The person responsible for the National Post opinion editorial must have been flabbergasted at readers’ responses to this issue in the last few days. More than 60% of the paper’s respondents said it was time to let Quebec go.
Even if the survey has no scientific grounds and covers a very small sample, the results show the malaise that currently exists in the country. While the separatist option is becoming less popular in Quebec, it surprisingly seems to be gaining popularity in the rest of Canada.
There might never be a referendum in Canada asking voters if they want Quebec to go, but in the current context there won’t be another love-in like the one organized in Montreal in 1995 to keep Quebec in at all costs.
Although we live in the same house, we certainly don’t sleep in the same room anymore. Our romantic days are long gone. Quebec and the rest of Canada have grown apart. Young Quebecers have no appetite for constitutional quarrels, although they define themselves more and more as Quebecois and less and less as Canadians. They have even invented the word “decanadianization.”
Conversely, English-Canadians are becoming more and more fed up with paying for Quebec, which receives more than half the money given through the so-called equalization program, the equivalent of $8 billion a year.
The solution might not be to ask Quebec to become an independent nation but to become less dependent on its neighbours and more fiscally autonomous. To calm English Canada down, the equalization formula — which will be reviewed before 2014 anyway — could be modernized.
Canada has evolved over the years. The need for interprovincial welfare is not as necessary as it used to be. The principle of redistribution is part of our Constitution but could focus exclusively on funding very essential social programs, which wouldn’t include $7-a-day daycare or a fully subsidized year of parental leave after the birth of each child.
On the other hand, to appease Quebec, the federal government needs to give it as much autonomy as possible. Stephen Harper has been very good at not exacerbating the tensions between the two solitudes. His decentralist approach makes the slow estrangement less painful.
Quebecers do not like radical changes. Our revolution half a century ago was “quiet.”
Will our separation from Canada also be “quiet?” Or do we simply need some distance so we can better figure out our true feelings?
We’ll see.
Anyway, the real question for now should be: Is there an alternative? The federal Liberals’ attempt to centralize the federation was a fiasco. It almost led to the breakup of the country 17 years ago and gave us a bankrupt welfare state.
We should salute this new refusal by English-Canadians to compete with the separatists to buy Quebecers’ votes.
If Canada is to survive, it needs to come from our willingness to stay together. Period.
Original Article
Source: toronto sun
Author: Eric Duhaime
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