Ignatieff has disqualified himself
The wheel of Canadian politics turns full circle again. For most of the twentieth century, it was the Liberals who favoured free trade, the Tories who opposed. By 1985, the positions had been reversed. The Liberals, similarly, had long been the party of provincial rights against Sir John A. and his centralist descendants, before the two parties neatly switched places mid-Depression.
Now that ol' debbil deux nations, which held the Conservative party in its spell for the better part of three decades, not to be expunged until the party itself had been extinguished and reconstructed, has suddenly reappeared, this time in the person of the front-running candidate for Liberal leader. Only perhaps I should say plusieurs nations, or better yet beaucoup de nations, or even centaines de nations.
For it isn't only Quebec that Michael Ignatieff proposes should be constitutionally recognized as a "nation," but also aboriginal groups -- sorry, "the indigenous nations of Canada" -- at last count some 600 in all. If Mr. Ignatieff gets his way, the historically invalid, politically unworkable theory of Canada as a "multinational" federation, long the private vice of political science departments, would be enshrined in law for all time. From multiculturalism to multinationalism, in one self-abnegating hop.
About the only people whose nationhood he seems unprepared to recognize is, well, Canadians. Rather, he recommends with some warmth a new slogan for Quebecers to say ("with pride"): Le Quebec est ma nation, le Canada est mon pays. This is an advance on that old bromide that Quebecers should not be forced to choose between the Canadian and Quebec nations. Now it appears there is no choice to be made. Quebec is a nation. Canada is merely a country, a state, a superstructure -- a shell.
So: What if the interests of the two conflict? What if the "nation" calls on Quebecers to do one thing, but the "country" another? Not that the country ever would, you understand: Federal politicians have not dared ask anything of Quebecers since conscription.
But suppose for the sake of argument they did. What higher loyalty would they invoke?
Mr. Ignatieff himself seems conflicted about the significance of this. On the one hand, he denies such recognition would entail any new transfer of powers.
On the other, he proposes to entrench native band councils, many serving no more than a few hundred citizens, as a third order of government, coequal with Ottawa and the provinces. That is, they would be coequal, until the courts went to work interpreting what "national status" meant. As, indeed, would be the case with respect to Quebec.
It is important to understand just what is wrong with this proposal. It is not, as many commentators have said, that amending the constitution is too difficult, and should not be tried. Our constitution has its flaws -- the lack of an elected Senate, for example -- and a political leader is hardly to be faulted for proposing to remedy these.
No, it is the substance of what Mr. Ignatieff proposes that is wrong. That is the true lesson of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown debacles: not that one should never propose constitutional amendments of any kind, but that one should not propose half-baked solutions to non-problems that are so obsessed with soothing particularist grievances as to leave little room for Canada. Which, as it happens, is exactly what he has done.
Mr. Ignatieff protests, much as Meech's advocates did, that he proposes nothing more than recognition of a sociological fact. This is the "mirror" theory of the constitution, in which it is obliged, when it has finished setting out the rules and defining the institutions by which we are governed, to attempt to reflect the country to itself. Or rather, not the country, but those of its constituent groups with clout enough to cause trouble if they are not so flattered.
Myself, I am an adherent of the "Sontag" theory, which holds that, just as the only true interpretation of a poem is the poem itself, any attempt to describe the complexity of the country in this fashion is necessarily reductionist.
Or to put it another way, "sociological facts," placed in a political context, take on a very different meaning than the anodyne statements of the obvious their proponents might intend. It is, for example, a "sociological fact" that a majority of Canada's population is white. Try putting that in the Constitution.
But now Mr. Ignatieff has promised such recognition to Quebecers, and if elected leader I have no doubt he would feel honour bound to abide by it. Even if, as he says, "constitutional review is for the future," he would have succeeded in establishing it as the latest of Quebec's "minimal demands," cemented by the fabled "Quebec consensus," from which no federalist politician would dare deviate. It is a dangerous, destabilizing proposal, and it must go no further than this.
Which, I'm afraid, means Mr. Ignatieff's candidacy must do likewise. This is no mere ill-considered campaign stunt. It is the centrepiece of his platform, on a matter touching our very existence as a nation. It is, in short, a deal-breaker. If he is unprepared to repudiate this toxic notion, the Liberal party must repudiate him.
Now that ol' debbil deux nations, which held the Conservative party in its spell for the better part of three decades, not to be expunged until the party itself had been extinguished and reconstructed, has suddenly reappeared, this time in the person of the front-running candidate for Liberal leader. Only perhaps I should say plusieurs nations, or better yet beaucoup de nations, or even centaines de nations.
For it isn't only Quebec that Michael Ignatieff proposes should be constitutionally recognized as a "nation," but also aboriginal groups -- sorry, "the indigenous nations of Canada" -- at last count some 600 in all. If Mr. Ignatieff gets his way, the historically invalid, politically unworkable theory of Canada as a "multinational" federation, long the private vice of political science departments, would be enshrined in law for all time. From multiculturalism to multinationalism, in one self-abnegating hop.
About the only people whose nationhood he seems unprepared to recognize is, well, Canadians. Rather, he recommends with some warmth a new slogan for Quebecers to say ("with pride"): Le Quebec est ma nation, le Canada est mon pays. This is an advance on that old bromide that Quebecers should not be forced to choose between the Canadian and Quebec nations. Now it appears there is no choice to be made. Quebec is a nation. Canada is merely a country, a state, a superstructure -- a shell.
So: What if the interests of the two conflict? What if the "nation" calls on Quebecers to do one thing, but the "country" another? Not that the country ever would, you understand: Federal politicians have not dared ask anything of Quebecers since conscription.
But suppose for the sake of argument they did. What higher loyalty would they invoke?
Mr. Ignatieff himself seems conflicted about the significance of this. On the one hand, he denies such recognition would entail any new transfer of powers.
On the other, he proposes to entrench native band councils, many serving no more than a few hundred citizens, as a third order of government, coequal with Ottawa and the provinces. That is, they would be coequal, until the courts went to work interpreting what "national status" meant. As, indeed, would be the case with respect to Quebec.
It is important to understand just what is wrong with this proposal. It is not, as many commentators have said, that amending the constitution is too difficult, and should not be tried. Our constitution has its flaws -- the lack of an elected Senate, for example -- and a political leader is hardly to be faulted for proposing to remedy these.
No, it is the substance of what Mr. Ignatieff proposes that is wrong. That is the true lesson of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown debacles: not that one should never propose constitutional amendments of any kind, but that one should not propose half-baked solutions to non-problems that are so obsessed with soothing particularist grievances as to leave little room for Canada. Which, as it happens, is exactly what he has done.
Mr. Ignatieff protests, much as Meech's advocates did, that he proposes nothing more than recognition of a sociological fact. This is the "mirror" theory of the constitution, in which it is obliged, when it has finished setting out the rules and defining the institutions by which we are governed, to attempt to reflect the country to itself. Or rather, not the country, but those of its constituent groups with clout enough to cause trouble if they are not so flattered.
Myself, I am an adherent of the "Sontag" theory, which holds that, just as the only true interpretation of a poem is the poem itself, any attempt to describe the complexity of the country in this fashion is necessarily reductionist.
Or to put it another way, "sociological facts," placed in a political context, take on a very different meaning than the anodyne statements of the obvious their proponents might intend. It is, for example, a "sociological fact" that a majority of Canada's population is white. Try putting that in the Constitution.
But now Mr. Ignatieff has promised such recognition to Quebecers, and if elected leader I have no doubt he would feel honour bound to abide by it. Even if, as he says, "constitutional review is for the future," he would have succeeded in establishing it as the latest of Quebec's "minimal demands," cemented by the fabled "Quebec consensus," from which no federalist politician would dare deviate. It is a dangerous, destabilizing proposal, and it must go no further than this.
Which, I'm afraid, means Mr. Ignatieff's candidacy must do likewise. This is no mere ill-considered campaign stunt. It is the centrepiece of his platform, on a matter touching our very existence as a nation. It is, in short, a deal-breaker. If he is unprepared to repudiate this toxic notion, the Liberal party must repudiate him.
9/16/2006
