Quebec a tribal fignt

Bob
Hunter

UM HOPING this column is
utferly wrong. Lam writing it
before the election resuit in
Quebec, and political mira-
cles have happened before.

But late inthe campaign, it sure-
ly looks tike a PQ victory. The only
real debate seems to be whether
Daniel Johnson can muster enough
votes to crinip Jacques Parizeau’s
mandate.

So — knowing no more about
Quebec than anyone else outside the
magic Paquists tribal circle — I'm
assuming the independestes have
won a wide-enough victory to pur-
sue their agenda for one referendum
after another, until they either get
what they want by wearing every-
one else down, or get kicked out of
office without having succeeded in
breaking from Canada, repeating
Rene Levesque's mistake.

Not bloody likely. So T guess
we're all guing to get dragged
through the exercise of the referen-
dum. My attitude is ; Oh, good
grief, couldn't we just get on with
worrying about something impor-
tant? Duing something about the
destruction of the environinent, for
instance?

No! We apparently have to quib-
ble about the oldest tribal story
around territory, power, blood, lan-
guage. About the only th. this
isn’t is a religious waz, at least as far
as I can see. Thank gendness for
that. We don’t have a Northem
Ireland on our hands just yet.

Oh, yeah? Are you ready for an
Oka that becomes Belfast?

‘Who knows where an adventure
like the PQ’s wilbend? One thing
we know, the natives in Quebec are
Canada's Fifth Column. Nobody
wants to talk about it quite so blunt-
ly, but that’s what this amounts to.
The big question is, whose side. are
they on? —°

Unlike B.C., where only a hand-
ful-of reserves were actually negoti-
ated, every reserve in Quebec came
into existence as a result of an inter-
national agreement between the
Iroquois and Algonquins, the Cree
ahd Objibwa, and the British
Crown.

When Canada repatriated the
Constitution, we accepted the text
of those treaties and the responsibil-

ity for honoritg them.

. A PQ goverment in Quebec
City can argue until it’s blue in the
face that it has the right to secede, if
for no other reason than that the
Pearson-era Liberals, Tories and
NDP all went along for the ride in
acknowledging the inherent right of
any region to seek self-determina-

STRICTLY PERSONAL

tion, as if was so delicately called.

Once the PQ makes its case for
self-determination, however, natives
will be right behind. making theirs.
The Cree of northern Quebec have
already pledged to hold a referen-
dum of their own immediately after
or in tandem with the PQ’s vote,
(That's the way U would do it it}
were them. What on earth do they
owe the Republic of Quebec?)

Don't forget. These people have
never really stopped negotiating.
For generations now. guess what
on-reserve native leaders have been
doing? Arguing with bureaucrats,
politicians and cops. They are get-
ting quite good at it. They have
been trained.

In fact (I have seen with my own
eyes) they can sometimes out-stall,
oul-stonewal!, out-obfuscate even a
civil seryant. Yes! In a one-on-one
contest, 1 will put my moncy on the
native negotiator, rather than the
bureaucrat, to out bafflegab the
other.

All joking aside, I think the PQ
is going to find that it cannot wave a
legislative wand to get rid of native
rights, native land claims, native
wishes, native inherentness.
Natives, period.

The native people are not going
to be assimilated. | personally know

enough of them to know this. And

they are not going to be walked
over ever again, if they can help it.

Every argument the PQ makes,
the natives can echo with the all-
important legal “prior usage”
clause. However the cat-fight goes,
and it has been festering, unre-
solved, for centuries, the interna-
tional community will be fistening
and watching.

Jacques Parizeau simply cannot
get away with the kinds of games

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Jacques Cartier played, although it
is worth rementbering that Cartier’s
ienorant interventions in focal potit-
ical affairs are what cost France the
colony inthe end. And probably
will do again.

J thought the aiming of the stand-
off at Davis Inlet in Labrador com-
ing just before the Sept. 12 Quebee
vate, was foreshadowing the really
tough battles to come,

Phave been saying dis for years,
but the phony war stage wan't piss
until the referendum does,

Itis only in the wake ofa suc-
cessful PQ referendum thatthe
debate really begins, because the
rest of us have lives to live,

Most people in the Rest of
Camda are probably a bit like Fam,
not really scared yet, and certainty
not really angry, although | have to
say TP geta tiny bit edgy when inter:
est rites go up.

This essential metlowness could
evaporate quickly. depending on the
fate of the Canadian dollar,

We are already collectively in
awesome debt. What usually hap-
pens in diverce situations, especial-
ly with awesomely in-debt couples,
I've noticed, is thut the people go
broke.

It's hard splitting assets. First of
all, lawyers and accountants and
friends and family are going to get
involved, and you buckle very
quickly if you're not extra-specially
careful to be civilized, against the
court system.

In Canada’s case (like everybody
else, of course), the international
money markets play judge and jury,
and something weird called the
“world community” looks over our
shoulder and tells us what tu do,
otherwise we can't play in the
GATT of Free Trade sandboxes.

Should the Quebec referendum
fly, France will get openly involved,
instead of just quietly. The
Americans will be around for sure.
The Brits, definitely. And nowadays
the Russians, Germans, Japanese,
Swiss....

Hell, it won't be long before
South Africa gets involved in
Canada's internal affairs. And
they'll do it for the same noble rea-
sons we meddled in theirs.

Anyway, | don’t want to be
alarmist — and like I say, | hope
I'm 100% wrong — but Think
Quebec, for all the dumbest reasons
inthe world, and despite all the has-
sles to come, is probably as good as
gone.

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