Reflections on the Mood of Quebec Today

DR. STACKHOUSE:

Ladies and gentlemen: C'est avec plaisir que j'ai le grand privilege de souhaiter la bienvenue, de votre part, a un grand Canadien, M. Claude Ryan, le chef de 1'opposition, assemblée nationale du Quebec.

When he had completed his monumental history of World War II, Winston Churchill said: "I am now the first person in these islands since Julius Caesar to have made history and then recorded it." And a contemporary commented: "And the irritating thing about it all is that he was right."

Our distinguished visitor today would not make this claim about himself, but he could, and with justification, because he has spent his entire professional life both attempting to shape the life of Quebec and to interpret the forces at work in his people's life.

His career began with seventeen years of service with Action Catholique Canadienne, and then after his long period in social action, he became a journalist, joining the editorial board of the influential daily, Le Devoir, in 1962. Two years later he became his paper's editor and publisher.

In that post his name became nationally known for responsible, informed, and thoughtful analyses of the major issues challenging Quebec and the rest of Canada. He might well have been expected to spend the rest of his life interpreting history as others made it, but when a separatist government was elected in Quebec in 1976, the call to action was once again compelling.

Mr. Ryan has never fitted the stereotype of Canadian politicians. He has preferred substance to image, principles to slogans, meaningful debate to media events, rational appeal to emotional manipulation. He has therefore confounded commentators, and more than one has predicted his political demise.

But has any political career been more meteoric? Most new politicians count themselves fortunate to win a nomination, but Mr. Ryan began his political life by seeking and winning nothing less than the leadership of the Liberal party in Quebec. That victory secured, he next won a seat in the National Assembly, and became the leader of its opposition. Since then he has successfully led the resistance to the separatist referendum resolution, and has won eleven by-elections in a row.

In 1867 it was given to great Canadians to achieve Confederation. Today it is given to equally great Canadians to preserve Confederation, and it is my privilege to present one of them, Mr. Claude Ryan.

MR. RYAN:

Mr. Chairman, distinguished head table guests, ladies and gentlemen: This is the fourth time that I have been invited to address your dis tinguished club. My pleasure and gratitude in accepting your invitation are as great today as they were upon my first appearance at this forum in 1973. I also note with pleasure that your hospitality has lost none of its warmth.

On my previous visits, I have felt you would want to hear from me as a journalist and then as a political leader lost in the wilderness of opposition--a fair but none too committal description of the state of public opinion in my province. I had hoped that my next appearance here would be in the capacity which would allow me to speak on behalf of the entire population of the province of Quebec. But in order to be able to put that claim to you, I yet have to win an election victory in Quebec, and until I have done that with my party, I must still consider myself as a person whose individual views must be presented to you with all the humility that is required in the circumstances, and for which I am not too often complimented for having!

My remarks today will be in the nature of reflections upon the mood in the province of Quebec at this moment, and they will be centred around three main themes. When I began writing my notes, I put down five themes--but I had to cut out two of them, including one which dealt with the prospects for the next election. I thought we could forget about that one because every one of you must presumably have reached the same conclusions that we have reached ourselves about the probability of a victory for my party in the next election.

The first topic is the referendum on the constitutional future and the lessons we must derive from that experience; second, the Trudeau plan for constitutional reform; and third, the relationship between Ontario and Quebec in the search for a renewed Canada.

The referendum on the constitutional future of Quebec was, of course, the leading political event of the last year in Quebec. From the victory which was won by the federalist forces, one safe conclusion can be drawn. Because it is extraordinarily complex, it is fairly easy to criticize our federal system of government from any chosen angle and thus to lead the people of this or that part of the country to believe that they did not get their fair share over the years. Plenty of doubts have been planted in the minds of many people in Quebec in this perspective, and they still do exist. But one key factor had been overlooked by the Parti Quebecois and it was to prove vital in the decision of the people. It was the attachment which Quebecers, beyond all difficulties relating to the functioning of our system of government, keep for Canada as their country--for its land, its vast spaces bounded by three oceans, its rivers, its lakes, its mountains, its natural resources, its large, medium-sized and small enterprises, its political and social institutions, its standard of living, its way of life, and above all, its people.

As soon as we began, in my party, preparing our arguments in view of the referendum campaign (and we started about a year and a half before the referendum actually took place), I discovered through consulting with people in different walks of life that the decision of the voters would be rendered around the country, and not around any particular theory or any particular concept of federalism. That the result of the vote reflected this attachment of a solid majority of Quebecers for Canada is the most comforting lesson that we can draw from the experience.

I can assure you, on the basis of my own memories of how the campaign unfolded in different parts of the province, that when we went to the people and talked to them, not about the intricacies of the federal system of government but about Canada--its land, its people, its institutions--that the response was extremely warm. And on the part of our opponents, they knew that they had hit upon a stumbling block, the size of which they had not measured beforehand.

Through the very ambiguous question which they put to the people, the government actually sought a mandate to try to restructure Canada around the concept of two sovereign countries. I pay tribute to our people for having grasped this very clearly as the debate progressed. At the outset of the debate, as you remember, there was a lot of ambiguity about the meaning of the question, the true implications of the government's scheme. But as we progressed in the debate and as we did our share in the debate, the people clearly grasped that it was a choice between one country or two countries which was being proposed to them. By saying "no" to the concept put forward by the government, the people of Quebec said "yes" to the concept of one country under a federal system of government.

Rather than sit passively on this result, we should pay great attention to two equally important lessons derived from the result of the referendum. It is fair to underline that sixty per cent of Quebecers voted in--favour of the Canadian option. But it is no less realistic to recall that forty per cent voted in favour of negotiations around the concept of two countries, proposed by the Levesque government. A proportion of forty per cent is in itself highly significant in any situation, but particularly in a matter of this importance. It is all the more meaningful in the present case since an overwhelming majority of the non-Francophone voters, which must have represented between fifteen and twenty per cent of the total number of voters in the referendum, very probably voted "no," which leaves us with a nearly evenly divided Francophone vote.

If you want more precision, about fifty-two to fifty'" three per cent voted in favour of the "no" vote, and forty-seven to forty-eight per cent were on the "yes" side. This is according to a respectable study done by a McGill pollster, Mr. Maurice Pinard. As you know, we don't attach too much importance to the work of pollsters, but in this case, since the job was done after the referendum and could not pretend to influence the result, it may be a little more credible.

Non-Francophones, of course, are an integral part of the Quebec population, and the government of the day learned this at their expense. But the fact that nearly one out of two Francophone Quebecers was disposed to give Mr. Levesque a mandate which could well have meant, to all practical purposes, the end of Canadian federalism is a very, very significant lesson which we should not overlook.

We were, of course, aware before the referendum that a high proportion of Quebecers, not all separatists by any means, were not satisfied with the way our federal system of government has functioned until now. We knew very well that many would be persuaded to vote "no" only on the condition that substantial changes could reasonably be expected to occur within the federal system. We did, in consequence, insist during the campaign that a "no" vote would be interpreted as a "yes" vote for a platform of renewed federalism.

The most eloquent and authoritative exponent of this view was, of course, the Prime Minister of Canada himself, who at several public meetings during the campaign committed himself and his fellow members of the House of Commons from the province of Quebec to either effect changes in our system or resign their jobs. The lesson to be drawn from this is clear and simple. Quebecers voted in favour of one Canada in the referendum, but many of those who voted "no" were probably induced to vote "no" because the promise had been made to them that some significant changes would be brought to the system.

When Mr. Trudeau insists that there must be change and that it must be undertaken now, he is acting in perfect conformity with what we all said during the referendum campaign. We won an important battle on that occasion, but the war for the minds of Quebecers and the future of this country will only have been won once the promise of the referendum has been respected.

Because of the context in which they arose, Mr. Trudeau's proposals which are now under examination by a joint committee of the House of Commons and the Senate must be received with great respect and maximum openness. To the extent that they are acceptable, we have an obligation to look upon them with great sympathy. In my case, in view of the fact that we were closely allied within the referendum campaign, I look upon them with friendliness. But as the old Roman saying has it, Amicus Plato sed magic amica ueritas--I may be bound to Plato by friendship, but I must first be bound by truth. In this perspective, I should like to examine with you the federal government's proposals in the light of two important criteria which will certainly appear most reasonable to most of you.

First, are they in line with the philosophy of federalism which we have been defending over the years? Second, how far do they go towards meeting the expectations aroused among Quebecers during the referendum campaign?

If it were only a matter of bringing the constitution home, there would be no serious problem. An impressive number of leaders have long maintained in Quebec that patriation must never take place before agreement has been reached around a new division of powers and a reformed Senate or Supreme Court. I am among those who long held that position. But confronted with a simple direct move aimed at bringing the constitution home, such a negative stance would rapidly lose credibility. Mr. Trudeau insists that patriation will initiate better than any other move the process of change which is badly needed. Whether or not we are in agreement with his arguments, he is entitled, as Prime Minister, to lead the country in this direction.

Patriation, without an amending formula, would of course be rather ineffectual. Beyond the symbolism of the move, we would rapidly realize that little had been changed. But the amending formula reaches the very heart of our federal system and is intimately related to the delicate equilibrium between the two levels of government, which is the key to a genuine understanding of the system. More than any other factor, including the division of powers itself, the amending formula is bound to reflect and affect the equilibrium between the federal Parliament and the provinces.

This question is so vital that until now it has been universally agreed that no changes can be brought to the major provisions of our constitution in this area unless they had been approved by the two levels of government. One has only to remember the numerous conferences which took place over the years around this issue. Whenever a conference could not reach agreement, the federal government would invariably agree that it was not authorized to act alone.

Following upon the failure of the September conference in Ottawa, the federal government suddenly decided to change the rules of the game and to initiate of its own accord, in a unilateral fashion, a process whereby the problem which previous governments had been unable to resolve would be put to the people for a solution.

I must say that I cannot accept this approach. I fail to understand how we could undertake the reform of our federal system by first denying one of its most essential and fundamental principles. In line with our generally accepted philosophy of federalism, it had been widely agreed until recently that no changes could be introduced in the division of powers, or in the overall status of the provinces or the federal government, without prior agreement to this effect between the two levels of government. It had also been agreed that should conflicts of jurisdiction arise between the two levels of government, the courts would be the appropriate recourse for the resolution of such conflicts. And in the absence of provisions authorizing the courts to intervene, the matter was left to negotiations and agreement between the two levels of government.

But now, we are confronted both with a new doctrine and with new behaviour on the part of the federal government. In proposing that a charter of rights be included in the constitution, the federal government proposes in effect that the powers which the provinces have enjoyed until now should in the future be limited, diminished or altered without their concurrence.

I wish to remind you that my party, in its constitutional document called the beige paper, is strongly in favour of a constitutional charter of rights. I say again today that should we be called to form a government in the province of Quebec, we would work with the other governments of the land in order to obtain a decision whereby a charter of rights would become one of the elements of our basic constitutional heritage.

But just as I am convinced that a charter of rights would be an impressive step ahead for Canada as a country, I am also deeply convinced that such a move should never be decided until there is agreement between the two levels of government about it. And I should say for the sake of clarity, that in this perspective I consider the principle of a charter of rights highly desirable. It would be a good thing for Canada. But the principle of the fundamental equality between the two levels of government is still more vital and fundamental to the good functioning of our federation. Should a conflict arise between the two, my position is clear. I would rather maintain the principles upon which this country was founded than yield to a new objective which may be desirable in itself, but not absolutely vital or indispensable for the good functioning of Canada.

In a major speech which he made in this city last November, the Prime Minister of Canada evoked in very moving terms the conflict which has arisen, according to him, between two opposed concepts of federalism in Canada. Recognizing that parliamentary democracy, with the supremacy which it places in Parliament, and federalism, which includes by definition several sovereign parliaments or legislatures, can be in fundamental contradiction, Mr. Trudeau rightly pointed out that the reconciliation of these two aspects is assured under our system through an appropriate distribution of powers between the two levels of government. He then observed, rightly again in my view, that even under an excellent division of powers there could still be conflict, because, as he said, "the two levels of government have conflicting interests." But from then on, Mr. Trudeau was led to this sweeping conclusion:

The Fathers of Confederation recognized that the most important power, therefore, is the power to resolve conflicts between those supreme parliaments, and they gave the most important of powers, the power to resolve conflicts, to the national parliament, and by doing so, they established clearly and unequivocally that the division of powers would be based upon one overriding consideration, the common good.

I should like to comment briefly on two aspects of this far-reaching conclusion. First, it is true in some areas that the federal Parliament was given the right to override the provinces in cases of conflict. For example, the power of disallowance lodged with the federal government was clearly a power to resolve conflicts when such arose between the two levels of legislative authority. So was the power entrusted to the federal government to come to the rescue of religious minorities when their rights were violated. The power of disallowance was not exercised for a very long time, as you will remember. The power of the federal government to intervene in favour of religious minorities was never used, to my knowledge, and the power of disallowance has not been used for forty years. They have both become so obsolete that all serious students of our constitution have proposed that they should be removed altogether in a new modern version of our constitution.

The leading principle which has emerged over the years is not clearly marked in the constitution. Still, it has emerged with greater and greater clarity. And that is the principle of the fundamental equality between the two levels of government, each being sovereign in its sphere of jurisdiction and each being bound by the same constitution and the same laws. Under such a system it is incumbent upon the courts, and not upon any level of government, to arbitrate disputes which may arise among them in the area of legislative competence. If we were to accept the doctrine that conflicts between the two levels of government must be resolved by one level of government, we would be destroying the very principle of equality which underlies our entire system as it has evolved.

I grant that in a situation of emergency, as might arise on the occasion of a war or an insurrection, real or apprehended, or a major catastrophe, the emergency powers of the federal government would authorize them to claim for the national Parliament powers which in normal times would be under the provinces. But we are living in normal times at the moment, and I don't think the federal government has any powers under the constitution to appropriate for itself prerogatives which must be lodged elsewhere.

To complete the picture, we must also ask ourselves if the federal program now under consideration before Parliament provides an adequate response to the demands for change in the constitution which have kept emanating from Quebec and, of late, from many other provinces. To this my answer must be rather negative. The demand for change has always gravitated in Quebec to three vital issues: first, the status of languages in Canada; second, the division of powers between the two levels of government; and third, the restructuring of federal institutions, in particular, the restructuring of the Supreme Court and the Senate.

On each of these three issues, the federal program obviously falls quite short of meeting the expectations of Quebecers. My party, which can fairly be described as moderate and deeply committed to federalism, has produced its own constitutional document expounding its position on the constitutional reform now under way. In light of that document, I must say in all simplicity that the federal program appears as a rather pale and not too auspicious beginning. In the area of language rights in particular, I want to underline here that we would be left, if the program were to be adopted in its present form, with a very asymmetrical kind of federalism in the area of language policy.

In Quebec, we have been bound since 1867 by Article 133 of the British North America Act which obliges the province to give equal status to the two languages in its legislature and legislative documents, and in its courts. I understand, upon reading the federal document, that the province of Ontario would still be exempted from the provisions of Article 133 on the grounds that Ontario is not prepared to accept it.

I am addressing myself to the Minister who is here today, and to his colleagues in two other parties, whose presence I deeply appreciate. I read with great interest the report of your select committee on the constitution, produced last October. With great relief, I noted that on this particular question, the committee could not arrive at a consensus. But a majority in favour of going farther in the direction of real equality between Quebec and Ontario emerged. They concluded that they would continue to examine the problem and were hopeful of being able to arrive at a consensus at some later stage.

I acknowledge this effort with great respect and gratitude, and I do hope that further consideration of the problem will lead them to conclude that the sooner we reach complete equality between the two what I call "mother" provinces, in this area of language rights, the better we will be placed to speak to the rest of the country with genuine moral authority. As one who has continually defended the rights of the Anglophone minorities and those of other cultural minorities in the province of Quebec, I feel entitled to insist that in this area the uneven treatment meted out to the two provinces by the federal program would cause more hardship than satisfaction. In my province, our opponents would be justified in repeating all across the province that we are again the victims of a particular status. When the particular status favoured the province of Quebec, it would be felt that the government would say, "No. No special status for anyone." But in the area of language, the document as it stands would perpetuate a former special status which is less acceptable today than some concrete adaptations in the area of division of powers, which would be conceivable in a spirit of realism and good will.

So I insist on this point. And I hope that with time, it will come. I have never tried to force time in all my life. If we are not yet prepared, let us accept that with all the humility that is required. But let us not delude ourselves into believing that we are making bold moves ahead when we are doing precisely the opposite.

With respect to the division of powers, there is nothing new in the federal program except the limitation of provincial and federal powers which would be the logical consequence of the adoption of the charter. All those who have studied this part of the program have concluded that the curbs upon provincial powers will be much more considerable, because most of the fundamental liberties which are dealt with. in the document now fall, in one aspect or another, under the authority of the provinces rather than of the federal Parliament. Beyond that, there is nothing novel in the document, nothing that goes anywhere towards meeting the expectations which have been formulated for many years.

Mr. Trudeau is genuinely concerned. I discuss this freely and you will notice that I have no animosity at all. I have great respect for Mr. Trudeau. He is the Prime Minister of our country. Our two parties have a lot in common, though they are completely independent, as I think you realize. He is genuinely concerned, and I respect his concern, that the changes proposed in his resolution now before Parliament must be effected now. He fears above all that unless those changes take place now, we may all relapse into indifference and inaction for the next fifty years.

I think he is right in reminding us that time in abundance will not forever be available. But I don't think we have yet arrived at the stage in our development where fundamental principles which we have always held dear should be abandoned in the search for a new federalism in Canada. Only a grave emergency would justify such a drastic departure from the true tradition of our federal system of government.

The result of the Quebec referendum, as I interpret it, suggests, on the contrary, that provided that good will is clearly demonstrated, we yet have some time to work at a new arrangement which would be commonly acceptable. The search for a new federalism and a renewed Canada will, if my diagnosis is right, take more time than we would all like or than most of us had anticipated. However, I did not sin too heavily in this direction because I have always reminded my fellow citizens that it would take more time than some politicians seemed willing to allow. We would all like to settle the constitutional problem once and for all. You hear that refrain all the time. "Why don't they deal with it, once and for all, so that we can pass on to other concerns of much greater importance?"

I am sorry to say that things just do not work that way. The constitutional problem will be with us for a long time to come, and it will find its solution only as we find solutions to the other problems which we must also live with. We have discussed today just one aspect of the problem, that is, the relationship of Quebec to our Canadian federal system of government. We have not even touched on other aspects which are becoming burning issues in today's circumstances, such as the new relationships being sought by the western provinces with the whole of the country, and also between the Atlantic provinces and the rest of the country. We must prepare ourselves for years of patient and difficult work. A genuine will to understand the interest of the whole, whilst defending one's legitimate regional or provincial interest, will be needed more than ever.

In dealing with this difficult challenge, we must resist a temptation which would lead us to believe that only those who speak for the federal government can be statesmanlike, broad in their approach, and generous, whilst those who defend principles on other levels should be dismissed as narrow-minded provincialists or regionalists with no grasp of the magnitude of our problems. The true sense of Canada's common good belongs to no one as his exclusive property and to no government in particular. It is the responsibility of all politicians and all citizens to raise themselves to a level where they can become better informed of the true interest of the nation whilst they remain firm exponents of the interests of their respective parts of the country.

I should like in this perspective to conclude these remarks by emphasizing the irreplaceable role which the historic relationship between Ontario and Quebec must play in our search for a new and more solid Canada. Our two provinces have often been at odds with each other. Ontario has long symbolized, in the minds of many Quebecers, the economic domination of English Canada over French Canada and English Canada's stubborn refusal to recognize that this country must be founded on the basis of cultural and linguistic duality. Quebec's nationalism, on the other hand, has often been a source of impatience in this province, and Quebec's claims, through all the expressions they have had over the years, have often been a source of profound misunderstanding and concern. But this should not make us forget that Canada was primarily founded upon an understanding between political leaders in the two mother provinces. Confederation arose as a result of years of difficult cooperation between the leaders in Upper Canada and Lower Canada. The relationship between Robert Baldwin, for instance, and Hippolyte Lafontaine, and then between Cartier and Macdonald, was certainly one of the important factors which made it possible to launch Confederation in 1867.

While I was at Le Deuoir, I had a very happy intellectual and professional relationship with my colleagues of the Toronto press, which I am pleased to see represented at the head table today. We had heated debates among us. We did not always agree. But we always cooperated during those years and I derived considerable intellectual stimulation from the objections which my articles aroused in The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star. I always felt honoured that they, with the much larger circulations that they had, would pay considerable attention to the arguments which we were trying to expound on our side.

In those years, I discovered that John Robarts was very close to Jean Lesage, and that the warm relationship that had developed between these two leaders was an important factor in facilitating many of the important changes that took place in our system of government during those years. They were not juridical changes, confirmed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. They were perhaps more important, in that they made it possible to do important things differently than they had been done before. I remember the warm understanding attitude which John Robarts always had towards the special claims which were emanating from Quebec, and which, he would readily confess, he did not always completely understand. But he knew there was something there, and he tried to facilitate the development of life. He had an equally warm relationship with Daniel Johnson afterwards. I remember before the interprovincial conference which took place here at the instigation of Mr. Robarts in 1967, two or three days before the conference Daniel Johnson called me at my office and asked if I had two or three hours for a good conversation with him. So I went to have lunch with him and he told me he was preparing for the conference and he wanted to talk to an independentminded person. We were four hours together and we had a very friendly conversation. When I left him, he said, "My next visitor is going to be John Robarts. We're both small-town lawyers and we understand each other very well!"

I could give you a host of examples to the same effect. Geography, history, economics and culture have forged between the people of our two provinces and between the leaders of our two provinces, links the equivalent of which seldom exist to the same extent between Quebecers and Canadians in other parts of the country. The relationship between our two provinces is a matrix which was extremely important, not only in the formation, but in the growth of Canada, and I feel it is going to be equally important in the future.

I may be wrong on this, and I stand ready for correction, but my feeling is that in the past three or four years the relationship at the political level has been somewhat more distant than it used to be, especially between the leaders of our two governments--for reasons which I don't want to look into today. There has not existed the same kind of warm, co-operative friendly rapport that used to exist in the years which I just evoked. I have seen, time and again, the premier of the province of Quebec denounce the province of Ontario on the familiar grounds that it has been the great beneficiary of Confederation and cannot understand the new changes that are in order. This is not the kind of talk that will lead us to constructive results in trying to reshape our Confederation.

While I have that impression, may I also suggest that in other fields, and perhaps even at other levels of political activity, relationships may have been multiplying. We may have been planting, in those years, the seeds for interesting co-operation in the future. The leaders of the two opposition parties are here. I am glad to report that I have had conversations with them during the past three years since I became leader of my party. We have had exchanges.

I have referred to your committee of the Ontario Legislature on the constitution. I remember with great pleasure that they came to see us in Montreal and Quebec. They came to see a group from the Parti Quebecois, a group from the National Union party, and, of course, a group from the Liberal party. They spent hours with each party, trying to evolve their own position on the constitutional problem. They went to all parts of the country. I want to pay tribute to them. No committee of the Quebec Legislature has done the same. This kind of relationship can be extremely important for the future.

I want to say, in conclusion, that if and when we are given a mandate to govern the province of Quebec, one of my first preoccupations would be to establish with the government of the other mother province a warm co-operative relationship that could serve as a basis upon which we could work together towards building a stronger and better Canada.

The thanks of the club were expressed to Mr. Ryan by Terrence Tyers, a Director of The Empire Club of Canada.