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An Echo of Ghiţa Ionescu’s Reading Notes: Travails of the Canadian State
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
Extract
AMONG THE FOIBLES BY WHICH HUMANS ENHANCE THEIR PEACE OF mind, few are as persistent as the habit of endowing transitory practices and institutions with permanence. We tend to assume that things known since childhood, particularly if they are important to us, are timeless and immutable. The modern nation state, for instance, is seen as a perpetual fixture on the landscape when, in fact, it is a relatively new, and probably passing phenomenon, at least as we now know it. The state emerged only in the modern era, when governments succeeded in freeing themselves of feudal and ecclesiastical constraints; the period from then to the present is a mere thimbleful of time in the history of governance.
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References
1 McCarthy, P. and Jones, E. (eds), Disintegration or Transformation: The Crisis of the State in Advanced Industrial Societies, New York, St Martin’s Press, 1995 Google Scholar.
2 ibid., p. 2.
3 ibid., pp. 179–197; 21–44.
4 See Meisel, J., ‘Redefining Canada: Dilemmas of an Anorexic State’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Series VI, Vol. VI, 1995, pp. 161–72Google Scholar.
5 Feaver, George.: ‘Canadian Political Miscalculation? Quebec’s Referendum 95’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 31, No. 1, Winter 1996, pp. 45–61; ‘Canadian Political Arithmetic: Quebec, and Canada, after Charlottetown’, Ibid., Vol. 30, No. 2, Spring 1995, pp. 163–178; ‘Inventing Canada in the Mulroney Years’, Ibid., Vol. 28, No. 4, Autumn 1993, pp. 462–478 and ‘Letter from Canada’, Ibid., Vol. 23, No. 4, Autumn 1988, pp. 471–486CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 op. cit., p. 1 and passim.
7 The word ‘nation’has a wider meaning in French than in English. In addition to connotations of ethnicity and group values, it also serves as a synonym for state’.
8 Dion, L., ‘Propos désabusés d’un fédéraliste fatigué,’ in Franks, C. E. S. et al . (eds), Canada’s Century: Governance in a Maturing Society, Montreal and Kingston, McGill‐Queen’s University Press, 1995, pp. 87–112 Google Scholar.
9 Dion, L., Quebec 1945–2000, Vol. 1, A la recherche du Québec, Quebec, Les Presses de I’Université Laval, 1987, p. 109 Google Scholar.
10 This strong sense of a shared community, while still very powerful, is thinning because of the extremely low birth rate in Quebec, and the accompanying efforts to increase immigration, preferably by francophones. It is this influx of newcomers, many of whom are seduced by English, that has reinforced Quebec’s’s resolve to adopt laws favouring the use of French in the province. Concern over the French language, and measures intended to strengthen it, in turn add fuel to the separatist fervour and then provoke hostile reactions outside Quebec.
11 There are important nuances in meaning between the terms ‘separatism’, ‘independentism’, and sovereigntism’in the Quebec context. Since in this essay I do not dwell on these differences, however, I use these three terms interchangeably, so as to avoid tedious repetition. In each case the meaning is clear: the view that a dramatic and fundamental redefinition is in order with respect to Quebec’s links with Canada.
12 The question was: ‘Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign, after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership, within the scope of the Bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agremeent signed on June 12, 1995?’ The agreement refers to an accord among three separatist parties.
13 For a succinct overview and discussion, see Watts, R. L., ‘Whither Canada?’ a paper presented to the Reddin Symposium on ‘The Canadian Constitution and Renewed Federalism’, Bowling Green University, 18 01 1997 Google Scholar. The Proceedings are being published by the University. See also Alan Cairns, ‘The Politics of Constitutional Renewal’ in Cairns, A., Reconfigurations: Canadian Citizenship and Constitutional Change, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1995, pp. 66–107 Google Scholar.
14 Watts, , ‘Whither Canada?’, p. 8 Google Scholar in typescript.
15 I have on several occasions dismissed the Reform Party as a regional, deeply anti‐Quebec phenomenon. Its leadership would deny this. In the beginnings the Reform candidates were frequently very hostile to Quebec. This was played upon when the party was campaigning in the West. In its feverish attempt more recently to become the official opposition it is trying to broaden its appeal to voters in the East, notably Ontario. This has led it to play down somewhat the anti‐French and anti‐Quebec tone of its appeals but au fond there is very little evidence that the leopard has changed its spots.