What does Québec want? Politicians should heed what voters have repeatedly told them

Questions about what Québec wants have shaped Canadian politics for decades.

It’s now been 30 years since Jacques Parizeau led the Parti Québécois to a majority victory in 1994.

The threat of political independence seems to have diminished greatly since the sovereignty referendum held a year after Parizeau’s election, in 1995. It’s been a decade since the PQ held power after being defeated by the Liberals in 2014.

Nonetheless, Québec’s political leaders are displaying a renewed nationalism via constitutional demands for more autonomy in the absence of substantial changes to Canadian federalism.

As Canada mourns the recent death of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, the architect of the 1987 Meech Lake Accord, it’s helpful to reflect on 60 years of constitutional politics and propose a new way forward for Québec politicians.

Québec voters favour moderate approach

Promoters of Québec independence often argue that Québecers are chronically ambivalent about their political future, preventing a decisive vote in favour of separation. But is this really true? What if, from 1980 to 1995 at least, Québecers actually knew what they wanted?

A cursory look at opinion polls and electoral results from the past 60 years reveals a strong trend towards moderation in terms of the constitutional preferences of Québec. The data shows that even during the highest peaks of support for Québec sovereignty, voters have invariably favoured a less extreme approach to sovereignty.

They’ve always indicated a preference for “sovereignty-association” or “sovereignty-partnership” over outright independence or separation.

Why not see this for the genuine and lasting preference that it could be? Too many “yes” and “no” supporters have chosen to interpret this data as a sign that Québecers are indecisive about their future. But the consistent moderation embraced by the majority of Québecers could instead be perceived as an enduring desire for more autonomy within the Canadian federation without full-on independence.

That preference has been consistently expressed for years, despite the focus on national unity favoured by federal politicians and the separatist ambitions of many elected representatives in Québec City.

How did the debate over Québec’s political future and constitutional status become caught in such a deadlock?

Citizen involvement

Firstly, all constitutional discussions held since Confederation in 1867 right up to the Meech Lake Accord happened without the participation of regular citizens.

They were essentially the work of national political leaders. The PQ’s René Lévesque was the first politician in Québec history to allow the province’s people to directly voice their opinion on the province’s future when he held the 1980 referendum on sovereignty-association.

The sovereignty-association proposal was probably most in line with the popular will that would develop in Québec following the unilateral patriation of the Constitution in 1982. And yet, it was doomed to failure at its very inception.

By making the mandate to negotiate with the federal government the main component of the referendum — instead of independence itself — Lévesque involuntarily gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau a free hand to pre-emptively refuse to engage in such talks.

The Meech Lake Accord, negotiated in 1987 and rejected three years later without the participation of the Québec population, led in 1992 to a national referendum on the Charlottetown Accord. That agreement proposed yet another constitutional renewal for Canada, including concessions on some of the Québec government’s “traditional demands” and an enhanced recognition for Indigenous Peoples.

Citizens across Canada and in Québec mostly voted “no” on these proposed constitutional changes, but for opposite reasons.

While Québecers felt the accord didn’t give them enough — even less than Meech — voters in the rest of the country found the proposed agreement was too generous to Québec.

This led ultimately to the referendum on sovereignty-partnership in 1995, when Québecers narrowly voted against self-determination.

Parizeau, the premier at the time and the official sovereigntist leader, had learned the lesson of 1980. This time, he ensured that the declaration of Québec sovereignty would not be conditional upon the federal government’s willingness to negotiate another constitutional arrangement.

By proposing a direct vote on political independence to Québecers, Parizeau wanted to prevent the Canadian government from delaying separation by refusing to negotiate.

Imagining a different referendum question

His two main allies, the Bloc Québécois’s Lucien Bouchard — also the leader of the federal Opposition — and the leader of a third provincial party, Mario Dumont of the Action démocratique du Québec party, perhaps had a better reading of the mood of the Québec electorate.

They preferred a weaker referendum question focusing more on a partnership with Canada. Had Parizeau not forced Québecers to choose between outright secession or maintaining the status quo as the only alternatives, the results of 1995 might have been different.

Let’s imagine a scenario in which the referendum proposed to the voters two options: the “no” option, in favour of the status quo, and a “yes” option that demanded constitutional reform attached to a threat of secession should the Canadian state fail to abide by the popular will of Québecers.

By appealing directly to their desire for greater autonomy with independence only a last resort, the “yes” side might have won the referendum.

What’s more, a strong popular mandate for constitutional reform would have significantly enhanced Parizeau’s bargaining power with Canada as opposed to the much weaker “mandate to negotiate” Lévesque sought in 1980, which made it much easier for Canada to strategically delay or refuse talks.

Believing he could seize a historic opportunity to achieve sovereignty in the strongest possible terms following the Meech Lake backlash, Parizeau favoured an unambiguous route — and failed.

Heeding citizens

Since the 1960s, constitutional debates and negotiations have been hijacked from Québecers by political leaders.

These politicians focused on promoting and advancing political aims most citizens didn’t want, rather than offering something more attractive to them — a place in Canada with a certain form of sovereignty for Quebec.

During that period of political tumult, Québec voters never really had a chance to express themselves in terms of a constitutional arrangement that suited them. Instead, they found themselves only able to reject options that didn’t appeal to them.

As the PQ under Paul St-Pierre Plamondon gains momentum against François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government, the party’s leaders and activists would do well to acknowledge this — and listen to the people.