Pearson-Shoyama Institute
Place du Canada

"Distinct Society":
What its all about and what you can do about it.

Canada's Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, Stéphane Dion is travelling across Canada trying to sell a product nobody wants: "Distinct Society" status for Québec.

The present Québec government doesn't want it because its a distraction and a delay and at most a detour on the road to their real goal: separation. The Rest of Canada doesn't want it because it looks like yet another concession to the seemingly unappeasable appetite of Québec for power , more attention, more goodies. In exasperation the West cries "Enough already !".

But the indefatigable Mr. Dion plods on. Wherever there's a group of houses by the roadside you'll find him. At any gas bar, at any 7-11 there he is, ready to give his "Keep Canada United, Distinct Society" speech, even to 3 or 4 people: whatever the local Liberal Party hack can dig up. Why is this man trying so hard ? Because its part of the Liberal Party's strategy for reelection. Trying to chip away some of the Bloc support (Liberals know that they have lost a lot of support in the Rest of Canada) they need a minimum of 20 more seats in Quebec to hold onto power. To make matters worse, at this writing it seems that they will not be able to hold on to the 26 seats they now have. Any viable platform, be it PC or Reform would sweep at least some of the Montreal seats. Perhaps as many as 15 are in the balance right now.

Canadians gave Mr Chrétien an overwhelming mandate in 1993 as they recoiled in revulsion from the perceived loathsomeness of Brian Mulroney. But the Liberals had no vision of the kind of Canada they wanted and no idea of how to deal with Québec except in the old time honoured way of giving them the store and have them come back for more: hence they frittered away more than two years trying to get some kind of coherent plan together.

In an article in The Gazette of July 20, 1996, Mr Dion wonders aloud why Canadians are so reluctant to establish Québec's distinctness in our Constitution." After all," he says, " Québec's distinctness is already accepted by the courts." He quotes former Chief Justice Brian Dickson as saying the courts are already interpreting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a manner to take into account Quebec's distinct ....etc. etc.

To restate this clearly: Quebec is already overriding the Charter of Rights. That well known Federalist, Robert Bourassa invoked the Notwithstanding clause under which Bill 178 was passed to amend, modify and update Bill 101 which had been struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada. The Notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was the compromise Trudeau had to make in order to get the Premiers on side during the closing days of the negotiations that led to the patriation of the Constitution. Trudeau's obsession with patriation has come back to haunt all of us.

I've heard it said again and again " ....give them "Distict Society" what difference does it make, they are a distinct society after all, what's in a phrase, if that's what they want give it to them ." A not very wise or informed point of view. Firstly, who says that's what "they" want. Secondly "Distinct Society" is a loaded gun pointed at the head of the non-Francophone communities of Quebec.

But the people of Canada have a wisdom beyond that of the constitutional experts, the judges, and the political class: Meech was rejected, Charlottown was rejected and it seems the current edition of this idea is being rejected. The Canadian people sense that what is being created with this "Distinct Society" stratagem is a unique jurisdiction in Canada: a place where the normal safeguards afforded by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms will be suspended.

The first victims of this suspension will be the non-francophone communities in Quebec. They will be eliminated, assimilated and by attrition, ethnically cleansed by the Nationalist leaders of the PQ. The mean-spirited, vengeful, language and culture ayatollahs into whose hands this seemingly innocent turn of phrase would deliver them. Other civil rights will be abrogated bit by bit until Quebec becomes a homogeneous, oligarchic society.

That's right. "Distinct Society" is the formula by which Canada would give carte blanche to ethnic cleansing in Quebec. The process started long ago when restrictive language laws were allowed to stand "notwithstandingwise" by successive Federal Governments The process was progressive. Our children were denied any participation in Government employment: the larger Corporations followed the lead of the Government, largely one presumes, to curry favour with the Provincial authorities: creating a de facto separation, since then thousands, actually tens of thousands of young people have left Quebec to start their careers elsewhere.

To buy peace with the "soft nationalists" (as the current phrase has it) and keep Quebec in Canada, Chretien would sacrifice the non-Francophone communities. This seems like a good bargain to the Liberals. It doesn't seem such a good bargain to me, especially because it wont work. Even if the Quebec Liberal Party takes over in the next Provincial election, using their newly won "distinctness" as leverage with their "soft nationalist" constituency, those mean old bad guys, the Parti québecois will be waiting in the wings and eventually get back into power. We are talking about 5, 7 or 10 years. The non-Francophones will have been nearly eliminated by then, and with almost no opposition, its splitsville for sure. In other words, dear readers, the Ethnic/Anglo sacrificial-lambs were slaughtered for nothing ! The only potential winner here is Daniel Johnson, and that only on a very temporary basis. He gets to be Prime Minister again for a short time.

What can you do to stop the destruction of a great culture ? Its worth a try. Write, fax, phone, e-mail the Premier of the Province in which you live (not Quebec), to your MP, MPP, MLA of any party, tell them you know what "Distinct Society" means and you don't want it. Tell them that it seems in this case at least, the common people, knows better than the politicians what's good for Canada. Good luck to all of us. We'll need it in the months ahead.



Saul Pfeffer,
2235 Wilson Ave.,
Montreal, PQ
H4A 2T4

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