Canada at the breaking point? Justin Trudeau, Le Devoir and Me

Just a quick post this weekend to link to a story in Le Devoir today by Guillaume Bourgault-Côté, occasioned by Justin Trudeau's recent remarks about how the possibility of living in a Canada whose identity actually did correspond to the refashioning that PM Harper has undertaken could make him contemplate Quebec separatism. I am quoted in a couple of places in that piece.

For the non-French readers among you, the gist of my comments refer both to the wholesale ramping up of the pace and ideologization of the new Conservative majority government's policy agenda, and to my view that it's not just, or even primarilly Quebecers who are opposed to this (as other commenters in the piece suggest), but that there is widespread anger and concern amongst progressives throughout Canada. I'd add, and I said this to the journalist, that I don't think it is constructive to express these frustrations in the language of regional separatism, given how widespread this dissent to Harper is, but rather to make much more of an effort to draw connections between what is a rather widespread current of opposition.

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A little thing called section 23

I nearly fell off my chair this morning when I read this story that Justin Trudeau had criticized the education system in New Brunswick which has separate systems for anglophones and francophones. Now, I recognize that Justin would only have been about 10 years old when his father fervently fought for the creation of Section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which specifically mandates the protection of official language minority education rights. He might not remember the fact that his father specifically ensured that this section of the Charter could not be overruled by the notwithstanding clause. Maybe he didn't watch the CBC miniseries about his father starring Colm Feore which featured this as a plot point...

He clearly hasn't paid a lick of attention to the past twenty years of activism by French Canadian and Acadian communities that have used this section of the Charter to fight for the right to their own school boards. Perhaps he didn't read about how these communities were upset by the cancellaton of the Court Challenges program, which provided them with financial assistance in their legal battles to have the provinces recognize their educational rights. Perhaps he is unaware that the federal government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars since the 1970s, under the aegis of the Official Languages in Education Program, to help provinces provide official language minority education. Maybe he didn't notice that Stéphane Dion helped relaunch that effort to promote official language acquisition with a major infusion of new federal money in 2003 when he was intergovernmental affairs minister.

I suppose this is one way for Justin to distance himself from criticisms that he's running on his father's name - he clearly doesn't seem to have a great sense of what that legacy implies in francophone minority communities. To be fair, he has apologized for his statements. I rather like the quote from Stéphane Dion in the Globe article: "He is new." It calls to mind a phrase that my friends used to express shock at someone's ignorance or naivete about a subject - "Are you new?!" As one of his first gaffes as a candidate for federal office, this one's a doozy!

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Shouldn't that headline have scare quotes?

From today's Globe and Mail website: Liberal Lapierre leaving federal caucus

Such a pity... I'm sure that Stéphane Dion would have made him intergovernmental affairs minister if the Liberals won the next election. As longer-term readers of this space know, I had the privilege of having Founding BQ member Jean as my MP while I lived in Montreal. It was enough to make me waste several good weekend hours handing out flyers for a no-hoper NDP campaign in Outremont. Recruiting him ranks high on my list of reasons why I disliked Paul Martin and questioned his judgement. The party will be stronger for losing him. Bu-bye Jean - don't let the door hit you on the way out.

As for the speculation about who should run to replace him, I have no problem per se with Justin Trudeau running for the nomination. But I think that he would do his party more good if he ran in a more contested seat, such as one of the Montreal ridings that the Liberals lost in 2006. Outremont is a very safe Liberal seat - heck, the party even held it with Jean Lapierre as their candidate - and I suspect the party would benefit more from keeping this seat for someone who might need a safer entry into the House of Commons, and would be a more impressive recruit. This is not to say that Justin Trudeau doesn't have star power, but he is not likely to significantly raise the party's profile in Quebec.

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