Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard had on his “why Canada has failed me” face. It was the end of the recent First Ministers’ meeting in Ottawa and Bouchard was telling reporters there had been some progress. He actually had shared some laughs with the other premiers. “That is the paradox of Canada,” he said. “I like these people. I work very well with them … But it is not possible to move from friendship to solutions.”
In BouchardSpeak, that means the others would not give him everything he wanted. Of course, he would be devastated if they had. He would then be forced to find another reason why Quebec still must leave Canada.
Read Also
Late season rainfall creates concern about Prairie crop quality
Praying for rain is being replaced with the hope that rain can stop for harvest. Rainfall in July and early August has been much greater than normal.
But his lament raised an interesting concept – Canada as a paradox.
During this week of Canada’s 129th birthday, it is an idea worth pondering.
One of the definitions of “paradox” is “an assertion seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense but that may yet be true in fact.”
So here is a list of choice Canadian paradoxes in 1996:
- Despite his official status as Canada’s only premier bent on demolition of the country, Bouchard actually has some allies in other provincial capitals. They don’t want the end of Canada, mind you, but if Bouchard can weaken Ottawa’s power, well, who are they to complain?
Mike Harris of Ontario and Ralph Klein of Alberta are happy to piggyback on Quebec’s demands for more decentralization. Saskatchewan’s Roy Romanow is willing to use the “national unity” card to complain about Ottawa’s GST policies.
Bouchard’s allies are premiers who dream of a Canada in which they are strong at Ottawa’s expense.
- In the galaxy of federal politicians Reformers hold in contempt, former Tory prime minister Joe Clark looms large. They despise his weakness, his appeasement of Quebec, his adherence to “old-style” ways of governing.
Yet in their attempt to be midwife to a reconfigured Canada, the Reform party offers a vision of a decentralized Canada that resembles nothing so much as Joe Clark’s “community of communities” proposals of the late 1970s that led Pierre Trudeau to suggest he would turn Ottawa into the “head waiter for the provinces.”
Since Reform would go further than Clark by turning most jurisdictions, including agriculture, over to the provinces, the image might better be updated to that of Swiss guards, ceremonial protectors of the provincial fiefdoms from foreign threats.
- The federal Liberals love to attack Reformers as heartless for their budget-cutting proposals, reminding Canadians that Liberals built the welfare system and are best qualified to protect it from fiscal barbarians. Yet any objective reading of the past three years would show the ChrŽtien Liberals have slashed more from social spending, safety nets and government than any previous government.
If Reformers don’t get into government soon, they will have to check their paring knives at the door. There will be nothing left to slash. Canada truly is a country where the gap between what politicians say and what they do has grown to gargantuan proportions.
