conceding defeat, Levesque admitted that "the people of Quebec have clearly given federalism another chance." But he added: "The ball is in the federalist court, and now it's up to Mr. Trudeau to put some content into [his] promises." True to his word, Trudeau last week dispatched Minister of Justice Jean Chretien on a whirlwind tour of Canada's ten provincial capitals to lay the groundwork for a conference of premiers and the Prime Minister, which could take place as early as July. Its purpose: to seek a consensus on how to change Canada's constitution, the British North America Act of 1867. In a televised speech from the House of Commons, Trudeau set three conditions on a new constitution: that it authorize a federal Parliament with real national powers, provincial parliaments with equally valid territorial powers, and a charter of rights and freedoms, including the preservation of linguistic rights for French-speaking Canadians. The bargaining could be difficult, since Quebeckers are not the only Canadians with grievances. The resource-rich western provinces complain of Ottawa's indifference to their needs and want more control over their oil and minerals. Still, as Chretien said of last week's referendum: "It is a signal for everyone to sit down at the bargaining table. We can't go on living with this trauma that has been eating away at us for the last few years." qed

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