BY ROGER ANNIS
MONTREAL - The Canadian government, badly shaken by its near loss in the referendum on Quebec sovereignty October 30, is struggling to reestablish political stability.
In a speech in Toronto November 1, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien lashed out at the sovereignty movement. "I will make sure that we have stability in this land," he declared to cheers from the audience. He was speaking at a $500-a- plate dinner for his governing Liberal Party.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Lucienne Robillard announced that a proposal for a Canada-wide referendum would soon be presented before the Canadian parliament. The question will be designed so that a yes vote would reinforce the government's stand that Quebecois have no constitutional claim to sovereign rights.
At the same time, Chrétien announced that a resolution will be presented to the parliament to recognize Quebec as a "distinct society." This move is designed to placate sections of the population, above all in Quebec but in other provinces as well, who believe that Quebecois constitute a separate nationality and should be granted powers over and above those accorded to other provinces by the constitution.
Such a resolution would accord no new powers to a Quebec government. However, along with a national referendum, it would provide Ottawa with some political and legal cover before public opinion in Canada and internationally for whatever future measures it may take to block the Quebecois' aspirations for national rights.
Few concessions to offer
A big majority of Quebecois favor changes in the
constitutional order that would grant Quebec more powers,
including the right of the Quebec government to veto
constitutional change. They view this as a way to combat
the discrimination they face and improve living and working
conditions. Even the opposition, anti-sovereignty Liberal
Party in Quebec pays lip service to the demand for more
powers.
Two recent initiatives designed to placate Quebecois aspirations - the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord - foundered in 1990 and 1992 respectively. Opposition to both accords was strong among working people in Quebec and among Native Indian people.
Sections of the capitalist class who favor a no- concession, hard-line stance against Quebecois national rights also opposed the accords. That opposition boosted the fortunes of the rightist Reform Party, today the second largest capitalist party in English-speaking Canada.
That party's program proposes sweeping cuts to social services and the elimination of French as a language of federal government services across Canada. Its opposes any recognition of the Quebecois as a nationality, still less as an oppressed people.
During the referendum campaign, the federal government and other capitalist forces who oppose Quebec national rights organized reactionary "pro-Canada" mobilizations. The largest brought more than 100,000 into the streets of Montreal on October 27.
But the government drive did not succeed in furthering divisions between youth and workers in the two parts of the country. The fact that the referendum even took place, as well as the gains registered by the pro-sovereignty vote (from 40 percent in 1980 to 49.4 percent today), has significantly advanced discussion and reflection about Quebecois rights among working people. Most discussions in schools and workplaces between those with opposing views on the referendum were civil, and that remains the case after the vote.
That was shown at two national union conventions held during the campaign. The Canadian Union of Public Employees convention in Montreal voted for a report defending the right of the Quebecois to hold the referendum. Although there was no formal discussion on the report, informal discussion throughout the convention reflected widespread support for the position.
In Vancouver, delegates attending the Canadian Policy Conference of the United Steelworkers of America voted to maintain a united union whatever the outcome of the referendum, in order to better fight the continuing attack by governments and employers against their rights.
Several said in interviews that they came into the convention supporting the No campaign, but were rethinking their stand after hearing the views of delegates from Quebec, almost all of whom were pro-sovereignty.
"Anyone who thinks the referendum result can put an end to the drive for national autonomy in Quebec misunderstands the history of Quebec," said USWA Canadian Director Lawrence McBrearty in an address to the union convention the day after the vote.
Capitalist spokespeople also recognize that reality. "One day after the referendum, euphoria gripped the markets. Two days after...the dollar went nowhere. Profits got taken. The stock market struggled," wrote Peter Cook, the business editor for the Globe and Mail, Canada's principal daily newspaper, in an article headlined, "The Markets Fear Another Time."
Crisis of pro-capitalist Quebec leaders
Meanwhile, leaders of the pro-sovereignty movement are
facing a credibility crisis of their own following a series
of racist declarations by their principal spokespersons.
Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau announced his resignation October 31 following widespread denunciations of the speech he made the night of the referendum, in which he blamed "money and the ethnic vote" for the loss.
Two Montreal hotel workers of Latin American origin went public on November 2 with a complaint to the Quebec Human Rights Commission of verbal abuse they suffered at the hands of Deputy Premier Bernard Landry the night of the referendum loss. Landry entered the hotel late and began berating the two women, demanding to know how they had voted and castigating them for, in his opinion, speaking French poorly. According to another employee, Landry cursed "damned ethnics" as he left the scene.
"He's wrong," said Jean-Stéphane Vachon, an employee at the MacMillan Bathurst cardboard factory in Montreal, about Parizeau's comments. "Everyone has a right to vote they way they feel. The vote was lost because not enough people voted yes, that's all." Vachon pointed to several regions of Quebec where Quebecois make up the large majority of the population and where the vote went against sovereignty.
Others in the same factory thought otherwise. "Perhaps it wasn't very diplomatic," said one, "but he said what a lot of Quebecois feel in their hearts."
Politicians move to implement cuts
Both the federal and Quebec governments are on the horns
of a dilemma as they try to win popular backing for their
respective pro-capitalist programs, while at the same time
carrying out attacks on social services and workers rights.
Ottawa is poised to make a new round of highly unpopular cuts in unemployment insurance and to education and health care funding.
"He's pretty constrained," commented Leon Muszynski of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in Toronto on Human Resources Minister's Lloyd Axworthy's plan to cut $2 billion in unemployment insurance. "Any changes will hit Quebec pretty hard. It may well be that he won't go as far as he planned."
In Montreal, meanwhile, Luc Malo, the Quebec deputy minister of health, told 250 hospital directors on November 2 that his government would add hundreds of millions of dollars of cuts to the one billion dollars announced earlier this year.
The government has not yet implemented the earlier cuts to health care because of protests that have drawn as many as 10,000 people. Education cuts have also been delayed by teacher strikes and student protests.
Roger Annis is a member of Local 841 of the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union of Canada in Montreal.