4 - Sunday, September 15, 1991 - North Shore News The tribal ways of the Quebecois THERE WAS an intriguing headline on the bottom of the Globe and Mail’s editorial page the other day, based on a column by Jeffrey Simpson: “If Canada followed the Com- munists, things might not stop at Quebec.”’ Unless Mr. Simpson is planning a sequel, the column was rather peculiar. It stopped dead at the door of the question it raised: After Quebec leaves, what? it is a question a few of us have been asking for years. For at least two decades, I have been convinc- ed that sooner or later Quebec would go, that there was some- thing inevitable about it. (I have moments when J rashly write stuff about how I hope maybe this won't happen because, despite all its fMaws, it is a rather splendid place in its own way, modern Canada, but then reason kicks back in.) When I took my 12-year-ald son to the Plains of Abraham a couple of summers ago, I told him: ‘‘Take a good loo®. This might be the last time you see this place while it's still pact of Canada.”* I don't think this feeling makes me an ‘‘enemy of Canada,” as Brian Mutroncy would like to paint every non-federalist thinker in the land. Just logically, I can see many reasons why Canada would be better off as a democracy without Quebcc. Quebec's uneven clout at the federal tevel has distorted our federal system into a near-tyranny by a minority. it is politically unhealthy, that’s all there is to it. What is loyaity to a na- tion-state, anyway? They are very nearly all, Canada most certainly included, patchworks of con- quests, monumenis to brute force and politicai expediency. STRICTLY PERSONAL There is nothing ‘‘sacred’* about the jurisdictional areas within any borders, except to the extent that they enshrine human rights. Most federal governments in the world, it can be said without fear of contradiction, are corrupt to one degrce or another. Unless one is mesmerized by the idea of sheer physical size being the criterion of excellence, Canada must be judged on its values, the living conditions it offers, its justice system and degree of pluralism, not the fact that we have a vast tundra in our backyard, The fact that we would fracture into smaller countries shouldn’t really be a factor. So what? No- body needs this much land. We don't use most of it anyway. The question then becomes: what advantage is there to hang- ing on to Quebec? Its Draconian Now [ “It’s wonderful to live so close to my daugh- ter and her family. I was living in White Rock, so it was a long way for everyone to come and visit. Now my granddaughter Leslie can just pop in for a cup of tea.” Mamie Walker Another good reason to choose Cedar Village There’s a lot of reasons that people are choosing to live at Cedar Village. For some like Mamie Walker, it’s certainly the maintenance-free lifestyle and the fact that lawn mowing and repairs will be a thin of the past. For others, it’s the security o having neighbours right next door in times of emergency or to keep an eye out when away on vacation. And for everyone at Cedar Village, it’s the fact that ownership is restricted to seniors 55 plus, with lots of luxury ameni- ties to share. There’s a lounge, library, bil- liards & games room, large-screen tele- language laws are already an in- sult to me as a4 writer and citizen. They amount to an invisible cul- tural Berlin Wall, as well as being essentially racist. [am far more ‘tat home"’ in Los Angeles than | am in Mon- treal. Hell, [ even understand the speed limits! Before we can tackle the ‘*what after?’’ of Quebec’s departure, we have to realize that we can already see the outline of the future. The first step in understanding this is to finally accept that Quebec is already gone, folks. This is one of the factors that the pollsters overlook when they try to account for Mulroney’s persistent comatose state in the polis, no matter what happens. Not even the Gulf War could save him. A new Meech? Forget it. His incurable problem is that he is perceived as being a Quebecer, one of the ruling bilingual elite who seized power in Ottawa a long time ago. The only reason he wants to hung on to the rest of Canada is to keep his fiefdom huge. More broadly, Quebec is gone in the sense that the bilingual ex- periment failed in Canada. It did not take. Quebec has simply reverted to what it always was: an actual na- tion. A nation in the sense of a shared language and ethno- cultural Zeitgeist. A tribe. In fact, Quebecers are much more a tribe than most of us think. In the process of resear- ching my book Occupied Canada (which drew so much praise from my honored colleague Doug Col- lins), | spent several days in Ot- tawa interviewing Martin Dunn of the Native Counci! of Canada. His theories on the evolution of the Quebecois are fascinating. In the end, | left them out of the book because they also happened to be so controversial that | was afraid they would overshadow the rest of the book, which was about other matters. Dunn's theory is that the Quebecois are a mixed-blood race. The longer the fainily roots go tack, the more likely it is that there was intermarriage with the natives. He draws this conclusion from a study of the early records, con- veniently kept by the Catholic Church. An awful fot of French soldiers came over without the re- cords indicating any wives. The Original Trudeau fellow was a bachelor, for instance. So extensive was the intermarry- ing in the early years that later generations of Quebecois, even when they married immigrant Frenchwomen, were carrying In- dian blood. All of which is to say that Quebec is more homogeneous in its own dirferent way than the rest of us mostly realize. It has its own centre. 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