I appreciate the extraordinarily well-informed commentary by Sean Scallon on the current political scene in Canada (“CRAP Happens,” Correspondence, October 2000). As I learned 20 years ago when I visited Quebec and met my French-Canadian wife, Anglo-Canadians are fond of pulling the wool over the eyes of Americans on the actual situation in Quebec.

The Meech Lake Accord, if acknowledged as passed, would have consigned separatism in Quebec to the same category of sentimental memory as the Jacobite movement in Scotland after the Forty-Five. The most controversial provision would have been a new clause in the Canadian constitution, proclaiming Quebec to be a distinct society. This clause would have legally affected the judicial interpretation of the Constitution Acts of 1867-1982, in effect giving Quebec special status in Canada.

The need for special protections for Quebec is obvious to anybody who understands the weaknesses of government by absolute majority and the need to protect the rights of the minority in any country and in any age by the mechanisms of fundamental law. The prime minister of the dominion, the premiers of all ten provinces, the governor general, and all enlightened Canadian statesmen in power in 1987 saw the urgent need for this provision.

The distinct-society clause and all other important provisions of the Meech Lake Accord were subject to Sections 38-39 of the Constitution Act of 1982, which means that they could have been passed within three years of proposal of the dominion parliament by the assent of seven provincial legislatures representing at least half of the population of Canada. This majority was easily obtained. However, the measure was deemed defeated, first, by misunderstanding Section 41 and completely ignoring Section 42 of the Constitution Act of 1982, not to mention critical rules of constitutional interpretation; and second, because of the intrigues of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, his political cronies, and his mistress, who pulled the strings from behind the scenes; and, third, the posturing of a fractious deputy in the provincial legislature in Manitoba, a marionette of Trudeau who used political correctness and the Cree Indians as his false pretexts.

Mr. Scallon did not mention the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998, in effect an advisory opinion requested by the government of Canada. This judgment, which surprised the federal government in Ottawa, says that, while there is no formal right of secession, the right nevertheless exists as a practical matter and can be exercised upon referendum of the people on a clear vote in favor of a clear proposition for independence. In such a case, the government of Canada has a constitutional duty to accommodate the people of Quebec in their wish. The judgment even says that, if the government of Canada fails in this duty, Quebec may proceed unilaterally to secede without further negotiations and without a constitutional amendment allowing the withdrawal.

Jean Chrétien’s government has since passed the Clarity Act, which deliberately misrepresents the judgment of the Supreme Court as holding the very opposite of what it says. By innuendo, the act threatens Polish-style partition of the province, and possibly civil war, should Quebec attempt to secede without the consent of Anglo-Canada. Eminent lawyers and statesmen agree that the Clarity Act is unconstitutional and is simply the hysterical posturing of Anglo-Canadians using French-speaking scalawags in Ottawa to say to Quebec what they prefer not to say themselves. In fact, the Clarity Act would facilitate secession if the people of Quebec actually voted for independence.

What about the prospects of secession by Quebec? The judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada has essentially quenched the fires of separatism for the time being. The acknowledgment of the right of secession has actually stabilized Canada. The Parti Quebecois formed the government, yet it received fewer votes across the province in the last election than the Liberal Party. The opposition is led by an eloquent federalist, supported by one of the leading constitutional lawyers in Canada in his shadow cabinet. The Liberals of Quebec have done as much for the cause of independence and distinctness as the Parti Quebecois. The difference is only a matter of style and approach.

At the moment, secession would be very bad for Quebec, not because she cannot make it alone, but because the separatist party has been subverted by “intellectuals” who think that the French Revolution must have been good because it was French, and act accordingly. Thankfully, the right of secession, and other important features of legal order in Quebec, are based on the British constitution. The French in Quebec have always been very good at British parliamentary government.

Quebec should not, and probably will not, secede for the reason that a federal union is a thing of great value; it should never be jettisoned except for very urgent and just cause. Most people in Quebec believe that urgent and just cause for secession does not exist, certainly not at the moment. Only the purest political idiocy in Ottawa could create such a situation. The people of Quebec value the right of secession, not because they presently intend to use it, but because, as Lord Acton observed, it is useful as a constitutional shield.

Quebecois are too tradition-minded, too shrewd, too patient, too cunning, and too intelligent to tolerate a neo-Jacobin government. They vote like seasoned gamblers playing five-card draw or blackjack. They elected die Parti Quebecois to power last time only because they thought the Liberal government had been in power too long, which, viewed in light of sober objectivity, was correct. In fact, I am sure that the Parti Quebecois will be ousted in the next provincial election, as it should be.

Meanwhile, at the federal level, the best we can hope for in Ottawa is to clip Chrétien’s wings by giving him a reduced majority, or else oblige him to form a coalition government with the Conservatives and the Alliance Party (which Mr. Scallon calls CRAP). Bad as Chrétien is, he cannot last forever; if we restrain him, he cannot do much harm before he is eventually shown the door to be replaced by his favorite, Bryan Tobin, or his enemy, Paul Martin. Joe Clark is the only party leader competent to be prime minister of Canada at the moment, but he will have his hands full in getting a few conservatives elected to parliament.

Mr. Scallon is right when he says that Jean Chrétien is simply awful. But he is awful in the sense that Stephen Douglas was in 1860. American history proves that it would have been better to have a president owned by railroads and financiers (as Douglas was) than a president who actually believed his own incondite ideology, as Abraham Lincoln did.

        —John Remington GrahamSt. Agapit, Quebec

On Paleo Principles

There is no way to put a price on the excellent work that you and your staff do for our cause. There are times that Chronicles seems like the only reason for one to retain his American citizenship.

I read that the Elian Gonzalez situation, and the strange reaction of conservatives to it, have caused you to want to spell out our principles more clearly. I’m glad. You and your organization did the right thing by favoring family and its importance over the relatively minor issue of where one child ends up living. I was astonished at how many “conservatives”—even people usually associated with the paleo point of view—were willing to create the new precedent of the government taking a child from his sole parent on the basis of some vague “right to an American middle-class life. It was as if they learned nothing from the social decay of the past 40 years.

I’m also very impressed with your Summer School and the trips to Italy that you’ve made possible for readers of Chronicles. A friend recently pointed out that this shows the cultural depth of the paleos. He contrasted these offerings with National Review‘s cruise, the main appeal of which is the opportunity to schmooze with Bill Buckley and company. This obvious difference had never occurred to me.

Good luck with the conference and with future plans. Soon, I will try to begin making a monthly donation to The Rockford Institute.

— Mary Emilio StackBrooklyn, NY