Seditionist Extraordinaire

As an illustration of just how entitled and bitter Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois is, his latest foray into recommending to an American audience the break-up of Canada represents the ultimate act of an immature ingrate. After all, the Canadian taxpayer funds his party handsomely to sit in Parliament because in Canada people can say what they wish, and if a majority of Quebecois choose to elect a traitor to Parliament, they may do so.

And so they have. So this man, representing a secessionist political party which its original founder himself (Lucien Bouchard), feels has lost its timeliness and appeal to its target audience, travels to other provinces to address its social and political and economic elite in an effort to persuade them that Quebec has a right to leave Confederation. And that to encourage and assist it to do so would constitute a clear victory for justice.

Mr. Duceppe has some nerve. For which he is admired in some quarters, alarmingly. He speaks truth to power, claim his supporters. He speaks libellous tripe when he insists that French-Canadians are a persecuted minority within a greater English-speaking majority. Francophone Canadians have inordinate political sway within Canada. Traditionally, prime ministers have come alternately from English and French Canada. Not bad for a minority.

French-language rights are enshrined in law. The rest of Canada is hugely encouraged to become bilingual and as a result many public schools teach young Canadians French in a bilingual atmosphere. Wherever federal signage is located in Canada, it is bilingual. All federal political parties have agreed to designate Quebec as a 'nation'. If a significant number of Francophones reside anywhere in Canada, by law everything must be translated for them.

There are no reciprocal niceties. Little recognition that bilingualism should encompass the entire country, where required. Quebec has a significant Anglophone and allophone demographic, people for whom no slack is cut when it comes to language. For Quebec is officially unilingual. And those who live in Quebec may only be permitted to send their children to English-language schools under precise circumstances. English-language signage is frowned upon. The courtesy of bilingual signs is irrelevant to the Quebec government.

There are countless French-language radio stations both within and without the Province of Quebec, and like numbers of television stations. Canadians in general have learned to be sensitive to the tender feelings of Quebecois. We pay for a federally-recognized political party whose sole concern is the separation of Quebec from Canada to become reality, and enable its leader to speak how he may, wherever he wishes.

Quebec has been granted special privileges by the federal government on the world stage. It can represent itself as a province that is fairly autonomous. Provincial parks and institutions are named 'national', not provincial, although they are clearly provincial in nature. Quebec envisions itself as wholly separate from Canada in the future, but reliant economically.

As it is currently, through transfer payments, Quebec receives far more of the share allocated to 'have-not provinces' than it deserve. Enabling the province to offer to its residents privileges and perquisites not available to residents of most other provinces, including the 'have' provinces whose taxes support Quebec.

And now the final, resonating insult. Gilles Duceppe travelling to the United States to speak before influential public-policy elites, where he has predicted the defeat of Liberal Premier Jean Charest, leaving the door ajar for the province's departure, with the election of the Parti Quebecois. Mr. Duceppe was expansive in persuading his listeners that "the U.S. would have two very solid allies for the price of one".

The response from the director of the Canadian Institute of the U.S.-government funded Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Hudson Institute was telling:
"If the United States is going to have to make a choice between Canada and Quebec, I think the answer is pretty obvious. I don't think the United States would like to be put in that position and the American government will do anything it can to avoid being put in that position."

Former president Bill Clinton did, on one of his visits, make it abundantly clear that the U.S. wanted no part in Quebec's plans for secession. Yet the Bloc leader explained to his audience that he was "counting on the United States to be a decisive player", to "push for negotiations and a quick and orderly resolution", once the referendum victory he and the Parti Quebecois are anticipating becomes reality.

The reality is perhaps starkly different. There have been, in the past, sufficient numbers of Quebecers who have indicated their unwillingness to leave Canada. A previous referendum proved just that. In the words of the MP for the Quebec City riding of Levis Bellechase, "I am really stunned that Gilles Duceppe is trying to sell a concept (on the international stage) that he can't even sell to Quebecers themselves".

Perhaps it's not entirely too late to enact a federal law that would make it an indictable offence to plan, initiate and participate in a clearly harmful destruction of social and political unity within Canada.