My distinguished and honnourable collegues, before I begin to explain the reasons why I strongly support Québec’s right to separate from Canada, I would like to thank you all for your presence here today; for each person in this room has the benefit of having a characteristic which is quite relevant to this debate...Bilingualism! As everyone here is bilingual, we all have the privilege and the duty to understand this issue of Québec’s separatism in a unique way...with the compassion of people able to hear and weigh equally the points of each side in an unbiased manner in order to break down the wall of miscommunication that currently exists between French and English Canada.
Before describing why Québec should be allowed to separate from Canada, please also permit me to take a short moment to point out some important and extremely relevent events in the history of Québec which have led to its desire to separate from Canada.
First of all, as I’m sure you are already aware, the first four provinces of Canada ( NS, NB, ONT, and QUÉ ) united in 1867 to form the Dominion of Canada. However, those which are now Ont and Qué first united together in 1840 to form the Province of Canada. This act, my dear collegues, is the root from which our present dispute began.
You see, in order to understand the situation in which Québec is now, we must understand from whence it came. In 1840, Québec was forced, completely against the will of its people, to join a union to which it had no desire to belong. At this time, there were no referendums at all, and in fact nobody even bothered to ask these poor people what their opinion was. They spoke only French thus they couldn’t even talk with the politicians in Ontario who created this idea of union between these two provinces. Had the Québec people had the right to vote on this issue, it is certain they would have replied "no". And in fact, the only reason why Ontario wanted to unite with Québec was because they had debts to pay and wanted to have an ally to help them pay these debts. Because of their alienation from the English-speaking Ontarians, the Québec people were not even aware of the fact that they were being taken advantage of. And here begins a long history exploitation.
Nonetheless, this union, or marriage of sorts, did take place. Now if a couple got married, especially in 1840, it is not very likely that they would have made a prenuptuial agreement about how to go about the division of property, etc. in the case of an eventual breakup, because at the time of marriage this is not at all a very likely possibility.
Now, when a marriage is failing and one of the partners is unhappy, is it really that normal for the other partner to say " No, I absolutely forbid you to go! ". Not usually. In fact, this could be comparable to unjustifiably locking the unhappy partner in a sort of prison from which he can’t escape in order to live his own life.
So this leads us the problem of the Constitution which is actually a sort of marriage contract. Most Federalists would argue that in a marriage, vows are taken saying " for better or for worse, until death do us part ".
I, however, would now like to point out that most average marriages today last only 7 years; therefore, the Federalist point of view no longer applies as an example of the sanctinty of modern marriage. In terms of the Constitution of Canada, the same holds true. It is stated nowhere in the Constitution of Canada that Québec does or does not have the right to divorce Canada.
In fact, this brings us to another interesting point which we all often tend to forget. Québec hasn’t even ratified the Constitution of Canada at all so why should they even have to acknowledge or abide by any decision which may be made concerning it.
After the BNA Act in 1867, Canada was granted its own Constituion by Great Britain in 1931 in the Statute of Westminster. However, in 1982, Trudeau created the Canada Act which was a new constitution for Canada. All of the provinces of Canada signed this bill except Québec. Despite Québec’s refusal of the bill it was ratified by Britain and still became law. The failures of Meech Lake and Charlottetown have still left Canada with a Constitution which Québec has still not yet signed. Therefore, there is no reason why Québec should even have to bother to respect any decision by Canada regarding its constitution right to separate.
Self-determination is a right. This fact can be easily established by exaining the history of several other countries. The United States, for example, has proven that self-determination is a right in becoming independent from Great Britain. The same is true for Russia and other countries of the former USSR. Autonomy is a right, especially in terms of countries, like Canada, where individuals have certain rights, distinct groups of people should also have certain rights.
Thus, since self-determination is a right, and Canada as a democratic country can not deny its citizens their rights, Canada must freely and unconditionnally grant Québec its right to autonomy.
Now that we have logically established the fact that Québec has the costitutional right to self-determination, it is also important to examine the secondary basis on which it also has the right to self- determination...that it is already essentially a separate country anyway.
What actually makes a country a country? The first defining characteristic that comes to mind is that of a common political ideology. This is obviously a common factor between Québec and the rest of Canada. However, what about a common, united history and a shared cultural identity. It is here that Québec and Canada diverge.
Essentially, Québec is a country already. It is most certainly in the French sense of the word " un pays ". This fact becomes extremely obvious the minute that anyone taking a trip from the Maritimes to Ontario passes across the border into and out of Québec. The differences are clear and evident.
Québec has a cultural identity which is DISTINCT from that of any other part of Canada. One could say that Newfoundland and British Columbia are distinctly differrent, but in terms of popular culture this is not true. All of Canada shares the pop american culture whereas Québec does not. While all the Canadian adolescents are watching on t.v. Jerry Springer or Oprah or Jenny Jones, the youth of Québec is watching Écoute-moi with Jean-Maire LaPointe. While Canada was amazed by the Beatles, Québec was worshipping Robert Chalebois. And there are many more examples of the difference in cultural identity between Canada and Québec, including Québec’s much more liberal-minded attitudes and laws.
The only way for Québec to be sure that it can protect its unique culture is to become an independent country. At the moment, Québec, like many Acadiens, is becoming more and more anglicized. Immigrants who arrive in Québec leave French in school but still choose to speak mostly English in hopes of having more job oppurtunities outside of Québec because Canada speaks mostly English. If Québec were a separate country, it would be uniquely French and this would encourage people living there to speak mostly in French. Anglicization would be slowed down and their culture would be better protected.
So, once again, we see that Québec has a right to self-determination in that they are already essentially a distinct society.
Self- determination is a right.
As a demoncratic country Canada doesn’t deny rights to its citizens.
Therefore, Canada must grant Québec the right to self-determination.
I’d just like to conclude this particular argument with an analogy which I believe accurately describes the attitude of the rest of Canada towards Québec, whether Canadians are aware of it or not.
As we all know, starting in 1960 Québec experienced what was called the Quiet Revolution. It was of time of great social reforms such as the creation of CEGEP’s, the subway in Montréal, hospitals, etc. which all helped Québeckers to rise up out of the oppression in which they had formally been living. It was a renaissance. It was the birth of modern Québec. It was a long, hard process.
For example, up until the 60’s, Québeckers sufferred various forms of discrimination. My husband’s mother who lived a city which was 99% francophone couldn’t just go the corner store for groceries with the same ease as an anglophone could because all the signs on the stores and on all the food products were uniquely in English. Imagine for a moment that you’ve bought a box of instant cake mix but you can’t make the cake because you can’t read the ingredients or the recipe.. all this confusion and daily problems arose from the unilateral commercial use of English in French province.
But now, since the accomplishments of the Quiet Revolution, Québec has been developing into a strong independent province. My analogy is that of a young adult that has reached 19 years of age and is now ready to go out the face the world alone for himself. As difficult as it may be for Canada, the nervous parent, to accept, it is time for the young adult to leave the nest and live his own life. While this process may be scary for both parties, we absolutely can not let irrational fear prevent us from advancing towards what is the next logical and necessary step.
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