Bad Boys Bad Boys, Watcha Gonna Do
Interesting tid-bit in yesterday's Herard from Intergovernmental Relations Minister Guy Boutilier:
Hear, hear! I for one would love to see a resolution before the House recognizing Alberta as a nation (within a unified Canada, bien sur).
Yet, Boutilier said Alberta and other provinces and territories are owed the same rights associated with the Quebec nation, a distinction recently approved by the House of Commons.
"Each province is a nation within a nation," he said.
What exactly that title means is open for interpretation, Boutilier noted.
However, for Alberta, he said it could be a recognition that it deserves more immigration powers to address the mounting labour crunch, and that the federal government solve a fiscal imbalance that some provinces claim sees Ottawa collecting more tax revenue than necessary.
Hear, hear! I for one would love to see a resolution before the House recognizing Alberta as a nation (within a unified Canada, bien sur).
posted by calgarygrit at
12:58 p.m.
8 Comments:
Hahaha
I love Canadian politics
By
Anthony, at 1:20 p.m.
Forget nation status. How about a bill recognizing that Western Canadians are as deserving of the concept of equality as are gays and lesbians, and the House will commit to giving the west the House and Senate seats that their population merit?
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nuna d. above, at 1:51 p.m.
How about a bill recognizing that Western Canadians are as deserving of the concept of equality as are gays and lesbians, and the House will commit to giving the west the House and Senate seats that their population merit?
I didn't realize that the House had committed to giving gays and lesbians the House and Senate seats that their population merits.
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rob, at 4:37 p.m.
while we do not have similar Commons Resolutions to the Loyalist Fact in Ontario, or to the First Nations Fact in the West where together, these three "Facts" beat off an American Invasion of our Land in 1812.
Turn it the other way around; no one would deny recognition if it were sought out; and I think in the case of First Nations we're talking past tense, given that they're called the First Nations.
Québecois do comprise a nation in a clearer way than many other groups in Canada, in the senses of cohesion, self-perception, a distinct culture and society, etc; but I don't think anyone would seriously contend they're the only nation in Canada. It just so happens that history and politics have made them the nation that we are having political discussions about.
The UK has at least 4 easily defined nations in it - more, depending on who you ask - but Scotland is one type of political puzzle, N. Ireland is another, and Wales another. Similarly, in Canada, the First Nations and Québec are the most politically immediate 'national questions,' but certainly not the only nations.
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Jason Townsend, at 9:12 p.m.
Well, it seems to me Jason, that these are largely empty gestures and therefore gestures filled with mischief.
The "French Fact" was "recognized" in the Quebec Act of 1795 and which many Americans regard as being the actual cause from their perspective for the War of 1812.
It never the less granted widespread and sweeping local authority to Quebec long before anything else like that took place in British North America.
The 'fact' of today is quite different from the 'fact' of the late 18th Century however; the "master narrative" of Québec sovereigntism rests on our non-recognition of the post-French-Canadian, distinctly Québécois facts that emerged in the Quiet Revolution and the decades surrounding it.
What really is wrong with this sort of posturing is that it is American inspired from their static perspective of an "indivisible union" as opposed to the actual fact which is that Canada is a "dynamically balanced Confederation".
I don't like the idea of static or immutable constitutions; I think you're taking the fact that Québécois nationhood is currently in the realm of ideas, and conflating that with 'idealized constitutionalism,' or something of that nature. I don't propose that we find some glorious perfect solution that will never come; only that we acknowledge the vital importance of ideas. We have lost the intellectual argument in Québec by not bothering to even engage with an entirely different version of 20th century Canadian history.
I'm not sentimental about constitutions in the least; to me the vital constitution is the real system of governance of a country, not the document that codifies it. But in a practical sense I am afraid of constitutional revision, because of the experience of Meech and Charlottetown.
That's really neither here nor there; I don't see the acknowledgement of vital truths to necessarily be the same as constitutional revision; nor do I see it as an empty sham.
We can still make an empty sham of the nation resolution; but that isn't its intrinsic character. We can also make it a milestone, a point of intellectual agreement between different points of view on Canadian national questions that have rarely met in recent decades. If that isn't important, than presumable ideas and Québécois intellectual life aren't either.
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Jason Townsend, at 12:41 p.m.
Blogger ate a very, very long reply.
I don't disagree with much of what you said, but on the other hand I also don't think much of it applied to the Québécois nationhood motion, which is in my view an overdue riposte to the dominance of the anti-federalist point of view in Québec, that portrays the rest of Canada as out of touch with Québécois sociological reality, and committed to assimilation under other names.
In legal terms, the political entity the Province of Québec has more autonomy than most politically sensitive nations ever dream of, let alone get. The province isn't the nation, but the distinction needn't create any grievances. And, this isn't because Québec is different but because all Canadian provinces have that much autonomy. So for me, it isn't a question of devolution at all. Canada is, for good or for ill, already has a very loose federal structure that I wouldn't propose to loosen any more.
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Jason Townsend, at 6:19 p.m.
I think, to be honest, you're too sanguine about disconnect between Canada's two most distinct societies.
To Laurier you could add Bourassa, St. Laurent and a host of other luminaries before the Quiet Revolution; and after the quiet revolution there are admirable men like Trudeau and Chrétien whose visions were emphatically Canadian-nationalist. I honor them, but that doesn't mean I assume that their past approaches were always 100% correct; they were living with and adapting to the changes in Québécois society as they happened. I certainly do not think they deserved the labels of scorn they were given by francophone Québec, but I also understand how it happened.
If we just make Diefenbaker speeches, we'll never penetrate the barrier of incomprehension that makes good, honest, thoughtful people in Quebec consider good, honest, thoughtful people like PET and JC to be sell-outs. You can just deride that viewpoint as ignorant, but given its currency in francophone Quebec I think that would be foolish. Both electorally and in terms of national unity.
By
Jason Townsend, at 10:54 a.m.
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